Spirituality and business: An interdisciplinary overview

The paper gives an interdisciplinary overview of the emerging field of spirituality and business. It uses insights from business ethics, theology, neuroscience, psychology, gender studies, and philosophy to economics, management, organizational science, and banking and refers to different religious convictions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, the Baha'i faith, and the North-American aboriginal worldview. The authors argue that the materialistic management paradigm has failed. They explore new values for post-materialistic management: frugality, deep ecology, trust, reciprocity, responsibility for future generations, and authenticity. Within this framework profit and growth are no longer ultimate aims but elements in a wider set of values. Similarly, cost-benefit calculations are no longer the essence of management but are part of a broader concept of wisdom in leadership. Spirit-driven businesses require intrinsic motivation for serving the common good and using holistic evaluation schemes for measuring success. The Palgrave Handbook of Business and Spirituality, edited by the authors, is a response to developments that simultaneously challenge the “business as usual” mindset

Softening Competition by Enhancing entry: An Example from the Banking Industry

We show that competing firms relax overall competition by lowering future barriers to entry.We illustrate our findings in a two-period model with adverse selection where banks strategically commit to disclose borrower information.By doing this, they invite rivals to enter their market.Disclosure of borrower information increases an entrant's second-period profits.This dampens competition for serving the first-period market.competition;banking;access to market;information

Borrower Poaching and Information Display in Credit Markets

The Riegle-Neal Act in the US and the Economic and Monetary Union in Europe are recent initiatives to stimulate financial integration.These initiatives allow new entrants to "poach" the incumbents' clients by offering them attractive loan offers.We show that these deregulations may be insuficient since asymmetric information seriously hampers the integration of credit markets.This asymmetry stems from the informational advantage incumbent banks have about their current clients vis-a-vis potential entrants.More-over, banks may strategically display some information hindering entry when asymmetric information is moderate.We also show that voluntary information sharing emerges only when asymmetric information is low.credit markets;economic integration;information;banking;competition;access to market

Phonebanking

Banking;Market Structure;Game Theory

Price competition between an expert and a non-expert

price competition;product differentiation;quality

Softening Competition by Enhancing Entry: An Example from the Banking Industry

We show that competing firms relax overall competition by lowering future barriers to entry. We illustrate our findings in a two-period model with adverse selection where banks strategically commit to disclose borrower information. By doing this, they invite rivals to enter their market. Disclosure of borrower information increases an entrant's second-period profits. This dampens competition for serving the first-period market.barriers to entry; asymmetric information; switching costs; banking competition

Monopolistic competition with a mail order business

Monopoly;Mail Order Selling