Psychology or Religion? Making the Case for Economic and Organizational Impact

Devout atheist and often religious antagonist Richard Dawkins rightly proclaims that "Explaining is a difficult art (1996: xiv)." Yet it seems all too necessary in these trying times of major religions vying for world domination and when almost all universities have multiple courses addressing religion, ethics, and values. In the name of political correctness and to avoid offending, we seem to ignore the impact religion has on not just the theory and study of management and leadership but also on the practice of those disciplines. The execution of managerial duties of planning, organizing, leading, controlling and staffing centers squarely on effective and efficient decision-making (Drucker, 1998). Decision-making, making choices under varying degrees of uncertainty, is in need of solid guidelines to insure that multiple and often conflicting goals are satisfied in settings that are almost always extremely complex (Rumsfeld, 2013). This article is making the case for the use of Biblical Christian Principles in supporting decisionmaking guidelines (Service and Carson, 2009). It is not an attempt to change or attack other beliefs, but to show how the tenants of Christianity with its Jewish underpinnings can provide better decision-making criteria even for non-believers or those of another faith. We implore the reader to identify and evaluate the impacts of religion on all economies and organizations; be those influences the result of a Deity or purely psychological influences they arguably exist.