Management in the Catholic Church: Towards an Ecclesiastical Model of Corporate Governance.

As with the corporate impropriety which gave rise to the recent global financial crisis, the Catholic Church has been experiencing her own share of scandals; critics attribute the Church's scandals to her refusal to embrace the principles of good management and to her lack of a corporate governance framework which promotes accountability and transparency. Are management principles such as corporate governance and codes of good practice, usually the provenance of business, also applicable to a religious entity such as the Catholic Church? This research adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach and uses semistructured interviews as the principal method of data collection; data is analysed by using thematic content analysis. Findings suggest that management principles and corporate governance are applicable to the Catholic Church. The Church appears to have a corporate governance framework of its own; however, it seems limited when compared to those used by corporations and regulatory authorities. Findings suggest that the Church's corporate governance mechanisms may be dated; effective compliance may therefore be difficult to achieve, thus possibly contributing to the long term decline in ecclesiastical performance. Church managers may wish to consider whether their corporate governance framework is still relevant to the challenges of the 21st century; managers may wish to reflect on their existing management and leadership styles in terms of how they communicate with their clergy and society. Corporate governance theories (e.g., agency theory and transaction cost economics) assume, theoretically, that executives are vice-ridden; however, no efforts are made to address this short-fall. Perhaps this explains why regulations and codes of good practice fail to prevent corporate impropriety? Regulators and academics may find it appropriate now to address the 'dissolute' nature of executives by incorporating a framework which is based on the moral virtues and individual personal accountability. The Catholic Church, an advocate of both, could be referred to for guidance