ABSTRACT
New models of business spirituality are emerging. Although these and other models are often inspired by one or several of the spiritual traditions mentioned earlier, their emergence is mainly driven by developments and scandals within the field of business itself. Business spirituality aims at developing a state of higher consciousness in organizations. Carlos Hoevel argues that the economic and financial crisis shows a specific spiritual dimension. Confirming the concerns of many spiritual traditions, empirical research supports the idea that materialistic and spiritual values are relatively incompatible aims in life. In the civil economic tradition, the market, the enterprise, the economy are themselves the place for friendship, reciprocity, gratuitousness, fraternity. In economics, the frugal and industrious man has been praised by Adam Smith and promoted by Max Weber as the embodiment of worldly asceticism, the protestant driver of early capitalism. The freedom of business is protected but accountability of business to the common good and justice must be assured.
