A readable guide to the world's religions, how they affect commerce and why the Golden Rule seldom applies to outsiders.

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Product Description

Throughout recorded history, religion and ethics remain the primary sources of conflict in life. The 21st Century is right on track, from the war in the Middle East to sectarian violence nearly everywhere else. Hardly a day goes by without religious conflicts being in the headlines. Additionally, the news is filled with the shenanigans of Enron, WorldCom and gas company price gouging, forcing hard questions about business ethics to the forefront of most peoples' minds

In The Gods of Business, Dr. Todd Albertson maps the intersection of faith and the marketplace. In plain language he analyzes the world's major religions--Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Secular Postmodernism, Shintoism, and Sikhism--and how their spiritual traditions impact business ethics. 



The Gods of Business provides telling insights into the silent subtleties and the loudly proclaimed dogmas that dramatically affect global business, leaving many newcomers unaware, confused or wishing they could just turn back the clock and deal with their hometown ways of doing things.

This book is a fascinating, insightful and entertaining read that will change the way you look at the world around you.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1121195 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

From the Publisher
This book is suited for a general-audience as well as for college or MBA and MDiv programs.

About the Author
Writer, speaker, and entrepreneur Dr. Todd Albertson is an expert on organizational behavior, global business practices and religious worldviews. His commonsense take on these issues derives from both his academic training and from his real world business experiences.

Dr. Albertson graduated in 1988 with a BA degree with a special focus on International Business. He earned an MBA in 1995. In 2005 he graduated with a PhD in Theology & Culture.

Dr. Albertson worked for a venture capital firm, was an evangelist for the worldwide leader in computer software and solutions, was CEO of a transportation and logistics company, and founded a new media dot com. More recently, he did relief work in Asia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: The Dilemma

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460 C.E.) was the son of King Joao of Portugal. Henry organized and financed many sea expeditions. His most famous were in search of a sea route to the rich spice trade of the Indies and along the way to explore the west coast of Africa.

Prince Henry encountered much difficulty in persuading his captains to sail beyond Cape Bojador in the southern Sahara. They believed the legend that only the "Green Sea of Darkness" existed beyond this point. They thought the sun was so close to the Earth that a person's skin would turn black. The sea boiled. Ships would catch on fire. Hidden monsters lurked, waiting to smash the ships and eat their crews!

On the first attempt Henry sent his ships with orders to keep close to the coastline. A couple of weeks after they left, they returned to Portugal. Their captains told the prince they could not find a sea route to India because they had come to the "end of the world." Henry sent out thirteen more ships, and each one came back with the same story. From our armchair in history it is easy to see how askew that worldview was. It depended on prejudices that few thought about or were willing to change in the face of evidence.

The English word "worldview" comes from the German word weltanschauung, which means a "look onto the world." The term originally was used to refer to a common concept of reality shared by a particular group of people who were generally bound by culture or ethnicity. The word has been expanded over time to reflect how an individual views the world and interacts within it.

On the fourteenth voyage commissioned by Prince Henry, the ship was blown off course, and the crew could no longer see the African coastline. The captain pointed his ship's bow east and a few days later came upon Africa again, surprised that his ship had somehow bypassed the Green Sea of Darkness.

But a few years later the captain re-discovered his worst fear. He had announced a sea route to India. Now as he sailed south along the Spanish Sahara, he came to a major rock shoal. On the approach the water became shallower and shallower. Strange currents began to develop. The captain and crew were positive that the end of the world they had missed earlier was now about to destroy them.

Undoubtedly that is how they felt. The limits of their ability to discover had nothing to do with their bravery or their goodness, nor was it charted on any accurate map of the world. Rather, the limits were mapped unconsciously by what they had subjectively envisioned-their worldview.

Why is worldview important in business? Because people of faith will approach all of their endeavors with grains of objective truth. Whatever those grains may be, they are going to be washed, sieved and filtered through subjective and unconscious ways of comprehending, acting and explaining. Some grains will be overlooked, forgotten or thrown away as inconvenient. Hence, like the Portuguese sailors of Prince Henry's day, the modern businessperson's religious worldview provides a mental map of how to conduct business.

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Customer Reviews

OK, do you really know much about Shintoism or Sikhism? Here's some help.
This book is intended as a help to businesspeople who are dealing with people from different cultures around the world and who likely hold to different religious faiths than they hold themselves. Often, and mistakenly, people assume that all religions are pretty much the same. In fact, what most Christians assume a religion to be, with its ordinances and orthodox doctrines, would not only be foreign to some religions, the very ideas would not be understood.

While this book is in no way meant to be a comprehensive examination of these faiths, it does offer a good quick reference and a place to start. In chapter one Todd Albertson lays out the problem and then takes us through a chapter each on Confucianism (China), Shintoism (Japan), Buddhism (China & India), Hinduism (India), Sikhism (India), Christianity (global), Islam (global), and Judaism (Israel, Europe, America and more), and secular postmodernism (the West).

Each chapter discusses the history of each religion, its sacred texts, selected readings, core beliefs, the branches existing in the faith, how its beliefs might influence the business behavior of its practitioners, and some references and further reading. One nice touch that the author has a quote of that faith's version of the "Golden Rule" to begin each chapter.

I found this to be quite interesting and helpful. Again, anyone needing more than a quick overview will have to dig more deeply into other materials, but this book is a great place to start. And those who know a given religion deeply will find the treatment to be superficial, but that is the point of a quick reference. It cannot get bogged down in all the detail that matters to experts.

Quite useful.

Better than Dr. Phil!!!
I am fourth generation Mexican-American living in the San Diego area. I am also a practicing Roman Catholic. I have many friends who are not Catholic nor Latino and I generally get along with them and everybody regardless of race or religion. I have a new boss who is a recent immigrant from Asia. He is devoutly Buddhist. I have found it so difficult to work for him our values are so diferent and that plays out everday at work.

I shared this problem with some friends in a Book Club that I am member of. One of them had heard about this book, The Gods of Business, from w[...]. I was able to buy a copy, even though it says it isn't available for a few more weeks.

In the Preface, what author Albertson calls A Word to the Reader, he writes "This book will frustrate some because I don't spoon-feed the reader, as if you were unable to draw a conclusion for yourself. The sections applying religion to the marketplace are short compared to preceding sections. My reasoning is: once understanding is gained from a religion's history, core beliefs and sacred texts, the market application is often straightforward and self-explanatory. I do not decide the issues of the present day. I do try to lay out the bare bones of belief of the major religions, the basic ideas and values that many religions share towards business, and the most likely ways that people express their various faiths."

I read this statement and filed it away somewhere in my mind. By the fourth chapter, I was becoming frustrated because I wasn't being told what to think. I was expecting Dr. Phil, telling me what to think, feel, and believe about religion and business ethics. I then remembered the previous statement in the Preface that Albertson wasn't going to be doing this and was forcing me to draw my own conclusions. It made me think long and hard about what I was reading and about the situation with my boss.

I liked this a lot book because I was being treated with intellectual respect and dignity. After experiencing this, why would I want a Dr. Phil moment as this was so much better! This book helped me understand where my boss was coming from and how to deal with him better. I like this book so much that I've bought multiple copies to give away to a few co-workers and my boss!

I highly recommend.

A 'must-have' primer
Written by international business expert Todd Albertson, MBA, Ph.D., The Gods of Business: The Intersection of Faith and the Marketplace is a very straightforward introduction to the basic guiding principles of the world's major religions (Confucianism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Secular Postmodernism) and how those principles affect individual adherents, particularly in the realms of commerce and ethics. The Gods of Business spells out the a condensed yet balanced portrayal of each faith in plain terms, immediately accessible to lay readers, and is enthusiastically recommended for anyone preparing to embark upon business ventures among those of different faiths, or simply seeking to quickly grasp a better understanding of how religious diversity shapes different culture's worldviews. "Jewish ethics are summed up in the Ten Commandments and in the philosophy of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' The latter sounds harsh today, but it was an enormous advance on the take-no-prisoners ethics of the societies that surrounded the Jewish people in the days of Moses. The non-Jewish principle of the time was a life for an eye, and if I cannot kill you, I will get a member of your family. This was the whole basis of feuding, which was widespread even in the West until recent history." A 'must-have' primer for anyone unfamiliar with basic tenets of world religions in today's era of globalization.