2024

Kansikas, Juha

The spirituality and ideologies of leaders and organizations have attracted attention in management science. The study of entrepreneurs from the perspective of spiritual and ideological thinking needs further attention, as conceptual challenges currently beset it. The ideologies of entrepreneurs are typically seen in the current research as political thinking. Therefore, this chapter aims to increase the conceptual understanding of this indicative typology of spiritual entrepreneurs and any conflicting personal ideologies they may hold. Contesting ideologies are defined in this study as the individual cognitive logic meant to explain the world around us. Contesting ideology replaces spiritual thinking with personal egoistic interests. The mindset and values of entrepreneurs that stem from spiritual knowledge are discussed in the context of entrepreneurial reasoning. This study contributes to the literature on how entrepreneurship is affected by spirituality, as well as the values related to it. Using a typological analysis of the selected research literature and applying the classification theme advanced by the cognitive-conative-affective approach, the study shows that the typology of spiritual entrepreneurs consists of societal, family-centric, environmental, religion-centric, antisocial, and opportunistic entrepreneurs.