Virtues and Temptations in Entrepreneurial Relationships: Learning from Christian Narratives

Abstract

The essence of entrepreneurship has to do with a social practice in which multiple stakeholders, interests, and values are in conflict. Entrepreneurs will have to develop certain moral habits to assure the creation of truthful relationships among the different groups of interest involved in the business. In their attempts to perform virtuously this task, temptations often come raising moral questions and dilemmas. In this scenario, the morality embedded in religious writings can be helpful to bring relevant criteria to the current context. This paper aims to reflect on this issue from a dual view: firstly, by bringing to the discussion the theoretical ideas arising around religion-economic relationships from both Christian and economic perspectives; secondly, through the inspiration offered by Christian narratives, such as those included in the Epistle of James.