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John Paul II's views on economic systems have been construed differently by some commentators who have been seeking approval for their own views rather than searching for the meaning that he himself intends to convey. John Paul is labeled by many as favoring capitalism, and by others as supporting socialism. A few have been scrutinizing his statements in hopes of finding support for a “third‐way.” In this paper, John Paul is quoted at length to represent his views more accurately.

This paper originated in a collection of essays on the theme of John Paul II's vision of the social economy that was published by the International Journal of Social Economics in fall 1998. This author is indebted to the contributors to that collection for many insights into John Paul's vision. Eight topics are covered: consumption, distribution, capital investment, work as such, leisure, labor, development, and market economy versus command economy. This paper uses many more direct quotes than is customary in scholarly work, but there is no other way to proceed and remain faithful to John Paul's vision of the social economy.

John Paul's writings on economic affairs are significant for what they teach about the premises employed in economics. His own philosophy of the human person reinforces the four premises of personalist economics more so than the premises of the mainstream and challenges the mainstream at its foundations in the philosophy of individualism.

John Paul speaks to a wide range of issues and questions central to economics and economic affairs. It would be presumptuous to represent this paper as a thorough examination of everything that John Paul has said, written, and means in this regard.

This paper attempts to highlight some of the key arguments that John Paul II has set forth on eight centrally important economic topics, comparing and contrasting his pronouncements with the views of mainstream economists on the same topics.

This paper draws on the insights of 20 professional colleagues specialized in range of subdisciplines in economics, holding faculty positions at major universities in the USA, Italy, and Canada, and with a strong interest in understanding the social economy. The concluding section states John Paul's vision of the social economy in terms of 13 most important arguments.

This paper is the first in a series that reprints methodological appendices or methods chapters found in workplace and organisational ethnographic books, and provides an opportunity for reflection by the author through an introductory commentary. Simon Down, the author of Narratives of Enterprise (Down, 2006) reflects on the writing and the research underpinning his ethnography. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The reprinting of such chapters will enhance access to key ethnographic texts, and facilitate reflection on methodological choices authors made. In so doing this paper will provide insights into methodological ethnographic writing, and show how sensibilities and fashions change over time.

Narratives of Enterprise (Down, 2006) examined how two small business managers in a single firm construct an entrepreneurial self-identity, and what this process of self-creation means for the individuals and how the firm is managed. The key topics explored in the book, self-identity as a conceptual tool and enterprise as a social and economic reality, have both grown in relevance and importance since the research was conducted. Down also reflects on that nature and dynamism of friendship in research practice.

Reflection on choices made at some distance can provide particular and valuable insights into the development of research practice.

This paper aims to describe a novel collaboration between a worker and a former service user in developing two support groups – an art group and an “alcoholics anonymous group” self help group – at a central London “Wet” hostel for the homeless. The paper seeks to explore the issues raised for both workers in this experience.

The paper is a jointly written case study of innovative and reflective practice. It begins with an overview of policy frameworks and research that promote and advocate inclusion practice; then gives an account of the origins and development of the collaboration initiative; and concludes with reflections from each of the participants on what they have gained from the experience.

The main challenge for professionals lies in the need for “self‐reflective” practice and to challenge their own personal investments in the maintenance of their professional role and status. For ex‐service users, the challenge is to overcome low self‐confidence, the safety of the all‐too‐familiar “service user” role, and to realise that, despite real obstacles, a productive, useful contribution can be made to society. This can therefore be seen as a journey for both parties.

Working with multiple exclusion homelessness can leave professionals feeling isolated and deskilled, leading people with complex needs to be further excluded from services that feel that they do not fit their criteria. Tackling these issues requires time for reflection on the personal issues raised.

The paper provides unique learning and insight into the development and running of support groups, resulting from the novel collaboration between a worker and a former service user.

The purpose of this paper is to present a perspective on need that derives from a personalism which is grounded in Catholic social thought and runs counter to the individualism of mainstream economics, focusing on need in the context of three economic activities: consumption, work, and leisure.

Three strands of Christian personalism emerged in twentieth‐century Europe: in Paris, Munich, and Lublin. The author's comments derive from the Lublin strand.

Mainstream economics regards consumption as satisfying human material wants. Need is disregarded except when poverty is addressed. Personalist economics insists that there are needs of the human spirit which are addressed through consumption. Personalist economics views work as having two effects. First, by producing goods and services it provides income to purchase those goods and services. Second, it provides opportunities to associate with others in the workplace, and to apply creative talents and energies. Mainstream economics regards the first but not the second as within the domain of the discipline. Mainstream economics defines leisure negatively as time spent not working. Personalist economics sees it positively as an activity crucial to personal development.

The reader is asked to consider two questions. Will economic theory continue to be constructed on an economic agent who is represented by the passive and predictable homo economicus of mainstream economics that is based on the individualism of the seventeenth‐to‐eighteenth century enlightenment? Or, will it turn to the active and unpredictable acting person of personalist economics based on a personalism that emerged in the twentieth century?

The encyclical Centesimus Annus was published by Pope John Paul II in commemoration of Rerum Novarum, written 100 years ago by Leo XIII. That encyclical initiated a century of Catholic social teaching consisting, by now, of six encyclicals. Together, they are intended to represent a unified system of thought, the Church′s social vision. Its basic themes all centre on the God‐ordained dignity of man. The Pope calls for a modified, “corrected” capitalism, a “Society of free work, of enterprise and of participation”. The economic activities of man are to be reoriented towards the common good, with the ultimate goal of eradicating poverty, exploitation, and alienation. Rejects the economic proposals of the Pope as lacking of substance and internal consistency. Its assumption that man can enjoy all the advantages of free markets while also correcting for their less‐desirable effects at will reveals that, despite some modifications, Catholic social thought is still inspired by what has been termed the “unconstrained” vision.

While this paper is concerned with social teaching in the Catholic Church, I must point out that social action in Canadian churches has taken on an ecumenical approach. For example, on Ash Wednesday, 1988, 12 leading Canadian religious bodies, including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Anglican Primate of Canada, and spokespersons for the Lutherans and Disciples of Christ rejected “increased defence spending as a priority” and that “nuclear weapons have no place in the national defence policies.”

The purpose of this paper is to present the argument that in principle any company can become a good company by adopting certain characteristics which define the good in enterprise affairs and affirm and reinforce everyone with a stake in the company – managers, workers, suppliers, customers, and communities where it operates – in addition to its owners.

To identify the characteristics of the good company the paper turns to Catholic social teaching, with its traditional emphasis on the importance of practising virtue in worldly affairs. In this regard, the paper relies heavily on the writings and public statements of Pope John Paul II, who addressed these matters with great clarity and insight.

In its research the paper finds eight characteristics by which the good company can be identified and which, if embraced by the leadership of a willing and committed enterprise, can help to transform it into a good company. Each of the eight is addressed in some detail.

The paper examines a vast body of writings that, according to Catholic social teaching, identify the good in enterprise affairs. One of the eight characteristics, personalist capital, advances the proposal that the good company routinely maximizes virtue among its stakeholders and thereby enhances its own profitability because the virtuous person is the more effective economic agent.

Introduction On 15 May 1891 Pope Leo XIII issued what has become known as “the Great Social Encyclical”, Rerum Novarum: De Conditione Opificum; or, “Revolutionary Change: On the Condition of the Working Classes”. Forty years thereafter, Pope Pius XI issued the second GSE, Quadragesimo Anno: On the Restoration of the Social Order (15 May 1931); and, in a string of papal pronouncements (allocutions, encyclical epistles and letters, etc.) and related Vatican documents ranging from Pius XII's brief Sertum laetitiae (1 Nov. 1939) and Radio Address of Pentacost 1941 celebrating the 50th anniversary of RN, e.g. via John XXIII's Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris (1961; 1963), …, John Paul II's Laborem Exercens: On Human Work and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: On Social Concern (1981; 1987), official “Social Catholicism” has continued to address itself to the so‐called “social question” over this near‐century. It is thus with some anticipation, and the prediction of a prominent US ordinary, that we await a major social encyclical letter on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, perhaps with the opening words and title, Centesimo Anno: On the Social Question Today.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s path-breaking book After Virtue launched him into a place of prominence in social and moral philosophy. Two central, and still relevant, themes are identifiable in the corpus of MacIntyre’s work. First, advanced modernity is in a perilous state because of the philosophical creation of the emotivist self. Second, virtue must be reclaimed if the crisis in moral philosophy is to be addressed and an institutional world worthy of what we are as human beings is to be built. MacIntyre’s heroic effort in this regard is a new presentation of a Thomistic Aristotelianism but he was not naïve about the chances of his project’s success. Emotivism has made it extremely difficult for a virtue perspective to even gain a hearing. MacIntyre proposed a way forward different from abstract theorising. He felt that at this point we could, and had to, learn how to act from accounts of exemplary lives. This chapter presents the wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden as a contribution to aid in the recovery of virtue. The central claim being made is that it is long overdue that John Wooden should take his rightful place in the virtue tradition in ethics. This work gives John Wooden’s conception of leadership that flows from his understanding of virtue the attention it deserves. The examination of John Wooden’s life undertaken bridges virtue theory and leadership. Several other key elements of MacIntyre’s thought set the structure of the inquiry. The chapter begins with a biographical sketch of Wooden’s life because of the stress that MacIntyre places on tradition and narrative unity. The basis of Wooden’s reflection on virtue, the tradition informing his practical reasoning, is a selected canon of Western civilisation, its great literature and the Bible. The Midwestern values of hard work, honesty, faith, and caring for one’s family are also significant. MacIntyre places great emphasis on the need to understand the story of a life and, in particular, the need to understand how development was aided or hindered in childhood and what kind of apprenticeship into a practice was available. The singular influence John Wooden’s father had on his life is documented. The role that John Wooden’s teachers, coaches and mentors played in initiating him into the practice of coaching is reviewed. The experiential base for Wooden’s derivation of his emotionally healthy definition of success and his well thought out conception of the virtues is thus put in place. MacIntyre summarises the teleological structure of human life and the role of virtue in human flourishing by contrasting man-as-he-happens-to-be with man-as-he-should-be-if-he-realised-his-essential-nature. John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success identifies the combination of personal qualities and values, virtues, that fulfil MacIntyre’s second term, that are intrinsic to reaching one’s potential as a person. The 15 qualities Wooden gives – industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, self-control, alertness, initiative, intentness, condition, skill, team spirit, poise, confidence, competitive greatness – are defined and illustrated. The rationale for the qualities and for their placement into a coherent whole is discussed. Basic elements of John Wooden’s leadership genius are then brought out. Leaders need to get the culture right, build cohesive teams, and be guided by a moral topline.