An Emerging Model of Business: Enterprise and Catholic Social Teaching

The challenge for faculty teaching in Catholic Business Schools is how to integrate the University’s Catholic heritage and tradition into the core business curriculum. Such integration is necessary if schools of business are to provide their students with a distinctive educational experience. The Living Asset Stewardship (LAS) philosophy of management developed by Joseph Bragdon and described in Profit for Life is an alternative to the prevailing model of management taught in most business schools and practiced by most organizations. The authors believe that Bragdon’s LAS criteria and accompanying model provide a useful methodology for demonstrating the practical wisdom and successful application of many of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Bragdon’s model and its connections to CST can help business faculty more fully integrate the University’s Catholic tradition into topics relevant to a business core curriculum