THE INFLUENCE OF

BELIEF SYSTEMS IN
BUSINESS PRACTICES
Lesson No. 6
Belief System
➢It is a set of principles or tenets
which together form the basis of a
religion, philosophy, or moral code.
➢Religion and belief systems are
important parts of cultures around
the world.

Religion
➢A set of beliefs and practices that is
often focused on one or more
deities, or gods.
Monotheistic
➢Believes in one deity
➢Examples are Christianity, Islam and
Judaism

Polytheistic
➢Believes in many deities
➢Example is Hinduism
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

Buddhism
✓Founded by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

✓Basic Belief: People reach enlightenment, or

wisdom, by following the Eightfold Path and
understanding the Four Noble Truths.
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

HINDUISM
✓Basic Belief: Souls continue to be reborn. The cycle
of rebirth ends only when the soul achieves
enlightenment, or freedom from earthly desires.
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

Christianity
✓Founded by Jesus of Nazareth

✓Basic Belief: There is one God, and Jesus is the

only Son of God. Jesus was crucified but was
resurrected. Followers reach salvation by following
the teachings of Jesus.
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

Islam
✓Founded by the Prophet Muhammad

✓Basic Belief: There is one God. Followers must

follow the Five Pillars of Islam in order to achieve
salvation.
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

Judaism
✓Founded by Abraham

✓Basic Belief: There is one God. People serve God

by living according to his teachings. God handed
down the Ten Commandments to guide human
behavior.
 6 MAJOR RELIGIONS
(Anthony 2014)

Sikhism
✓Founded by Guru Nanak

✓Basic Belief: There is one God. Souls are reborn.

The goal is to achieve union with God, which a
person does by acting selflessly, meditating and
helping others.
The Impact of
Belief System to
Business Practices
Islamic Business Ethic

❖It is a set of values about the good,

bad, right, wrong, and halal, haram in
the business world based on the
principles of morality are in
accordance with Shariah.

❖Islamic business ethics are based on

Al-qur’an and Hadits.
Islamic Business Ethic

❖Muslims CANNOT invest in,

acquire, or otherwise engage in
transactions that involve
forbidden products and activities
such as pork-related products,
alcohol, gambling, and
pornography.
The principles of business
ethics according to Al-Qur’an:
❖Prohibits business conducted by the
evil (Surah 4:29)
❖The business must not contain
elements of usury (Surah 2:275).
❖Business activities also have a social
function either through Zakat and
alms (Surah 9:34).
The principles of business
ethics according to Al-Qur’an:
❖The right to prohibit the reduction of
an item or commodity that is acquired
or processed with medium dose or
scales because it is a form of tyranny
(Surah 11:85).
❖Upholding the values of both economic
and social balance, safety and kindness
and do NOT approve of the damage
and injustice.
❖Prohibited businesses do wrong
(cheating) either for himself or to other
businesses (Surah 7:85, QS.2 : 205)
Ethics in Business Guide
Rasulullah (the prophet of Allah)
❖Honesty
❖Awareness about the social
significance of business activity.
❖Did not perjury.
❖Welcoming/friendly.
❖Should not pretend bid at high
prices, so that other people are
interested in buying at that price.
❖Should not speak ill of other people’s
business.
Ethics in Business Guide
Rasulullah (the prophet of Allah)
❖Business mut not interfere with
the activities of worship to God.
❖Paying employee wages before
the sweat dried.
❖Not monopoly.
❖Should not be doing business in a
state danger that can be harmful
and damaging individual and
social life.
Ethics in Business Guide
Rasulullah (the prophet of Allah)

❖Commodity businesses that sell goods

that are holy and lawful.
❖Business done voluntarily, without
coercion.
❖Soon be paying off credit obligations.
❖Gives grace period if the debtor has
not been able to afford.
Christian Business Ethic

❖The Bible is the guidelines of business

ethic
❖Work is God’s gift to humans as well
as being God’s call to them (Gen 1:28).
❖The Old Testament contains laws and
injunctions about the fair treatment
of employees, e.g. Leviticus 19:13;
Deuteronomy 25:13-15.
❖Honesty in business. (Prov. 3:32).
Business Ethics in Hinduism

❖There are three key reasons why ethics

plays a key role in business in
Hinduism:
✓ It is crucial that ethics have a
considerable influence if we want an
efficient, smoothly operating
economy. Ethics helps the market
to its best.
Business Ethics in Hinduism

✓ The government, laws and lawyers

cannot resolve certain key
problems of business and protect
the society: ethics can.
✓ Ethical activity is valuable, for its
own sake, because it enhances the
quality of lives and the work we
do. Business has an ethical
responsibility for fairness for
humanity.
Virtues in the Bhagavad Gita
(Paramitha 2014)
❖ Krishna mentions qualities in
business, which are:
✓ To be peaceful
✓ Charitable
✓ Simple
✓ Clean
✓ Mild-mannered
✓ Magnanimous
Virtues in the Bhagavad Gita
(Paramitha 2014)
❖ Krishna mentions qualities in
business, which are:
✓ Saintly
✓ Equitable
✓ Truthful
✓ Obedient and merciful
❖ “One should surrender the fruits
of one’s actions to God and avoid
greediness.”
Buddhism and Business Ethics

❖ Explaining the intersection of

Buddhism and business ethics is
easy and difficult at the same time.
❖ It is easy because there are so
many grounds on which this is
justified, and hard, because space
for explaining and analyzing all
these grounds is limited.
The justification for adhering to Buddhist
psychology in business will therefore be
limited to four perspectives:
1. Accepting personal responsibility for actions.
➢Buddhism strongly emphasizes the concept of cause
and effect. It says the what is happening now is just
the result of our prior decisions and actions. The
Buddhist mindset will discourage mean-spirited
and predatory actions.
The justification for adhering to Buddhist
psychology in business will therefore be
limited to four perspectives:
2. Understanding the importance of healthy detachment
➢Detachment is yet another strong virtue in Buddhist
practice. It says that those business practitioners
will have less control issues, power hunger, or
profit insatiability. Those people will refrain from
greedily reach for positions, titles or possessions,
to think that these are impermanent.
The justification for adhering to Buddhist
psychology in business will therefore be
limited to four perspectives:
3. Nurturing the will to collaborate with others
➢These encourage the Buddhist practitioners to open
themselves to others, to have a greater
collaboration and less selfishness. It says that the
ego is a hindrance toward interconnectivity. At
any rate, today’s business environments call for
heightened levels of collaboration.
The justification for adhering to Buddhist
psychology in business will therefore be
limited to four perspectives:
4. Practicing right livelihood

➢Right livelihood is one of the elements of the

“Noble Eightfold Path,” in Buddhism also known as
the “Fourth Noble Truth.”
Four Noble Truth
➢ The four noble truths are foundational in Buddhism
and basically entail that:
✓ First Noble - suffering exists
✓ Second Noble - suffering has a cause
✓ Third Noble - suffering can be ended
✓ Fourth Noble - the way to end suffering is through
the Noble Eightfold Path
Noble Eightfold Path
➢ encompasses the following practices or insights:
✓Right View; ✓Right Livelihood;
✓Right Intention; ✓Right Effort;
✓Right Speech; ✓Right Mindfulness;
✓Right Action; ✓Right Concentration
➢ There is no specific sequence in this set of
insights, because they are interrelated
Example of How
Belief Systems
Affect Business
Practices
 In first decade of the second millennium, Christian
Ethics scholars have fruitfully debated whether capitalism
and the market economy deserve grateful praise because of
its virtues or calls for abolition for being praiseworthy in
taking up the call to make businesses more socially
responsible.
 In the specific case of Catholic faith-in-action, one
integrative finding involves the Catholic perspective of human
life. A Catholic businessman obliges himself to struggle to
succeed in business while serving the community and trying
to live the life of a good Catholic in a world of temptations
and contradicting realities. They have to be ready to question
the status quo, to stand on principles, and to transform their
communities:
 Catholic men and women, leaving the halls of learning
ready to fight good fight – to pay taxes properly, to not bribe,
to speak against corruption, to create jobs and pay living
wages, to provide quality goods and services, to not steal nor
cheat, men and women whose hearts and minds are oriented
toward the alleviation of poverty and to being good Catholic
business people.
 In the Philippines, a good number of Filipino
Catholics/Christians have given ground to the demand that
religion resonate with the needs and desires of ordinary
believers, especially the poor and marginalized (Sison and
Palma-Angeles, 1997). Two successful Philippine cases of
socially oriented enterprises created by prominent Catholic
or Christian businessmen are: (1) Gawad Kaling and (2)
Bangko Kabayan, an economy of Communion based bank.
FORMATIVE
ASSESSMENT
NO. 2
Choose the best answer for
each of the following
questions.