The Rig-veda spoke of the need for the wealthy to plant more trees and build tanks for the community, as it would give them glory in the hereafter.
Over time, things changed. The merchant class kept religion out of business. A different set of values was put in place for religion and quite a different one for the workplace.
In contemporary India, big business houses did build temples and dharamshalas for pilgrims but these were isolated acts of charity rather than expression of corporate social concern. Today there seems less of adisconnect between business and ethics. Compassion and co-option is becoming part of corporate philosophy. The bottom-line is not only about profit and loss but also includes for instance the corporation’s green quotient.
In India its very natural to thank God when we make money. You can call it an awakening that comes with prosperity or something different. Some people work with particular communities and others just go by offering in places of worship. Working for community may not be a strict spiritual activity, but there is definitely a realisation that prosperity ought to be shared. Some people are sceptical on this, but they maintain to say that spirituality, including the growing interest in new age gurus, is more of a personal activity.
Spiritual or not, it is clear that there is an increasing trend to review corporate philosophy and this is becoming apparently in new mission statements. For example :
Google’s Mission statement is “Organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.
TATA’s mission statement is “Ensure what comes from people goes back to them many times over.”
Microsoft has its mission statement “Help people and business throughout the world realise their full potential”
Post –liberalisation, first generation entrepreneurs, along with the foreign educated Gen X of older business houses, are adopting a new growth mantra. They seek to give back to the community, adopt a new set of business ethics and thereby reap even higher profits- not only in the material sense- in this lifetime itself.
