@article{2011:heyrman:belgian_ca,
title = {Belgian Catholic entrepreneurs’ organizations, 1880 to 1940. A dialogue on social responsibility},
year = {2011},
note = {During the last decades of the 19th century and the interwar period
the Belgian Catholic Church entered into an intense dialogue with the
entrepreneurial milieu. Building on older networks several Catholic
entrepreneurs’ organizations were created. These structures
developed intricate discourses, confronting business men with their
social responsibility, shaping and affirming their identity and
worldview in contrast to that of their liberal counterparts. Belgian
Catholic entrepreneurs associations radiated a particular
organizational culture, exuding a genteel atmosphere of a
socio-religious debating club. But they also advocated a clear
Christian identity, in line with Catholic social teachings and
neo-scholastic philosophy. Only a (re) Christianization of the
business world, so they argued, would provide a durable solution to
existing social tensions. The bon patron catholique had to become an
instrument of moral regeneration and social renovation. Members were
urged to highlight the Catholic identity of their company, to guide
and monitor the families that worked for them and to offer clear and
regular support to social works. The discourse of the Belgian Catholic
entrepreneurial organizations on the social responsibility of their
members would only slowly move away from its paternalist roots.
Nonetheless in the interwar period a more structural vision of social
relations arose, resulting in a closer collaboration with the
Christian workers movement. This prepared the Belgian Catholic
entrepreneurs’ organizations for their leading role in the post-war
welfare state and its systems of interest mediation and collective
bargaining.},
journal = {Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte},
pages = {163--186},
author = {Heyrman, Peter},
volume = {56},
number = {2}
}