The Civil Company: Place-Based Corporate Social Responsibility in Dialogue with Business Ethics and Workplace Spirituality

Today there is growing need to overcome the traditional ethics of intentions and to develop an ethics of responsibility that judges the morality of a behavior considering its impact not only on the humanity living today but also on the consequence bearers of the future, including all living beings and the earth. For this to occur, an integration of business ethics and spirituality in the workplace is increasingly necessary. Corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is intended to maximize positive societal externalities and welfare, has done a good job in reducing harm, but it has only recently begun to shift toward a more holistic model that guides toward sustainability. Companies that can cultivate this connection locally and identify work as a human factor are able to integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into corporate models. Starting from these premises the aim of this chapter is to provide an understanding of the different Christian and Lutheran approaches to the notion of social responsibility and introduce Civil Economy principles, and practical applications, to shed new light on CSR strategies seen through a civil economics approach deeply linked to a Christian relational vision. To understand this idea, we analyzed the roots of the Protestant Anglo-Saxon capitalism and compared them with the Latin one. We then presented the Civil Economy tradition to shed light on CSR strategies from a Civil Economy perspective. We finally provided empirical examples and highlighted practical implications for management and organization studies. We believe our contribution to the literature to be twofold. On the one hand, we extend the knowledge on spirituality and business ethics literature related to CSR. On the other hand, we contribute to the Civil Economy debate by introducing a specific lens through which CSR practices can be viewed.