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This study examined the relationships between the four dimensions of the protestant work ethic (internal locus of control, asceticism, hard work, anti‐leisure) and organizational counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). Based on a sample of Chinese employees, the results from two‐wave lagged data (N = 691) indicated that the asceticism dimension and the anti‐leisure dimension were negatively associated with CWBs. These associations were moderated by party affiliation, indicating that party members had a stronger negative relationship between these constructs than non‐party members did.

Objective Four studies tested the existential and existential buffering functions of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). We tested whether the facets of meaning mediated these functions. Method All studies measured RWA and meaning in life (MIL). Study 1, N = 2,319, also measured covariates, including Protestant Work Ethic and religiosity. Study 2, N = 505, examined RWA and meaning facets (purpose, coherence, and significance), and measured religiosity. Study 3, N = 971, measured psychological distress to test the existential buffering function of RWA. Study 4, N = 833, tested this hypothesis using meaning facets and tested for moderated mediation. Results In all studies, RWA and MIL were positively correlated. In Study 1, Protestant Work Ethic and religiosity weakened this association. In Study 2, significance mediated the association between RWA and global MIL. Religiosity wiped out the relationship between RWA and meaning variables, except significance. Study 3 supported the existential buffering hypothesis: distress and global MIL were less strongly related among those high on RWA. Study 4 replicated this finding for MIL facets. Significance mediated the existential buffering function of RWA. Conclusions Findings extend scientific knowledge by demonstrating that RWA contributes to MIL, particularly existential mattering, and especially for those experiencing distress. We discuss implications for our understanding of RWA and MIL.

Anthropologists have traditionally classified foragers on the Pacific coast of North America into two major culture areas, characterized by strikingly different social and ethical systems. These are “California” and the adjacent “Northwest Coast.” Foragers in the northern part of California exhibit many elements of Weber's “Protestant ethic,” such as the moral injunction for community leaders to work hard, seek spiritual purpose by introspection, and pursue monetary wealth while avoiding material excess. By contrast, the social organization of Northwest Coast foragers bears comparison with that of courtly estates in medieval Europe, where a leisured class of nobles achieved status through hereditary ranking, competitive banquets, dazzling aesthetic displays, and the retention of household slaves captured in war. Remarkably, the coexistence of two such clearly opposed value systems among foragers inhabiting adjacent parts of the Pacific littoral has excited little interest in anthropologists, historians, or archaeologists to date. We consider the implications, which cast doubt on some key orthodoxies concerning the nature of culture areas, modes of subsistence, and political evolution. We argue that the political creativity of foraging peoples has been severely underrated.

Summary Benito Arrunada finds evidence of a distinct Protestant social ethic in the ISSP's 1998 Religion II Survey (Economic Journal 2010; 120: 890–918). We replicate Arrunada's results using his broad definition of Protestantism and our new narrow definition, which includes only those ascetic denominations that Max Weber singled out for possessing a strong capitalist work ethic. We then extend this analysis to the ISSP's 2008 Religion III Survey, the most recent comparable international questionnaire on religious attitudes and religious change. We find no evidence of a Calvinist work ethic, and suggest that Arrunada's Protestant social ethic continues into the 21st century. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Max Weber's thesis that a “Protestant ethic” in a subset of Protestant sects created a “spirit of capitalism” is often interpreted as an explanation for the increase in economic growth in the Protestant parts of the West before and during the industrial revolution. One alternative pathway through which Protestantism might have contributed to high economic performance is that it was Protestantism's promotion of literacy that led to higher economic growth and not behavioral changes due to a Protestant ethic as suggested by Weber. To evaluate the “Protestant reading ethic” thesis, this study examines historical events for the period from 1500 up to the 1800s in nine countries. The study also explores available cross-national quantitative data on economic development and literacy for the same period. The qualitative and quantitative evidence supports the overall thesis that Protestantism promoted literacy and rises in literacy likely contributed to the economic development. The evidence also suggests that the impact of Protestantism on literacy varied depending on what actions were taken by Protestant states and Protestant national churches to promote literacy.

This essay analyzes current Protestant perspectives on the relationship between this tradition and capitalism from the perspective of social and ecological concerns. Rather than deciding between the tradition's purity or culpability in the rise of capitalism, this essay suggests that those concerned with both the future of the tradition and social/eco-justice must acknowledge both the tradition's congruence with global capitalism and the tradition's prophetic ability to critique and propose alternatives.

Max Weber did not invent the image of the iron cage; it was Talcott Parsons who created that image in preparing the first translation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism into English to be published. But that has not prevented it from catching on and even acquiring the status of a popular symbol of Weber's entire view of modern life. Despite its popularity, however, the image does not have a commonly accepted meaning. In part this is because of the creative uses to which it has been put by other scholars, but it is also a result of the fact that Weber himself used the German terms that were the source of Parsons’ translation in a variety of different ways over the course of his scholarly career. The purpose of this paper is to examine those uses to determine whether the meanings they convey add up to something coherent, and if so, what exactly that meaning was.

In the modern era, a wide range of human activities has been redefined as work. This essay traces a genealogy of the modern conception of work, from early Protestant ethic of work as worship of God, through secularization of this ethic and the emergence of the idea of progress, to the later model of work as personal duty and source of stability. Analyzing Hegel, Marx, and Weber's interpretations of the growing centrality of work in the modern epoch, as well as later reflections on these interpretations by Kojeve, Arendt, and Foucault, the paper argues that in modernity work is no longer a mere instrument of power and tool for repressing human life, but a mode of power of its own accord: a privileged means of shaping life by cultivating and regulating its productive potential. Modern society is reorganized according to the principles of productivity, efficiency, and economic welfare of population as a whole that recalibrate individual existence and posit virtually all activities as a form of work.

Empirical research on the determinants of regional economic development typically neglects the influence of culture. This study fills that gap by attempting to establish a causal linkage between culture and economic development in the Chinese context. Our empirical analyses are based on a comprehensive economic statistics of China's provinces and prefectures during 1978 to 2008. We use Protestantism as a proxy for culture because Protestant ethic has been linked to the spirit of capitalism and commercial culture in Weber's famous work. To isolate the exogenous variation in culture measure, historical Protestant dissemination is employed as instruments. The estimation results suggest that Christian commercial culture has a significantly positive impact on economic performance – per capita GDP after other important influences (i.e., capital, population, human resources, institutional quality, trade, infrastructure, geography, etc.) are controlled for. We also find heterogeneous effects of culture on economic development in different regions of China.

Contesting International Society in East Asia. Edited by Buzan Barry, Zhang Yongjin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 272 pp., $95.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-07747-8). In a collection of fine essays, this book asks a timely question: Is there an (emerging) international regional society in East Asia? Two scenarios/interpretations of the “Western–global international society” are first introduced: the “globalization” view in which the Western systems and values triumph in some form, and the “postcolonial” view in which the “regional” international society will assert itself (pp. 5–6). In theory, however, a third interpretation should also be possible: the emergence of a non-Western “global” society. The book also seeks to conceptualize the international relations of East Asia from the perspective of the English School. Indeed, there is quite a strong link between the book under review and The Expansion of International Society edited by Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (⇓) but not just because the latter is generally regarded as a foundational text of the English School. The seemingly unlikely link is an essay by Ali Mazrui (⇓:289–308) entitled: “Africa Entrapped: Between the Protestant Ethic and the Legacy of Westphalia,” which basically articulates what the editors of Contesting International Society in East Asia , Barry Buzan and Yongjin Zhang, would call “a core-periphery view of Western–global international society” (pp. 5–6). Mazrui argues that Africa was a miracle of diversity, that it interpreted and practiced “primary institutions” differently, that it had no dominant core, …

In this article, I track the ways in which Catholicism articulates with contemporary neoliberalism. Grounded in an analysis of how neoliberal welfare-state reform in Lombardy, northern Italy, is rendered through core idioms of the Catholic imaginative universe, I argue that the Lombardian case offers general insight into the “moral style” of contemporary neoliberalism. In contrast to the messianic gospel of prosperity exhibited by the Protestant ethic at the turn of the millennium (a gospel that promised instantaneous rushes of wealth through quasi-magical means), the charisma of Catholicized neoliberalism lies not in its rejection of the market but in its injunction that parts of this wealth ought to be redistributed through charitable actions. Catholicized neoliberalism thus hinges on a loving empathetic subject that purportedly repairs the damages of excessive marketization. It couples market rule to moral sentiment, economic rationality to the emotional urgencies of caritas. Although this new culture of feeling and action tends to leave neoliberalism's basic structural features intact, it also at times allows for the disruption of market rule.

Entrepreneurs are not the only ones to salivate at the call of emerging markets. Major nonprofit organizations that raise money in high-income Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for redistribution in developing countries are also looking for new sources of funds. Some of the countries that benefited from private philanthropy not too long ago are now in a position to help. The contribution of this paper is two-prong. First, it introduces a robust market screening methodology to determine countries' capacities to give on the basis of macroeconomic and infrastructure indicators. Second, it identifies cross-cultural predictors for charitable donations taken from the World Value Survey. A logistic regression calibrated on already successful fundraising operation scores countries on their propensity for private philanthropy. Research findings receive theoretical support from Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Top countries for private philanthropy are of Protestant tradition and are at the origin of capitalism, as we know it today. Confucian countries that share a similar ethic and have opted for capitalist economies are first class candidates for private philanthropy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

It turns out that Max Weber was on to something when he suggested that it was not natural or automatic that wealthy individuals invest their capital rather than keep it or spend it on themselves. Patterns of economic growth and capital investment in the United States over the last century indicate that in general some inducement or pressure is necessary to convince those who control money to risk it rather than hoard it.

Two studies examined modern homonegative attitudes among nonstudents. In Study 1, participants completed the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS; Morrison & Morrison, 2002) and other measures. Results indicated that MHS scores correlated positively with neoracism, neosexism, and the Protestant work ethic, and negatively with humanitarianism–egalitarianism. Gender differences were found and, irrespective of participant sex, greater modern homonegativity was directed toward gay, rather than lesbian targets. Study 2 extended research in the realm of modern homonegativity by investigating the linkage between modern homonegative attitudes and behavioral intentions in a sample of 196 community participants. As expected, modern homonegativity predicted discriminatory behavioral intentions toward a gay, but not a straight mayoralty candidate. Applications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.

We examined whether the Protestant work ethic (PWE), a fundamental, individually held belief associated with both sexist attitudes and personal striving, relates to undergraduate female science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors’ perceived identity compatibility (PIC) between being a woman and being in a STEM field and expectations of dropping out of their majors across the beginning of college. Using within-person analyses across six time points, PWE-Equalizer (suggesting hard work is a social equalizer) was positively associated with PIC and inversely associated with expectations of dropping out of one’s major; PWEJustifier (justifying disadvantage by blaming group members for not working hard enough) showed the opposite pattern. PIC mediated the relationship between PWE and expectations of dropping out. Implications for future directions in research, as well as for educational policy aimed at increasing the numbers of women in STEM fields, are discussed. Gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are sizeable, pervasive, and occur at all levels of achievement (e.g., AAUW, 2004; NSF, 2009; Valian, 2005). The persistent underrepresentation of women who complete bachelor’s degrees in STEM and go on to have careers in STEM fields continues to be a societal problem examined by researchers and policy makers aiming to understand and ultimately increase women’s representation in STEM. Psychologists seeking to identify the causes of gender disparities in STEM fields have examined a variety of factors, but the most common explanations are

The Protestant work ethic (PWE), the belief that hard work leads to success, is prevalent in many cultures and has been related to negative attitudes toward disadvantaged groups (prejudice) and social policies targeting them. Given recent theorizing and findings suggesting that PWE is not necessarily associated with prejudice among all people or in all contexts, this meta‐analysis examined the direction and strength of PWE’s relation to prejudice (37 eligible studies) and policy attitudes (16 studies) among published and unpublished studies across 38years. Results revealed not only significant positive relationships between PWE and both types of intergroup attitudes but also significant moderators of these relationships. There were significantly larger effect sizes for PWE’s relationship with both prejudice and policy attitudes among samples in Western countries (Canada, England, New Zealand, USA), and marginally significantly larger effect sizes for PWE’s relationship with both types of attitudes the older the mean age of the sample (within Western countries). PWE’s relationship with intergroup attitudes also varied by the target group of the attitudes. Findings support a more nuanced view of PWE’s relationship with intergroup attitudes, suggesting that PWE does not always promote greater prejudice; rather its consequences are culture and context bound. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Asceticism seems an “invisible” Protestant work ethic (PWE) dimension that has largely been ignored in research. This study, building directly on existing knowledge, investigated the possibility that deference to authority was central to asceticism and the possible ethical implications of this. In 3 samples of employed persons, results demonstrated that highly ascetic individuals were highly authoritarian, were low in advanced moral reasoning, and regarded ethically questionable activities benefiting organizations (but not individuals) as relatively acceptable. However, “hard workers,” another PWE dimension, regarded all ethically questionable activities as inappropriate, regardless of the beneficiary, and were less clearly authoritarian. Significant relationships involving the PWE may sometimes be undetectable when combining distinct dimensions, and asceticism merits attention as a distinct PWE component. jasp_650

We argue that because conventional organizational controls have limited relevance for temporary employees, work ethic values may be a critical predictor of employee perseverance and commitment. A field study was conducted to examine the relationships between belief in the work ethic, job attitudes, intentions to quit, and turnover in a sample of temporary service employees in a large Canadian theme park. When turnover was measured as a function of remaining employed with the organization until the end of the season, the turnover rate was 10% for high work ethic employees versus 33% for low work ethic employees (X2[1, N = 128] =9.57, p Although research on the Protestant work ethic (PWE) has declined over the years, some of the earliest research on work values involved the relationship between belief in the work ethic and job attitudes (Aldag & Brief, 1975; Blood, 1969). The relationship between the PWE and work attitudes and behaviour is a topic that continues to be taken seriously by managers, scholars, and policy makers (Nord, Brief, Atieh, & Doherty, 1988), and continues to be an area of interest among those involved in research (Furnham, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c; Furnham & Koritsas, 1990). Furthermore, in recent years, a number of investigators have expressed concern that the work ethic may be changing or eroding (Cherrington, 1980; Ravlin & Meglino, 1987; Spence, 1985). Others have argued that the work ethic is alive and well (Furnham, 1990c), and have suggested that it is worthwhile to find out if work values are linked to behaviours such as job performance, turnover, and absenteeism (Shapira & Griffith, 1990). In the present study, we are particularly interested in the relationships between the work ethic and attitudes and behaviours among individuals holding temporary employment. Both scholars and practitioners have noted the increasing trend toward short-term employment relationships, what Fortune refers to as the "contingency workforce," where individuals agree to work with an employer on specific assignments for a limited period (Fierman, 1994; Pfeffer & Baron, 1988; Troy, 1990). Whereas longterm employment is often associated with a variety of benefits that provide security and help wed the individual to the employer, short-term appointments are often associated with simple economic exchanges. Under such conditions, employees are less likely to be motivated by traditional organizational control systems (e.g., promotions, supervision) and are more likely to be motivated by personal needs, desires, and dispositions. This may be especially true in service industries, such as the one studied here, where the relevance of traditional control systems to the management of the service-client interface is inherently limited (Bowen & Schneider, 1988). We regard the work ethic as a critical personal attribute that may strongly predict the propensity of temporary workers to identify with their work in the absence of effective organizational controls. Work Ethic Research Belief in the work ethic has been conceptualized as an individual difference variable that is acquired early in life and can exert a profound influence on the development of adult work attitudes and behaviours. According to Cherrington (1980), belief in the work ethic "has been defined very narrowly to refer to a positive attitude about work-a belief that work itself is important and that doing a good job is essential" (p. 19). Individuals who endorse the PWE have been described as having conservative attitudes and endorsing values of achievement, equity, obedience, salvation, cleanliness, security, and politeness (Furnham, 1990c; Furnham & Koritsas, 1990). …

Economists have increasingly emphasized the role of institutions in shaping economic activity. Among the many studies on institutions, however, there has been relatively little research on the economic role of religion in modern societies or in recent episodes of economic growth and change. This lack of research is surprising because religious practices, traditions, and philosophies are important components of national cultures that shape institutions. Religious cultures are clearly legitimate subjects for scientific study. This is not to imply that all economists have been reluctant to deal with religion. Adam Smith (1776) discussed religion from an economic perspective, arguing in his Wealth of Nations that religious participation was a rational device by which people enhanced their reputations. Smith also provided economic explanations of the behavior of clergy and religious organizations. Recent studies on the economic impact of religion include Freeman (1986), Cochran and Akers (1989), and Lehrer and Chiswick (1993), Levin (1994), and Evans et al. (1995), who examined the relationship between religion and crime, drug use, divorce, suicide, and health, respectively. Barro and McCleary (2002, 2003), Grier (1997), and Noland (2003) examined how religious cultures influenced economic growth. Ensminger (1997), Kuran (1995, 1997), and Ragab (1980) specifically examined the influence of Islamic culture on economic growth, and Uppal (1986) focused on the growth effects of Hinduism. Allen (2004), Anderson and Tollison (1992), Delacroix (1995), Kaufmann (1997), and Samuelsson (1993) recently disputed Weber’s (1905) well-known ‘Protestant ethic’ thesis. However, Iannaccone (1998) argues that the continued widespread acceptance of Weber’s 100-year old hypothesis by economists

The Protestant work ethic (PWE), the belief that hard work leads to success, is a quintessentially American belief. The present research addresses a critical gap in psychological research on PWE: can a single, large-scale sociopolitical event (government's response to Hurricane Katrina) produce changes in PWE? We review evidence showing that the salience of Katrina led to a reduction in African Americans' (not European Americans') endorsement of PWE and that this result appears explained by African Americans' greater belief in the government's inadequate response to Katrina victims, who were predominately African American. The implications of differential endorsement of PWE for future expectations of societal treatment, motivation to pursue important goals, and willingness to endorse structural corrections of inequality are discussed.

The present paper is concerned with the effects of incongruence between a person's level of employment commitment (measured with scales of work involvement, Protestant work ethic or similar concepts) and his or her current employment situation (employed or not employed). We hypothesize that this kind of incongruence (a) is a typical characteristic of the unemployment situation and (b) is systematically associated with diminished well-being and mental health. Meta-analyses of empirical data endorse both hypotheses. (a) Employed people show only marginally stronger levels of employment commitment than unemployed people (d = 0.11, equivalent to r = .05). Both groups are characterized by high mean levels of employment commitment. Therefore, unemployed people are in an incongruent situation, while employed people are not. (b) Incongruent levels of employment commitment, that is, high levels among the unemployed and low levels among the employed, are significantly associated with psychological distress (mixed symptoms of distress: r = .19; depression: r = .19; anxiety: r = .14; subjective well-being/life satisfaction: r = .13; self-esteem: r = .08). In sum, available cross-sectional data clearly endorse the incongruence model. Meta-analyses of longitudinal data, although based on small sample sizes, are also consistent with the model.

We examine the demographic and personality correlates of the Protestant ethic and how it correlates with contemporary individual and social issues. Success is more prevalent among Christian fundamentalists, those who were born outside the United States, individualists, individuals who have a higher locus of control, and individuals who believe in a just world. Hard work is more prevalent among Asian Americans and Filipinos, women, those who have a higher internal locus of control, and those who believe in a just world. Our data show that success and hard work are correlated positively with hours worked, total hours worked, and liberalization of drug laws. No other study has examined these issues using a diverse ethno-religious sample.

According to the triangle model of responsibility, responsibility is a psychological adhesive that links an actor to a set of prescriptions for behavior and to relevant events. To test predictions from the model about the antecedents and consequences of responsibility, and also to test hypotheses about how the Protestant work ethic (PWE) is related to judgments of responsibility, participants made attributions about characters in achievement situations. PWE scores were associated with attributions of stronger links, greater personal responsibility, greater expected success, and more negative reactions to a possible failure. Further, PWE predicted responsibility even after statistically controlling for judgments of obligation, control, and clarity. The findings help to clarify why the PWE is associated with the tendency to make internal attributions for social ills such as unemployment.

Weber's (1958) argument suggests that there are four ideal-types of management, and that conventional management is underpinned by a moral-point- of-view associated with a secularized Protestant Ethic, which can be characterized by its relatively high emphasis on materialism (e.g. productivity, efficiency and profitability) and individualism (e.g. competitiveness). Weber calls on management scholars and practitioners to become aware of their own moral-points-of-view, and to develop management theory and practice that de-emphasizes materialism and individualism. Our paper responds to this challenge, as we draw from an Anabaptist- Mennonite moral-point-of-view to develop a radical ideal-type of management that is characterized by its emphasis on servant leadership, stakeholding, job crafting and sustaincentrism. Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.

This article asks whether there is any casual connection between the contemporaneous decline in industriousness and religiosity in Europe over the past 25 years. In the United States working hours and levels of religious faith and observance have held steady or even increased over this period. But in most European countries they have declined together. Could this be a posthumous vindication of Max Weber's thesis about the Protestant work ethic and the rise of capitalism ? Though there (...)

Various theories attempt to explain political outcomes. One of the most bitterly contested schools of explanation deals with culture, attitudes, and values. In the broadest sense, this tradition argues that political and social outcomes are determined in large part by the shared beliefs and values of the populace or a subgroup thereof. Thus, Stephen White (1984) has defined political culture as “historically formed beliefs and behavior,” recognizing that one's political attitudes and behavior are usually formed by inherited values as well as life experience. Moreover, scholars of political culture expect continuity of values over time and therefore are intrigued by cases of changing beliefs and attitudes. Thus, the explosive growth of evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism in Latin America, where Protestants have grown from a handful to 20–30 percent of the population in a single generation, provides a unique opportunity for study. This rapid shift to Protestantism and its consequences for democracy have been fiercely debated in recent years. Max Weber's Protestant ethic thesis suggests that Protestantism may provide a catalyst for the establishment of democratic norms. However, many contemporary scholars argue that evangelical Protestantism is conservative, authoritarian, and politically passive. Do different religions result in different political attitudes? Does religious devotion, as distinguished from denomination, affect one's politics? This article evaluates political attitudes among Protestants and Catholics in Argentina and Chile to examine the claims of recent political culture arguments that modern Latin American Protestantism is resistant to democratic values. Survey data indicate that religious intensity (“devout-ness”), rather than religious affiliation, does influence political attitudes, and that demographic and political engagement variables also influence democratic values.

The present research, which was conducted among ethnic minority (N = 109) and majority (N = 649) adolescents in the Netherlands, examined the endorsement of multiculturalism in relation to ethnic ingroup identification, perceived group essentialism and protestant ethic ideology. The results revealed that ethnic minorities were more in favour of multiculturalism than Dutch participants. Furthermore, ethnic identification, group essentialism and protestant ethic were independently related to multiculturalism. However, these relations were all moderated by ethnic group status. High ethnic identification, essentialist beliefs about minority groups, and protestant ethic were related to lower endorsement of multiculturalism among the majority group. In contrast, high ethnic identification and essentialist beliefs about one's own ethnic minority group were related to stronger endorsement of multiculturalism among the minority groups, but not protestant ethic. Perceived essentialism of the majority group showed no effects. It is concluded that social psychology is able to make a valuable contribution to issues related to the management of cultural diversity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To test the hypothesis that endorsement of the Protestant work ethic would be related positively to sensitivity to criminal behavior that violated expectations, American college students (N = 159) read scenarios describing a crime committed by a typical or an atypical offender. After answering questions about the crime, they completed Mirels and Garrett's (1971) Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) scale. Extent of punishment was positively related to PWE for atypical criminal behavior. Yet, high PWEs also were more likely to perceive an affluent criminal as experiencing greater remorse for a blue-collar crime than a white-collar crime. We relate our results to perceptions of criminal behavior, information-processing tendencies among individuals endorsing the PWE, and jury selection considerations.

Prior psychological research on attitudes toward the poor has focused almost exclusively on the attributions people make to explain why individuals are poor (e.g., Smith & Stone, 1989; Zucker & Weiner, 1993). The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationships among feelings about the poor and poverty, stereotypes of the poor, attributions for poverty, and sociopolitical ideologies (as assessed by the Protestant Ethic, Belief in a Just World, and Right Wing Authoritarianism Scales). In our Midwestern college sample (n = 209), attitudes toward the poor were found to be significantly more negative than attitudes toward the middle class. In addition, participants were most likely to blame poor people them-selves for their poverty. However, attitudes toward the poor and attributions for the causes of poverty were found to vary among individuals from different sociodemographic backgrounds and by degree of endorsement of Protestant ethic, just world, and authoritarianism beliefs. Few gender differences were obtained.

In the climax to The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber writes of the stahlhartes Gehiuse that modern capitalism has created, a concept that Talcott Parsons famously rendered as the "iron cage." This article examines the status of Parsons's canonical translation; the putative sources of its imagery (in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress); and the more complex idea that Weber himself sought to evoke with the "shell as hard as steel": a reconstitution of the human subject under bureaucratic capitalism in which "steel" becomes emblematic of modernity. Steel, unlike the "element" iron, is a product of human fabrication. It is both hard and potentially flexible. Further, whereas a cage confines human agents, but leaves their powers otherwise intact, a "shell" suggests that modern capitalism has created a new kind of being. After examining objections to this interpretation, I argue that whatever the problems with Parsons's "iron cage" as a rendition of Weber's own metaphor, it has become a "traveling idea," a fertile coinage in its own right, an intriguing example of how the translator's imagination can impose itself influentially on the text and its readers.

The authors tested the proposition that identification with the work role and engagement in the work role constitute different aspects of a general commitment to work. Whereas work centrality (a strictly normative attitude) represents the extent to which a person identifies with the work role, work alienation (an affect-inclusive attitude) represents the extent to which a person is engaged in the work role. Predicated on these conceptual distinctions, the authors tested whether work centrality and work alienation exhibited theoretically-meaningful, differential correlations with six variables reflecting various work-related commitments. Using data from 349 employed individuals, the results of Hotelling–Williams t tests revealed that, compared to work alienation, work centrality had stronger correlations with Protestant work ethic and leisure ethic. In contrast, compared to work centrality, work alienation was more strongly correlated with work locus of control, work self-discipline, and affective organizational commitment. Work centrality and work alienation did not differ in their correlations with job involvement–role. Taken together, the results suggest that people who are highly committed to work not only identify with the work role, they are also engaged in the work role. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents a cross-cultural comparison of Protestant work ethic characteristics of practising Protestant British and practising Muslim Turkish managers using Mirels and Garrett’s Protestant work ethic scale. Max Weber’s Protestant work ethic thesis is used as the conceptual framework in this study. The nature of the Protestant work ethic thesis and its relationship with organisation culture is discussed. Multivariate and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyse the data. The results suggest that there is a significant difference between practising Muslim Turkish managers and practising Protestant British managers: the Turkish group showed relatively higher Protestant work ethic scores than their Protestant counterparts. Possible reasons for the difference between British and Turkish groups are advanced in the light of Turkish economic, social and political developments. It is argued that representative Islamic sources also support the results of this research by pointing to the important role of a work ethic in Islam.

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958), studied in isolation, shows mainly an elective affinity or an adequacy on the level of meaning between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. It is suggested the Weber's subsequent essays on The Economic Ethics of World Religions (1958, 1959) are the result of his opinion that adequacy on the level of meaning needs and can be verified by causal adequacy. The concept of causal adequacy and the related concept of objective possibility are developed on hte basis of the work of v. Kries on who Weber heavily relied. This concept is used to show how the study of the economic ethics of India, China, Rome and orthodox Russia can support the thesis that the spirit of capitalism, although it may not have been caused by the Protestant ethic, was perhaps adequately caused by it.

This study extended pioneering research of M. J. Bond and N. T. Feather (1988) into time structure and purpose. These investigators reported generally positive relationships between five time structure components and Type A behavior and orthogonal relationships with the Protestant work ethic (PWE). Such findings seemed inconsistent with theoretical expectations, and therefore potentially threatened the nomological validity of Bond and Feather's Time Structure Questionnaire (TSQ). In this study, two samples of employed persons (total N=407) completed self-report surveys. No time structure component was associated with global Type A or PWE measures. Orthogonal relationships also appeared with impatient, irritable, and time-pressured aspects of Type A behavior, and with three PWE beliefs concerned with asceticism, leisure, and perceived superiority to others. On the other hand, some TSQ dimensions, particularly Persistence, related positively to PWE beliefs that hard work is essential to produce valued outcomes. Moreover, five of six TSQ components tended to be strongly and positively linked with the hard-driving, competitive, and achievement-oriented side of Type A behavior. This study reconciled past and current research findings, and affirmed the potential importance of time structure and purpose in the study of organizational behavior. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

I. INTRODUCTION Max Weber's [1930] "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" argues that the Protestant reformation set the stage for post-Medieval economic growth. Using an occupational study of Germans from 1895, Weber shows that Protestants dominate the mercantile or capitalist occupations in that country at that time period. Weber also argues that between 1600 and 1900, Protestant countries advanced faster than their Catholic neighbors and that this was the result of Calvin's urging acceptance of material success and the dogma of predestination.(1) An ocean of work beginning with Rachfahl [1909] and Sombart [1913] has since attacked Weber's theological generalizations (see Giddens, [1992], for a review). Tawney [1926] and Robertson [1933] argue Weber's causal interpretation is wrong and that economic growth laid the framework for Protestantism, not Protestantism for economic growth. Samuelsson [1961] disputes the very correlation between Protestantism and economic success which is the basis of the Weberian hypothesis. The correlation between Protestantism and economic success is certainly weaker than Weber suggests, even in the German data that Weber himself uses. Furthermore, more modem data tends to find only a modest link between Protestantism and economic success, as in Winter [1974] and Tomes [1994].(2) However, for centuries there were gaps in economic success between Protestant and Catholic nations, and new findings on early modem data tend to confirm differences between Protestants and Catholics at least within the U.S. As Weber's arch-critic Samuelsson himself writes "there is some truth in the contention that the Protestant countries, and especially those adhering to the Reformed church, were particularly vigorous economically." Given that there was some correlation between Protestantism and economic success before the mid to late 20th century, the question then becomes why this correlation existed. Some elements of Protestant theology clearly encourage capitalism. Usury doctrines became less rigid under Calvinism (Nelson [1972]); avarice was de-emphasized as a sin. Weber claims that Luther's concept of a "calling" includes worldly success and that this is a prominent difference with Catholic doctrine. Although this theological claim has been subject to much debate, e.g. Sombart [1915], there still appears to be some basic truth to this point. One of the largest theological gaps between the denominations is that Calvinism accepts the dogma of predestination while Catholicism argues for a dogma of free will.(3) For the purposes of this paper we will follow Weber and accept broad brush definitions of doctrine rather than getting mired in the more subtle features of the two doctrines. Under predestination, a spiritual elite is preordained before the beginning of time and will receive eternal life.(4) Under free will, it is only through a lifetime of good actions that individuals are accepted into Heaven.(5) Weber argues that predestination creates a more lasting basis for economic growth than the dogma of free will. In this paper, we present a model that formally treats Weber's claim under particular circumstances and show how predestination could create the correlation between Protestantism and growth that existed in the pre-modern era. Our model also suggests conditions under which a more successful society would favor the doctrine of predestination, which can be seen as a formalization of Tawney's and Robertson's view that economic growth created the reformation. In this essay, both free will and predestination create incentives which spur good behavior.(6) Under the doctrine of free will, good behavior is motivated by an increased probability of getting into heaven. Under the doctrine of predestination, this incentive is irrelevant because individual actions do not determine spiritual outcomes. Instead an individual's actions are motivated by a desire to receive positive behavior from others by convincing them that he is part of the spiritual elite. …

This paper is an application of Max Weber’s thesis about the “elective affinity” between Protestant religious impulses and the rise of capitalism, and rationalization of benevolence. Exploring the history of organized philanthropy in the United States, using the life and work of John D. Rockefeller, the paper presents the power of the religious motive in Rockefeller’s commitment to philanthropy, especially towards support for scientific university based research in medicine. Presenting historical evidence, the paper argues against those who see U.S. philanthropists as giving out of guilt or for selfish motivation, and those who critique philanthropic foundations as producers and reproducers of cultural hegemony

This article examines the work values and ethics literatures with the goal of integrating these diverse and independent research streams. The vocational behaviour literature and the management and organizational behaviour literature on work values, the Protestant Work Ethic construct, and business ethics theory are first reviewed and discussed, demonstrating how insights from these diverse research areas can inform each other. I propose a comprehensive definition of work values and a structural framework that reflects the central elements of the construct and reduces confusion over its conceptual boundaries. The framework consists of a two-by-two dimensional structure, with one continuum ranging from personal to social consensus-type values, and the other axis corresponding to moral versus preference values. The contents of each resulting quadrant and the relationships between quadrants are examined. Implications of this proposed structure for organizational socialization are discussed to illustrate its potential application.

This article tests, in the Australian context, Max Weber’s thesis that the work ethic of capitalism owed its origins to Protestantism. It studies the Australian Protestant churches for the presence of a work ethic, and investigates whether the Catholic Church also promoted such a moral precept to its members. The study then examines whether the work ethic of the Australian mercantile elite was drawn from that of the Protestant churches, from which most of its members came. The article proceeds to describe how the mercantile elite removed the religious origins of the work ethic and made it one of the foundations of its creed of economic individualism. This creed was based on the self-righteous dogma that those who worked hard were rewarded by getting rich while those who were poor only had their own lack of hard work and thrift to blame. The article demonstrates that the work ethic of modern capitalism, as espoused by the Australian mercantile elite, was the result of the secularization of the work ethic of Protestantism, a process in which the religious content of the moral principle was removed.

Taking note of the widespread usage of terms such as puritan, puritanical, and puritanism in the study of modern religious movements in South Asia, this essay builds upon the work of J. Barton Scott and Anna Tsing to open up reflection on the trans-colonial passage and critical operation of such terms. Learning that Max Weber's famous invocation of the Protestant ethic was preceded by colonial-era reflections on puritanism in South Asia, we are led to explore patterns of connectivity and friction associated with the global circulation of discourse surrounding the puritan. By coining (after Scott) the concept of a puritan assemblage and considering how it shapes scholarship on the Swaminarayan Sampraday and the Brahmo Samaj, we call attention to the way processes of redescription and translation work to create enabling and exclusionary frames for understanding modern Hinduism.

The lowlands have fostered enough of sons, and thehills, and the sea.Now a strange mother with nipples of iron gives suckto a nation.At her side the young towns take strength on theirlips.(Black)The above, taken from MacKnight Black's 1929 poem "New Mother," heralded the birth of a brave new world where organization and efficiency were the keys to the future. The people of these modern times worshipped the positive changes the machine brought to humanity, especially as it eliminated the daily drudgery of many industrial occupations. Shortly after its release, however the economy began to slide and then tumble ushering in an economic and social Depression which challenged America and its citizens. The modern engineers of the free economy, led by Herbert Hoover, had failed, it seemed, to fulfill the promises of a brighter, machine age future.In 1937 the Federal Music Project, part of the larger work relief program of the Works Progress Administration created in 1935, sponsored a short opera entitled The Romance of Robot, which in many ways is the antithesis of "New Mother." The production appeared during Franklin Roosevelt's New economic recovery plan which championed the positive attributes of organization and efficiency, if tempered with a human understanding of the social realities of the crisis. The opera satirized a society in which machines, and by extension the ideals of a now-suspect modernism, would replace individual initiative and feelings with logical decisions and stress organization over humanity. The new world order of the machine, Romance opined, was in fact a future that had no soul.In a soliloquy near the end of Romance, Robot rejects the coldness of his machine existence in favor of the human emotion love. His description of who he was defines, in part, the ideals of the machine age and the concept of modernism:Free from traditions of old,Called a new mechanist, forced to be hard,Made to be brutal and cold.Robot, they called me, the great man of steel.(The Romance of Robot)It Is relatively easy to understand what "Machine Age" means, but defining modernism has been a bit more problematic. David Hollinger compares the defining process to entering a room: "each wall is said to be 'modernist" yet each reflects light differently." In literature, modernists sought to break with the Victorian past, especially its middle-class pretensions, and re-create a new, more organic literature based on the experiences of the self. For political scientists, modernism held that science and its intellectuals would provide the cures for social ills. Religious modernism tied the methods of scientific inquiry to the Protestant work ethic in order to meet the needs of the modern world (Hollinger 37-55).Even more complicated is the relationship between modernism and the idea of modernization. Joseph Singal argues that modernism, especially as a literary avant garde movement, rose up in response to the forces of modernization. The modernists attempted to restore some sense of human order to "the rise of industry, technology, urbanization, and bureaucratic institutions." Using William James and John Dewey as guides, Singal describes two strains of modernism: one, which celebrates the individual consciousness, spontaneity and the new realms of personal experience manifesting itself mainly in art and literature (James), and two, which focuses on the elimination of social barriers and joins reason with emotion to eradicate the social problems of the day (Dewey). However, the problem is complicated by Singal's modernists ambivalence. On one hand, they admired the vitality and progress that modernization and technology brought (in fact they would utilize the new technology in their works) but, on the other, they feared the dehumanization they saw resulting from society's increasing dependence on machines. Daniel Bell argues that this ambivalence led to a modernist culture that was all form, but no content, and based upon the "machine aesthetic," where much of what was created was defined as "functional. …

Adrian Furnham, The Protestant Work Ethic. The Psychology of Work-related Beliefs and Behaviour, Routledge, Chapman & Hall, London and New York, 1990, pp. xv + 305, pb, £13.99, ISBN 0-425-01705-X. Carl-Henric Grenholm, Protestant Work Ethics: A Study of Work Ethical Theories in Contemporary Protestant Theology, Uppsala Studies in Social Ethics 15, Uppsala, 1993, pp. 350, np.

This study examined Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) and Just World Beliefs (JWB) in Great Britain and India. Secondary school children, university students and adults completed seven PWE questionnaires and the JWB questionnaire. A three-way (sex × occupational status × nationality) ANOVA showed highly significant main effects, particularly for nationality, but few significant interactions. Generally females more than males, Indians more than Britons, and schoolchildren more than adults endorse the PWE and JWB. Possible experimental artifacts and moderator variables are considered along with the possibility that genuine cultural differences were found. These results are discussed in terms of the relevant literature on cross-cultural studies of the PWE and BJW. Cette etude a examine en Grande-Bretagne et en Inde le concept d'ethique protestante du travail, ainsi que la croyance en un monde juste. Des ecoliers du niveau secondaire, des etudiants universitaires et des adultes ont cornplete sept questionn...

Is a company's in-house fitness center perceived as a place to engage in ‘leisure ’activities that are distinct from ‘work’, or as an extension of normal ‘work ’activities? This exploratory study examined the possibility that Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) beliefs might influence the frequency with which employees use their company's exercise programs and facilities. If exercise programs are regarded as ‘leisure’, then PWE endorsers would likely not participate, but the reverse might be true to the extent that such programs are seen as ‘work’. A short survey was completed by 335 employees of a large Canadian corporation which maintained an in-house fitness center that had been in operation for 16 months. The sample was almost evenly divided between users and non-users of the facilities. Results indicated that PWE endorsement was positively related both to the frequency with which respondents visited their company's fitness center, and to the perception that exercise provided work-related benefits, and these findings suggest that on-the-job fitness is regarded more as a component of ‘work ’than of ‘leisure’. ‘A corporate fitness program is the hottest perk since the executive washroom ’(Hoffman and Hobson, 1984, p. 110).

The validity of five work commitment concepts is assessed via content analysis. The role of rater naivety (i.e., familiarity) with the concepts and measures used is also evaluated. Organizational commitment and Protestant work ethic were found to be least redundant. Naive raters demonstrated more redundancy than raters familiar with the concepts and measures. The implications of these findings for the study of work commitment and organizational research in general are discussed.

A central contention of much of the literature about the nature of work values and the meaning of work is that there is (or at least has been) a consensual work ethic operating in modern industrial societies. This premise has surprisingly, rarely been put to the test. In this paper, evidence for a modern work ethic is obtained from the European Values Survey. The link between this work ethic and religion is then explored. While one conclusion of the analysis is that it is still an identifiably Protestant ethic, contextual analysis demonstrates that the effect of a country's religious culture is more potent than the religious beliefs of the individual.