Can We Afford to Ignore Religion in Management Education?

Abstract

Importance of spiritual content in managerial education is acknowledged by the scholars of management education. In recent years the idea of integrating spiritualism in management education gained impetus given the increasing incidences of corporate malpractices for personal benefits at the cost of society at large and also because of the sustained economic crisis seeking noble solutions. The scholastic community acknowledges the need of integrating spirituality in work places as well as in the academics. However, they have been disassociating spirituality from the concept of religion with attempts to project spirituality as something independent of religion. It is true that spirituality is something which operates on a higher plane and the religion operates on belief systems and names & forms. But, man, as a product of his social environment and religion being an integral part of it, cant ignore the decisive impact religion has on the conscious and subconscious mind frame and its spiritual constituents. While acknowledging the importance of religion, care needs to be taken that religion portrays aspects which are of universal appeal rather than those which are divisive in nature. The paper emphasizes the need of management education ingrained with sarva dharma samabhava (respect for religious traits) instead of sarva dharma abhava (ignoring the values of religion) and searches for religious roots for a meaningful comprehensive education.

Keywords: Management Education, Religion, Spirituality

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