Question

discuss the role of Religion and Education in modern business transformation with appropriate examples

Answer 1

Some argue that there is a correlation between religion and business. The oldest capitalist region in the World, England is predominantly protestant, in some countries such as Switzerland or France, the protestants were especially thrifty and attracted to business: and the economic rise of U.S. was driven for the most part by protestant immigrants from Europe.

Industrious protestants were the first successful capitalist. Work is like prayer and worship is like investment that is the mindset which kick started capitalism.

The belief that every Christian should be able to read the bible for himself led to an education boom and improved literacy across all protestant region. Martin Luther even favored schools for girls - a progressive move for those times. This pro-education bias became a competitive advantage: the 19th century Prussia showed a much higher level of education in Protestant than  in Catholic Regions. In addition, the Protestants had higher income and were more likely to work in Modern sectors of the Prussian economy, such as commerce.

The long term economic effects of education on economic affairs can be seen in Judaism, which enforced a religious norm requiring fathers to educate their sons from the end of 2 . This had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history in the first  millennium: the Jewish farmers who invested in education gained the comparative advantage and incentive to enter skilled occupations during urbanization in the Abbasid empire and they did select themselves into these occupations. And as merchants the Jews invested even more in education-literacy and numeracy are the key preconditions for building up trading networks.

The decisive factor for the economic success of religious believers was not the belief itself but the appetite for education in most of the religions such as Judaism , Christians, Buddhists.

In business, religion can also enable the entities to have a common mission and encourage cohesiveness. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who identify themselves with a religion- from the Catholic Brenninkmejeir family running the C&A retail chain to Islamic banking or real estate agents with links to Scientology. As Business cases linked to a religious attitude often take place in an early stage of expansion:The unifying effect of one strong belief can lead to a more coherent, focused, motivated workforce and can be a decisive factor in beating the competitions as the company would represent more than just an opportunity to earn money.When institutional beliefs and individual beliefs are congruent, harmony is the resultant corporate climate.

The Japanese religious believes has a strong influence on their business and ethics. The Japanese believe that the group needs are more important than over individual needs and they channelize all their efforts and resources to meet the Organization's needs. Needs of the group presides over the needs of the individual employees. The workers are very industrious and diligent and put in long hours and feel guilty if they avoid work this is because they strongly associate hard work with their core believes and values. They value inanimate object more than the westerners and the faster phase in which Robotics is emerging and replacing human workers in is to some extent attributable to that. The Japanese will be more accepting of a robot caretaker than a person from Europe or any other western part as they believe that everything has a soul and purpose and value the inanimate objects.

The chinese like the Japanese is collectivist oriented. The group rather than individual is honoured. This results in tighter teamwork, more consensual decision making, more obedience. The Asian tradition of slow decision making is due in part to the people's group orientation. Confucianism affects business practice a lot: all relationship are deemed to be unequal. The Confucian concept of the hierarchical nature of society is imbued within companies. The manager should is seen as a father figure who receives loyalty and obedience from colleagues, in return the manger is expected to take an interest in the welfare of the colleagues.

The pervasive high standard quality education provided in Singapore is the primary reason for the business to flourish due to high quality human capital. The literacy rate and education quality is a vital factor contributing to the attractiveness of the labor market in Singapore and ease of doing business quotient of Singapore as business find it highly profitable when large masses of the workforce are skilled and highly educated as it significantly contributes in improving the productivity and profitability of the business.