WORK AND RELIGION – THE EVOLUTION OF VIEWS ON EMPLOYEE AND INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT ETHICS IN CHRISTIAN SOCIAL TEACHING

Abstract

The main goal of this article is a presentation of catholic and protestant social teaching and its evolution regarding the labor and business issues. Presented evolution was confronted with theoretical assumption of business ethics levels of analysis: the individual, group and social level, which refers to activities consistent with the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The analysis lead to conclusion that Christian social teaching has evolved from the issues dealing with the ethics of the employee to the issues involved in Corporate Social Responsibility. Moreover, analysis show that the views of Max Weber and Michael Novak on the meaning of Protestantism and Christianity in the development of capitalism are not contradictory, but rather compatible. Both, Protestantism and Catholicism, greatly influenced the formation of the ethical standards of the modern working man and his institutional environment.