Welcome to Transforming Business!

Transforming Business is an innovative research and development project based in Cambridge but international
in scope.

Virtuous Business

Transforming Business analyzes and catalyzes the contribution of Christianity and entrepreneurship to human and environmental well-being.

We are interested in practical solutions – 'what works?'

In finding answers to this question, we pay particular attention to the role of faith and virtue in building social capital – the institutional, relational, moral and spiritual aspects of society.

Social scientists increasingly agree that social capital is fundamental to business success, economic development and well-being, and that religion is one of its key contributors.

Through innovative research and instruction we aim to channel the rising concern about global poverty in fresh directions that will deliver tangible improvement and genuine opportunities for people in poverty, based on a biblical, holistic approach to what it means to be human.

We use robust, creative, and multi-disciplinary thinking, along with practical models and case studies, to discover and disseminate the most effective means by which faith and virtue integrates with enterprise to provide sustainable well-being. In this effort, we take special interest in enterprise solutions to poverty.

Located in a university city with an international reputation for excellence, the project is global in its research and outreach.

The aims of the project are summarized in the adjacent column.

For more information on the project, visit the "About" section.

Faith and Markets

Transforming Business has given birth to several daughter projects. Since the successful completion of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative, one such project at the University of Oxford, it has launched Faith and Markets at the University of Cambridge. Further details are available here.

Belief in Enterprise

Transforming Business teamed up with the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, to launch an exciting research and outreach initiative called Belief in Enterprise. Click here to find out more.

Support Transforming Business

Join us in understanding and fostering virtuous enterprise for the common good!

Transforming Business is entirely dependent on individual donations, which attract tax benefits.

  

New Video

Transforming Business has taken part in an international initiative called Poverty Cure. A major TV documentary has been produced by Poverty Cure that contains an interview with Transforming Business' Peter Heslam. A two-minute clip is available here.

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Our Aims

The project aims to examine and disseminate:

  • the role of faith and virtue in responsible enterprise;
  • the factors that stimulate 'the spirit of enterprise';
  • the contribution of faith-based social capital to transformative business;
  • ethical frameworks that promote good business;
  • case studies and practical models that inform, motivate and multiply poverty-reducing enterprise.

Recent Publication

Against the background of the global economic crisis of 2007-10, Peter Heslam engages with the pitfalls and potential of contemporary business in Transforming Capitalism: Entrepreneurship and the Renewal of Thrift. With only 32 pages, it's designed for busy people.

Project Completion

Transforming Business is pleased to announce the completion of a daughter project at the University of Oxford called the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative (ELI). We are grateful to all those who contributed to its success and impact. ELI's Associate Director, Dr Ken Barnes, will help build on its legacy in his appointment as Mocker-Phillips Professor of Workplace Theology and Business Ethics, and Director of the Mocker Center for Faith and Ethics in the Workplace, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (the Center's website is here).