Religious Doctrines and their Influence on Entrepreneurship

This book explores how religious doctrines influence launching a new venture. It examines 16 Christian denominations and 9 world religions and how they would reasonably be expected to apply more than 20 distinct doctrines each to entrepreneurship. It is not an examination of doctrinal veracity because adherents have confidence in their beliefs. Rather, it examines how they will evaluate the attractiveness of entrepreneurship through the lenses of their beliefs, assuming they receive what they expect. More than 100 years ago, Max Weber pitted Protestantism against Hinduism in a single hypothesis. The current study is a multifactorial examination that covers the world’s major religions, as well as most of their doctrines. It is the first comprehensive examination of how entrepreneurs view the world through the lenses of their religious doctrines, which represent the formalization of their most deeply held beliefs.

Part I Doctrines in Entrepreneurship.- 1. The Origin of Religious Preconceptions.- 2. Ranking Doctrinal Effectiveness.- 3. Analytical Organization.- 4. Christian Denominations and Their Doctrines.- 5. World Religions and Their Doctrines.- Part II Doctrinal Differences among Christian Denominations.- 6. Adventist Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 7. Baptist Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 8. Christian Scientist Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 9. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 10. Congregationalist Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 11. Disciples of Christ Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 12. Eastern Orthodox Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 13. Episcopalian Doctrine and Entrepreneurship.- 14. Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Doctrine and Entrepreneurship, etc.

James O. Fiet is the Brown-Forman Chair in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Management at the University of Louisville, USA. He founded both the entrepreneurship PhD program and the Institute for Entrepreneurial Research. He is in the top 1% of all entrepreneurship researchers world-wide with more than 63,000 research reads.