Beyond corporate responsibility: the 'spiritual turn' and the rise of conscious business

Abstract

A key movement concerned with reforming business that has grown in influence and acceptance over the last two decades is Corporate Responsibility (CR). While it has attracted criticism from across the political spectrum, it is fair to say that it has also achieved much in a relatively short space of time. Nevertheless, we need to ask whether CR and the CR movement can transform business practices such that the corporation can be the type of organization that will assist society address some of the key challenges we face in terms of human and environmental sustainability. This paper suggests that the answer is no if CR continues down the path of many previous reform movements and becomes ‘captured’ by the dominant business school models which are still linked to the ‘modern world view’. The answer could be yes if CR takes a different path, one that is still being paved, but that is embedded within the ‘emerging world view’, which is informed and underpinned by the new spirituality. The paper outlines five schools of thought or movements that are beginning to move beyond CR informed by the emerging world view and ‘spiritual turn’ occurring in society. These five schools of thought are grouped under the term ‘Conscious Business’. This work has in common the desire to overcome the limitations of CR and move beyond it to provide clues to what the corporation of the 21st century might look like.