Today we took our final exam on the business concentration. In the first question, we had to write a letter about the kind of company we wanted to work for, that included the explanation of "Kingdom Principles." In the second, we were asked to write an article for the school newspaper, explaining how International Businesses can follow Kingdom principles... Here you go...
Dear Mr. So-and-so,
I just finished a semester studying in Costa Rica in a Christian semester abroad program called LASP (Latin American Studies Program) sponsored by the Christian Coalition for Universities and Colleges. I spent several weeks studying different aspects of the cultural, economy and history of Latin America and focused our last 5 weeks on intensely studying International business and writing a marketing research tool on fundraising for a non-profit company, Red Viva. During those 5 weeks, I’ve been able to observe several different ways that companies are being used to further social justice, including social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, business as mission, etc. I’ve had the opportunity to really study what the Kingdom of God is on earth and have come to realize that I’d like to work for a company who takes measures to promote God’s principles of love, justice and caring for peoples’ needs. Allow me to explain further.
In the article, “What’s Your Price? 10 Principles for Saving the Corporate Soul,” the author suggests 10 principles to follow that are not only moral, effective business practices, but also practices that promote Kingdom principles. In short, the author recommends:
1. Valuing employees as more than capital,
2. Being involved in developing the surrounding community of the business,
3. Ensuring product safety,
4. Respecting and helping preserve the environment,
5. Promoting and maintain diversity in top management,
6. Respecting workers’ human rights,
7. Allowing for feedback and integrity in the company, without fear of losing jobs
8. Protecting privacy of workers, suppliers and customers,
9. Communicating transparently about your product and following through on that communication,
10. And finally, not producing life-threatening products
The author sites several examples of companies that have succeeded using these principles, as well as several examples of companies who have failed when ignoring them.
Obviously, these principles are excellent business practices, but take an extra dose of effort on the company’s part. It seems to be an extremely difficult jump for many companies to consider employees as more than assets and expenses. Helping to develop the surrounding community is what charities do. Ensuring product safety is thought about if the cost of fighting lawsuits exceeds the cost of having a safe product. Being involved in the environment, having diversity in management, respecting workers’ rights, allowing for feedback, protecting privacy, and being honest about your product seems to only be thought about if fines are involved. Creating life-threatening products such as tobacco and arms is hardly considered unethical these days. What seems to be driving most companies today is the bottom line – how much is my profit and what do I need to do to maintain, if not increase it? There are several examples of integrity and moral values being tossed aside in the name of profit, as in the case of Enron, Dole Fruit, The Gap, Nike and many more.
Clearly, not all companies have thrown out every sense of morality. Some companies aim for higher moral standards than others and some profit from these higher morals while others swallow the cost of integrity. One of our guest speakers, Chris, from Pura Vida coffee, discussed the fact that no one will pay you to have integrity or maintain moral values. However, while these values are invaluable, they’re costing many businesses their profits.
Some companies are tight for profits, but are exemplifying practices that build Kingdom principles, maintain integrity, and really strive for excellence in the market. For example, one of the site visits we took was to observe a highly successful chicken farm called “Roblealto.” Their purpose was to do excellent business of producing more and more chickens and using the majority of their profits to sponsor a home that takes care of at-risk children – everything from food and a house to education and psychological counseling. Another company, “Pura Vida Coffee” uses 100% of the profits of their organic, fair trade coffee to sponsor community development in the poorest neighborhoods of Costa Rica. In a taste test against Starbucks in 2000, Pura Vida Coffee was rated higher than Starbucks! This means that the company is still striving for excellence, but their mission is to achieve this excellence for the purpose of investing in the development of children’s minds and futures. These business are one step ahead of the normal non-profit organizations whose main focus is collecting money from donors and using that to help people, like what we researched for the Red Viva marketing tool. Roblealto and Pura Vida Coffee are using marketing strategies to multiply their funds in order to develop more and more communities.
In an article we read, “Success to Significance,” the author points out that this drive for money and profits will soon become unattractive to many prosperous people, if it hasn’t already. The author points out that money simply doesn’t bring happiness in the long run because it can’t cure the inner desire for significance in this world. Not only this author, but many people support this idea that money can’t buy you happiness. In fact, when researching donors for our Red Viva project, I found that the newly-rich Asian population is starting to get tired of simply having money and so they are searching for ways to give their money to others – to leave this life with more than success… with significance.
As you already know, the money that companies are working so hard to attain will soon be short-lived for many – especially for me. As a child of God who admires Jesus as one of the most incredible men who walked the earth, I’d prefer to work for a company who promotes principles that Jesus spoke of when speaking of the Kingdom of God. I’d like to work for a company who values people as creations, and because of that, respects their rights, ensures their safety, protects their privacy, and tries to create products that better peoples’ lives instead of ruins them. I’d like to work for a who values justice outside of their company by preserving the environment and developing the community around them. And finally, I’d like to work for a company who values integrity by allowing for accountability to eliminate ethical practices and represents their product or service as what it really is.
I want my life to be about promoting love and justice and empowering other people to do so as well. Since a majority of my life will be working, I’d like the company I work for to have similar priorities of promoting Kingdom principles. If you know of any company that exemplifies or is clearly working towards these priorities, I would love to speak with them about future employment.
Thank you so much for your time,
Vanessa Brettell
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ESSAY TWO:
The Biolan“The mighty are not only political nations and empires
but economic manipulators of other peoples’ destinies.”
-Brown
In our sheltered bubble of tri-weekly chapels, dollar theaters and bonzookie, we Biola students rarely take a second to consider the outside world. Yes, of course we are mission-focused and of course we’re working hard to learn doctrine in order to have great, theoretical, apologetics-based discussions about the theology of Paul. However, when was the last time we sat down and learned from someone other than a professor, Sunday school teacher or chapel speaker? It seems to me that many people in America, and especially in the mission-focused church have lost sight of what Jesus did – we’ve accepted half of the gospel for so long that it seems like it’s the only truth out there. We’ve been taught for so long that being a Christian was about letting other people know about Jesus and how he commands us to act. So we take classes on doctrine, spiritual formation and cross-cultural communication in order to learn how to communicate to others and fulfill “the great commission.” But we forgot that Jesus first listened and observed peoples’ needs before he felt the need to tell them about the gospel – about the Kingdom of God. This half-gospel has steered us in a direction that has forgotten the second part of the greatest commandment – loving others as we love ourselves. Because we’re so concerned about making ourselves holy and getting the right tactics down to preach at people, we’ve forgotten to take care of others! We’ve forgotten justice.
Worldwide, people are suffering from malnutrition, from worker abuse, from easily curable diseases and from lack of shelter – essentially, people worldwide are suffering from poverty. In Nicaragua, there are currently people protesting against Del Monte because the pesticides used to keep our bananas clean and growing healthily (which have long been outlawed in the States) have made the workers infertile, desperately sick and many have already died. Although the world court has mandated that Del Monte pay these workers compensation (as if money could compensate for the ruined quality of life), Del Monte has refused and continues to allow workers to suffer – many suggest they’re allowing the protestors to die off. Do we know about this injustice? Who’d you buy your last banana from? Do you even know where Nicaragua is located?
While studying abroad in Costa Rica, I visited several plantations – coffee plantations, banana plantations and pineapple plantations. As seen at these visits, as well as read in news articles, these pineapple plantations are using chemicals that poison community water, give children diseases such as frequent stomach aches and bacteria growing on their faces, and attracts swarms of blood-sucking flies that are killing off cattle. As if this weren’t bad enough, those who work on the pineapple plantation are poorly treated as well. The owners pay their workers minimum wages without overtime and set up their hiring and re-hiring so that they end up paying only half of the required health insurance. An article we read talked about how workers are suffering worldwide because of poor decisions made by the rich. The rich never seem to suffer from their actions – which explains why they never seem to be motivated to change them. If we want cheap prices, we must realize that these cheap prices come at the expense of peoples’ livelihood – in plantations, sweat shops, and production facilities worldwide.
I don’t believe that the problem with most Biola students is that they knowingly buy things from companies that make people suffer. After all, we are children of God, aspiring to live out Kingdom principles. What you must realize is that Kingdom principles and the principles of the Market are entirely contrary. While the Market values money, fame, and efficiency, the Kingdom of God values justice, love, and caring for others’ needs. While the Market views success as being the most profitable company among their competition, the Kingdom of God views success as putting others’ needs before your own. Everyone is subject to the market – there’s no way of escaping it. The market is ‘the world’ that Jesus is referring to when He tells us to be ‘in the world but not of it.’ Whether you are someone who benefits from the market, like the majority of U.S. citizens, or you are someone who drives it through philanthropy, like many Nicaraguan citizens, you are part of the Market. In Great Expectations, where the above quote comes from, Brown points out that to know God is to do justice. If we are to live as children of God, promoting His Kingdom principles, it is essential that our lives be the epitome of justice. This, my friends, is the other half of the gospel.
Jesus most definitely came to save us from the punishment of our sins and to cover our “tuition” into heaven. However, Jesus’ main purpose for coming was to share the gospel of the Kingdom of God – He came to teach us how to live in this world but not of it. He taught us to love mercy, do justice, treat others like we want to be treated, feed the hungry, heal the sick, love the unloved, hug the unhugged, and share by our actions what the gospel is. Then he wants us to disciple others on how to live this life that embodies Kingdom of God principles – Jesus told us that not only is the Kingdom of Heaven something we hope for, it is also something that is within us. It is our responsibility as students to learn of this Kingdom, to learn of others’ needs and to ACT to fix the injustices that people worldwide are facing.
As business students (and many others who will end up in business) enter into working for international business (meaning at least some part of their supply chain or customers are international), they must know what a business that follows Kingdom principles should look like. While I suggest you read more than this, one approach is to work for or create a Great Commission Company. Great Commission Companies have holistic missions – they take care of both physical and spiritual needs, and they’re not even a charity! A great commission company is a profit-producing company managed by excellent Kingdom professionals that focus on social responsibility, making alliances to develop local churches, and seeking the least-evangelized and least-developed areas to help develop.
International businesses that act as Great Commission Companies understand the complete gospel of telling about Christ and taking care of peoples’ needs. They create profit, as do all companies, because as Don Antonio stated, profit is as essential for a company as breathing is for a person. Of course you do it, but it’s a means – not an end. According to the article, “What’s Your Price?” GCCs focus on the ends of human development, environmental preservation, and salvation of souls. They take a step further in business, seeing it to be used as an effective tool for spreading the gospel. This approach is what Jesus means by living ‘in the world but not of it.’ GCCs are professional, do excellent work and understand the concepts of the market that are essential to their success. However, the difference is that their priorities are set on following Jesus’ concepts of justice, love and mercy regardless of the effects to the bottom line.
As we graduate and head on to new jobs, or as you’re here at Biola, seeking some extra money to pay your grocery bills, try to take into consideration working for a company with a higher mission than profit, or at the very least, try to become aware of those companies that are poorly treating their workers and our environment and use your money to show them your principles. Support companies who take their Christianity to the next level in their businesses by sharing and living out the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
