In Search of a Christian Work Ethic for the Corporate Worker

Abstract

Work in the corporate world has always been problematical, from the inhu mane working conditions of factories early in the industrial revolution to the accounting scandals that fill the news today. Yet the modern corporation has also held great potential for good, both for the individual worker and society at large. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of life today without the economic benefits of the corporation. This essay has as its aim to propose a work ethic for the corporate worker. Such a work ethic will need to be fleshed out in a context that in many ways resists it. It is beyond the scope of the present essay to explore these resistant forces in the contemporary corporate world, but they are well attested by corporate workers themselves, by those who interact with corpo rate workers, and by a body of published scholarship.1 The most salient problems related to work in the corporation include these: on the part of some, an anemic work ethic coexisting with an undervaluing of work; among these same people, a sense of alienation from corpo rate goals, often accompanied by resentment against the cor poration as employer; on the part of others, an overvaluing of work that takes the form of workaholism; a sacrifice of personal freedom and life interests to the cor porate machine;