Papers

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘The Importance of Meta-economics.’ , in Responsible Economics. E.F. Schumacher and His Legacy for the 21st Century, ed. Hendrik Opdebeeck, Peter Lang Academic Publishers, Oxford, 2013. Meta-economics is the basic assumptions about the subject-matter, value-orientation and methodology of economics. The paper attempts to reconstruct the meta-economic foundation of mainstream economics and that of alternative economics initiated by Schumacher. It shows how the emerging alternative economics transcends the erroneous meta-economic assumptions of mainstream economics by considering the… Read More »The Importance of Meta-economics

Antonio Tencati, & Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Collaborative Enterprise and Sustainability: The Case of Slow Food.’ Journal of Business Ethics, 2012, vol.110, no. 3, pp. 345-354 The current and prevailing paradigm of intensive agricultural production is a straightforward example of the mainstream way of doing business. Mainstream enterprises are based on a negativistic view of human nature that leads to counter-productive and unsustainable behaviours producing negative impact for society and the natural environment. If we want to change the course,… Read More »Collaborative Enterprise and Sustainability: The Case of Slow Food

Luk Bouckaert, & Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Spirituality and Business: An Interdisciplinary Overview.’ Society and Economy, 2012, vol.34, no. 3, pp. 489-514 We believe that business ethics needs a more spiritual foundation to solve the business ethics failure. Why? Because spirituality – as an inner experience of deep interconnectedness with all living beings – opens a space of distance from the pressures of the market and the routines of business as usual. This distance is a necessary condition for developing… Read More »Spirituality and Business: An Interdisciplinary Overview

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Environmental Ethics for Business Sustainability.’ International Journal of Social Economics, 2011, vol.38, no. 11, pp. 892-899 The purpose of this paper is to derive operational principles from environmental ethics for business organizations to achieve sustainability. The paper analyses different levels on which business affects the natural environment. It argues that business has a natural, non-reciprocal responsibility toward natural beings affected by its functioning. The paper uses principles of environmental ethics to redefine business sustainability in an… Read More »Environmental Ethics for Business Sustainability

Luk Bouckaert, & Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Spirituality and Business.’ , in The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business, eds. Luk Bouckaert, and Laszlo Zsolnai, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, 2011. The paper summarizes the long path from business ethics to business spirituality. Analyzing the contrast between a materialistic and a non materialistic drive in economics, the authors define the new values of the post-capitalist economy: frugality, deep ecology, trust, reciprocity, responsibility for future generations, and authenticity. Within this values-driven economy, profit and… Read More »Spirituality and Business

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Moral Agency and Spiritual Intelligence.’ , in The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business, eds. Luk Bouckaert, and Laszlo Zsolnai, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, 2011. The paper argues that the self of decision-makers plays an important role in determining the ethicality of their decisions. Decisions might be understood as self-expressions of the decision-makers. Spiritual experiences have a vital role in developing the self of managers and therefore in improving the ethicality of their decisions. Moral Agency and Spiritual… Read More »Moral Agency and Spiritual Intelligence

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Buddhist Economics.’ , in The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business, eds. Luk Bouckaert, and Laszlo Zsolnai, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, 2011. The paper presents Buddhist economics as a major alternative to the Western economic mindset. It challenges the basic principles of modern Western economics, namely profit-maximization, cultivating desires, introducing markets, instrumental use of the world, and self-interest-based ethics. Buddhist economics proposes alternative principles such as minimizing suffering, simplifying desires, non-violence, genuine care, and generosity. Buddhist economics is… Read More »Buddhist Economics

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Responsibility for Future Generations.’ , in The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business, eds. Luk Bouckaert, and Laszlo Zsolnai, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, 2011. The paper uses the argument by Hans Jonas that the ethics of responsibility involves not only the existence of future human beings but also the way they exist. The conditions of the existence of future generations should not cause their capacity of freedom and humanness to disappear. In the model developed by the author… Read More »Responsibility for Future Generations

Luk Bouckaert, Hendrick Opdebeeck, & Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Frugality.’ , in The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business, eds. Luk Bouckaert, and Laszlo Zsolnai, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, 2011. The paper defines frugality as art de vivre, which implies low material consumption and a simple lifestyle, to open the mind for spiritual goods as inner freedom, social peace, justice or the quest for “ultimate reality.” The authors argue that realizing a genuine spirituality of frugality as self-detachment and other-centeredness does not… Read More »Frugality

Laszlo Zsolnai ‘The Ethics of Systems Thinking.’ , in Responsibility, Deep Ecology and the Self – Festschrift in Honor of Knut J. Ims. , eds. Ove Jacobsen, and Lars Jacob Tymes Pedersen, Forlag 1, Oslo, 2011. The paper explores some ethical assumptions and implications of system thinking in reference to social and environmental decision making. The methodology of multi-criteria evaluation of complex systems is used as an illustration of the ethical agenda of systems thinking. The Ethics of Systems… Read More »The Ethics of Systems Thinking