Foundational Ideas

We believe business has enormous potential to change the world for good. This happens when its participants lead with courage, conviction, and integrity, and are guided by an enduring commitment to serve society.

There is a better way than the status quo — a way, we believe, that recognizes the critical importance of profit, yet ultimately seeks service as business' highest aim.

This new way is grounded in a commitment to stewardship — by providing goods and services that enable customers and communities to flourish, and by providing meaningful and creative work that allows employees to express their identity on the job.

Our Core Beliefs

  • A Higher Purpose: We believe the highest purpose of business is to serve – by producing goods and services that enable communities to flourish, and by providing opportunities for people to express their identity through meaningful and creative work.
  • A Force for Good: We believe business is responsible for much that is good in our world today. It is the primary institution responsible for creating economic value for distribution to society's constituents. It has enormous potential to bring positive change to the world.
  • Fortitude to Stand Against What Is Wrong: We also recognize the many ills that business has promoted and the mistakes it has repeated from the past. To enable communities to flourish, business must understand and realize its purpose and role in society.
  • Necessity of Profit: We affirm both the necessity of profit and the benefits of managing for profit. At a minimum, business cannot survive without it – "No profit, no mission."
Despite the highly publicized moral and ethical scandals in business and finance over the past decade, few business schools have risen to the challenge of re-orienting their educational approach and curriculum. ... SPU's Center for Integrity in Business is doing just that. Beginning with the purpose of business, they help future leaders think through the way business serves society and ways they as leaders can shape an organizational culture to bring out the best in their people."

Katherine Leary Alsdorf
Executive Director
Center for Faith & Work
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York