Laszlo Zsolnai ‘Materialistic versus Non-materialistic Value-orientation in Management.’ , in Business and the Greater Good. Rethinking Business Ethics in an Age of Crisis, eds. Knut J. Ims, and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen, Edward Elgar, Cheltelham, UK, Northampton, MA, USA, 2015. (This book may be available at: Edward Elgar)
The Occupy Wall Street and other anti-globalization movement show a drastic loss of confidence in business. Mainstream business lost credibility and trust worldwide. The basic assumptions of business management became questionable. The management model of today’s dominant business is based on an exclusive materialistic conception of man. Human beings are reduced to materialistic, pleasure-seeking creatures. Homo Oeconomicus is an individual, self-interest maximizing being. He or she is only interested in material utility defined in monetary terms. The materialistic management model uses money-driven extrinsic motivation and measures success only in generated cash-flow. In a post-materialistic economy profit and growth are not final ends any more but only elements of a broader set of material and non-material goals.
Materialistic versus Non-materialistic Value-orientation in Management