Spiritually Inspired Creativity in Business

The paper argues that spiritually-inspired creative business models are needed to over-come the instrumental rationality and extreme materialistic orientation of today’s business management which produces large scale ecological, social and ethical „ills”. We believe that business management needs a spiritual foundation to be more creative and caring. Why? Because spirituality – an inner experience of deep interconnectedness with all living beings – creates free space and openness to allow the future to emerge organically. It creates a distance between the self and the pressures of the market and the routines of business and daily life. This distance is a necessary condition for developing creative, ethical and responsible solutions to the complex challenges around us. We also believe that to research business and leadership we need to use methods both from science and the humanities. Why? Because there is a growing body of evidence that phenomena such as leadership, management, creativity or spirituality cannot be studied meaningfully in the abstract. They happen in social contexts through relation-ships with a purpose and these phenomena need to be studied in their own environments as they emerge through mindfully lived experiences. The paper offers examples and illustrates the feasibility of spiritual based creative business models. Our main conclusion is that spirituality and a deep sense of connectedness are essential to enhance the level of creativity and care in business. It is our collective responsibility to create open platforms to discuss our challenges at individual, social and geopolitical levels and engage all members of society to co-create a values based, meaningful future