Design Thinking and Catholic Social Thought: Resources for Addressing Structures of Sin and Grace in Business Ethics
Abstract
This dissertation hopes to contribute to what theologian Joerg Rieger calls “glimpses of an alternative reality,” by considering ways to create structures in business that can help people do the good more easily and habituate the virtues that business ethicists wish business practitioners to embrace, using design thinking and wicked problems, a method that is familiar to business people, and concepts and principles from Catholic social thought. This dissertation thus argues that bringing design thinking and its understanding of wicked problems and how to respond to them into conversation with the vision of society and principles to achieve such a vision found in Catholic social thought can strengthen business ethicists’ and practitioners’ ability to describe and respond to destructive structural or systemic dynamics—what Catholic social thought calls structures of sin—that underlie unethical practices in business and organizational culture. This cross-disciplinary conversation also provides resources for transforming such unethical systems and dynamics by offering principles for structuring and evaluating improvements in the organization and practices comprising the business value chain.
Subject Area
Ethics|Theology|Business administration|Religion
Recommended Citation
Puen, Stephanie Ann Yu, "Design Thinking and Catholic Social Thought: Resources for Addressing Structures of Sin and Grace in Business Ethics" (2021). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI28418301.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI28418301
