Reconceptualizing Profit-Orientation in Management : a Karmic View on ‘Return on Investment’ Calculations

Köllen, Thomas (2016). Reconceptualizing Profit-Orientation in Management : a Karmic View on ‘Return on Investment’ Calculations. Philosophy of Management, 15(1), pp. 7-20. Springer 10.1007/s40926-016-0027-9

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From the perspective of the present day, Puritan-inspired capitalism seems to have succeeded globally, including in India. Connected to this, short-term profit-orientation in management seems to constrain the scope of different management approaches in a tight ideological corset. This article discusses the possibility of replacing this Puritan doctrine with the crucial elements of Indian philosophy: Karma and samsara. In doing so, the possibility of revising the guiding principles in capitalist management becomes conceivable, namely the monetary focus of profit-orientation and its short-term orientation. This perspective allows a detachment of the concept of profit from the realm of money, as the seemingly only objectifiable measure of profit. Furthermore it allows a removal of the expectation that every “investment” has to directly “pay off”. A karmic view offers management a possible facility for being more caring about the needs and fates of other stakeholders, as profit-orientation would no longer be attached as a factual constraint to merely accumulate money.

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