Publications

12 Nov 2001
Research & Ideas

Can Religion and Business Learn From Each Other?

Mention the words religion and business in one breath, and chances are good that someone will take offense. It's a common conviction within most Western societies that the two do not and should not be mixed—ever. Yet when Laura Nash and... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

27 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

Religion in the Workplace: What Managers Need to Know

monkeybusinessimages How to handle religion in the workplace is a contentious and litigious issue that many business leaders struggle with. The subject is so third-rail hot that even Harvard Business School has devoted relatively few... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage; Apparel & Accessories

07 May 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Managers, Are You Prepared to Handle Religion in the Workplace?

Keywords: Re: Derek C. M. van Bever

March 2018
Case

Legal Aspects of Religion in the Workplace

By: Lena G. Goldberg

2019
Book

Disciples of the State?: Religion and State-Building in the Former Ottoman World

By: Kristin Fabbe

As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, the Middle East and Balkans became the site of contestation and cooperation between the traditional forces of religion and the emergent machine of the sovereign state. Yet such strategic interaction rarely yielded a decisive victory for... View Details

Keywords: Ottoman Empire; Secularism; State-building; Religion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; History; Turkey; Greece; Middle East

Article

Manuscript Variations of Dabistān-i Maẕāhib and Writing Histories of Religion in Mughal India

By: Sudev J Sheth

A text that has found renewed interest among scholars of early modern India is the Persian compendium of religion called Dabistān-i Maẕāhib. Written between 1645 and 1658, the Dabistān presents a lively ethnographic and historical account of customs and habits of... View Details

Keywords: Manuscripts; Religion; History; India

March 2025
Case

Managing Religion in the Workplace: Abercrombie & Fitch and The United States Postal Service

By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Nien-he Hsieh and Matthew Souba

01 Aug 2022
What Do You Think?

Does Religious Belief Affect Organizational Performance?

(“use of knowledge in a prudent way”), and trustworthiness. One can raise all kinds of questions about this research. First, the time line for cause and effect extends over a very long period of time. Obviously, religion is only one... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

September 2018
Article

Religious Shoppers Spend Less Money

By: Didem Kurt, J. Jeffrey Inman and Francesca Gino

Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects people’s non-religious routines. In the present research, we identify a frequent consumption activity that is influenced by religiosity:... View Details

Keywords: Religion; Spending; Consumer Behavior; Values and Beliefs

Research Summary

Modernization Regimes

Professor Fabbe is currently conducting fieldwork for a book project that focuses on how societies respond to crisis and how states seek to use modernization initiatives to strengthen social resilience and cohesion. Towards this end, she is researching local... View Details

Article

(When) Are Religious People Nicer? Religious Salience and the 'Sunday Effect' on Pro-social Behavior

By: Deepak Malhotra

Prior research has found mixed evidence for the long-theorized link between religiosity and pro-social behavior. To help overcome this divergence, we hypothesize that pro-social behavior is linked not to religiosity per se, but rather to the salience of religion and... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Religion; Behavior; Societal Protocols

Article

Is Saving Lives Your Task or God's?: Religiosity, Belief in God, and Moral Judgment

By: Netta Barak-Corren and Max Bazerman

Should a Catholic hospital abort a life-threatening pregnancy or let a pregnant woman die? Should a religious employer allow his employees access to contraceptives or break with healthcare legislation? People and organizations of faith often face moral decisions that... View Details

Keywords: Normative Conflict; Inaction; Indirectness; Deontology; Utilitarianism; Sunday Effect; Religion; Moral Sensibility; Decisions; Judgments

Book Review

Review of One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, by Kevin Kruse

By: Laura Phillips Sawyer

One Nation under God provides a powerful and timely creation story for conservative public religion in postwar America. It contributes to a growing field of historical scholarship on corporate funding for free enterprise politics and religious interpretations of... View Details

2013
Working Paper

Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India

By: Sonia Bhalotra, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras and Lakshmi Iyer

This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. To control for politician identity to be correlated with constituency... View Details

Keywords: Politician Identity; Infant Mortality; Primary Education; India; Muslim; Fairness; Religion; Government and Politics; India

February 2018 (Revised August 2019)
Case

The Rise Fund: TPG Bets Big on Impact

By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Sarah Mehta

It is March 2017, and TPG, a global alternative investment firm with $74 billion assets under management, has recently launched its inaugural impact-investing fund—the $2 billion Rise Fund. In an effort to “take the religion out of impact investing,” Maya Chorengel,... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Impact Measurement; Equity; Investment; Measurement and Metrics; Financial Services Industry; California; San Francisco

November 2008
Article

Getting off the Hedonic Treadmill, One Step at a Time: The Impact of Regular Religious Practice and Exercise on Well-Being

By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

Many studies have shown that few events in life have a lasting impact on subjective well-being because of people's tendency to adapt quickly; worse, those events that do have a lasting impact tend to be negative. We suggest that while major events may not provide... View Details

Keywords: Health; Religion; Behavior; Happiness; Welfare

02 Jul 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Religion, Politician Identity, and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India

Keywords: by Sonia Bhalotra, Guilhem Cassan, Irma Clots-Figueras & Lakshmi Iyer

08 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

Who Rises to Power in American Business?

century, social networks played a significant role in who had access to power in business. Social networks were defined by who you were (your race and gender), where you were born, what religion you practiced, and how wealthy you were. In... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

July 2021 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Supreme: Remaining Cool While Pursuing Growth

By: Jill Avery, Sandrine Crener, Marie-Cecile Cervellon and Ranjit Thind

Following VF Corporation’s acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme’s slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Growth Management; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America