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Servants to the Lender: The History of Faith-Based Business in Four Case Studies

Burton, Zachary T
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1499366069449044

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
Tyson, Chick-fil-A, Walmart, and Hobby Lobby's presence within the faith-based business community is mostly thanks to corporate lineages that reached well into the previous century. Tyson was founded in 1935, Chick-fil-A in 1946, Walmart in 1962, and Hobby Lobby in 1972, each undergoing various business model and philosophical shifts along with their executives' changing understanding of Christian faith. This thesis analyzes these businesses through a series of case studies, highlighting various uniting themes in their corporate narratives, exploring the ways they interact with their customers and the cultures in which they flourish, while noting that there is a discernible, yet-unexplored gap between faith-based business and workplace spirituality. Ultimately, this thesis concludes that faith-based businesses choose to identify as such as an expression of belief in a Christian supernatural deity's influence in their careers rather than as a way of garnering specific markets or making a profit.
Scott Martin, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Amilcar Challú, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
97 p.
Agriculture; American History; American Studies; Animals; Audiology; Bible; Biblical Studies; Business Administration; Business Community; Business Costs; Divinity; Economic History; Economic Theory; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Food Science; History; Labor Economics; Labor Relations; Management; Marketing; Modern History; Religion; Religious History
faith-based business; christianity; consumer capitalism; consumer culture; capitalism; history; religious history; workplace spirituality; Tyson Foods; Hobby Lobby; Wal-Mart; Chick-fil-A; meat industry; retail; fast food; crafts; evangelicalism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Burton, Z. T. (2017). Servants to the Lender: The History of Faith-Based Business in Four Case Studies [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1499366069449044

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Burton, Zachary. Servants to the Lender: The History of Faith-Based Business in Four Case Studies. 2017. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1499366069449044.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Burton, Zachary. "Servants to the Lender: The History of Faith-Based Business in Four Case Studies." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1499366069449044

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1499366069449044
3,540
© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Servants to the Lender: The History of Faith-Based Business in Four Case Studies by Zachary T Burton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.