Jim Anderson has spent the bulk of his career in middle management, dealing with the real and practical tensions which come while making management decisions as a Christian.  As an entrepreneur he has started a number of companies, and has developed many software solutions through his career, although he has mostly managed people.  He discussed the tensions one faces when considering stockholder and company interests, as well as other stakeholders and the common good.    He and his wife Cindy live in Virginia.

Professor Greenspoon, in addition to being widely published in areas regarding the Jewish Bible and texts of scripture,  has edited a number of interesting books including “Jews in the Gym: Judaism, Sports, and Atheletics” and “Jews and Humor”.  His knowledge of the Jewish wisdom tradition is extensive, and he spoke on a Jewish approach to business, providing insights into how the Jewish tradition has developed and how its scriptures are interpreted in contemporary culture.

Charlie Camosy is the author of Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic can Unify a Fractured People (2019), as well as 4 other books and numerous articles on ethics including popular outlets such as USA Today, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Newark Star-Ledger, America and Commonweal. He spoke to the students about having a consistent life ethic, and how to avoid polarizing tendencies of contemporary political and social media discourse.

This year’s annual symposium during Creighton’s Mission Week will highlight a panel of guest speakers speaking about how to use business to help the marginalized and disenfranchised. It will take place Thursday afternoon, with a reception to follow.

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Institute colleagues Andy Gustafson and Celeste Harvey presented at two conferences recently.  First, they gave papers at the Vincentian Business Ethics Conference in Dublin in October 2019.  Harvey’s paper was on the characteristics of the Economy of Communion which distinguish it from the stakeholder and stockholder appraoches to business.  Gustafson’s was on the similarities and differences between Catholic Social Thought and British Utilitarianism.

January 2020 they again presented at the Annual Economy of Communion conference.  They were both on a panel regarding recent research on EOC and then Gustafson was also on a panel of EOC entrepreneurs sharing stories from what their vision of business is.  Gustafson’s brief remarks can be seen in the following clips:

 

The Business, Faith and Common Good Institute brought Kent Saunders to campus Halloween night to give a talk on the differences and similarities between gambling and investing.  He spoke to a full room of students.  Saunders, who teaches finance at Anderson University in South Carolina, has published on the relationship between gambling and investing from a biblical perspective, and that was the topic of his talk.

Saunders emphasized that typically investing is characterized by being a long-term strategy which risks money hopefully for the sake of win-win outcomes– where the investor makes a profit, and other people are also benefited (happy customers, etc).  Investment typically leads to overall growth– a general increase in wealth overall.  Gambling, on the other hand, is typically short term, has little societal benefit, and is typcially a zero-sum game, where one person wins at anothers loss.  No general increase is provided.

Bringing in the Biblical perspective was interesting.  Saunders brought up examples of investing, such as the parable of the talents, where the servant who invests wisely and increases his wealth is praised, while the servant who hides the money so he loses none is scolded (or worse).  He also brought up examples of gambling or potential gambling in the Bible, particularly the casting of lots which he pointed out does not seem to be gambling in the normal sense of that word.

Ultimately, Professor Saunders cautioned that more and more activities which are considered to be investing are in reality gambling,  because they are not long-term focused, they do not have societal benefit, they are zero-sum with a winner and a loser, rather than increasing economic growth overall.  Day-trading was one example he brought up.  Ticket scalping or other sorts of hoarding transactions might be other types.

Overall it was a stimulating talk and there were a lot of questions and insights from students afterwards.  We were very happy Professor Saunders made his first trip to Omaha to visit Creighton.

  

On October 10th Creighton brought Larry Masek, professor at Ohio Dominican University (Ohio) to campus to speak to our students and community about how we are or are not responsible for the distant effects of our actions.  Dr. Masek has published a book recently on the doctrine of double effect, a principle of Catholic moral teaching which tries to tease out what exactly we are culpable for in such situations.

One memorable example Dr. Masek brought up was an example of Eisenhauer sending troops to Normandy.  Eisenhauer did not want many troops to die that day, but he knew that they would.  But his intent was to win the battle, not to lose troops.  Of course it would be a very different thing if Eisenhauer actually wanted to try to have as many troops die as possible, and thought that sending them to Normandy would do that.  What we are trying to accomplish is typically what gives us the culpability. 

Of course this can have significant impact on the culpability of certain business behaviors as well.  I may be trying to get the best price I can for my clients.  In the meantime I may make my supplier suffer by losing money, but that is not my intent– my intent was to help my customer.  So obviously there are some serious reprecussions of the principle of double effect for business activities.

Andy Gustafson