Integrity and Poverty Alleviation Through Enterprise
Introduction
Integrity is the developing currency of the twenty-first century. Integrity, organizational sustainability, and social responsibility are words now consistently seen in contemporary scholarship. Indeed, the concept of caring for each other becomes dominant in this relational, interdependent world. This is particularly evident in the growing interest in enterprise development which is now seen as the most successful mechanism for alleviating poverty in emerging economies.1 The term creating social wealth has been introduced to distinguish this phenomenon from solely commercial enterprise. Creating social wealth embraces longer term intent of increasing the self-sufficiency and sustainability of the local community.2 Thus, it embraces different principles of value that attend to the betterment of human society than conventionally seen with commercial entrepreneurship.3 Indeed, could this form of integrity-based enterprise play a role in global transcendence in making a better world?
This chapter describes the journeys of three entrepreneurs who have given up their comfortable western lifestyles to work in emerging economies solely for the purpose of creating enterprises to assist in alleviating poverty and human suffering. None of these people would have called themselves entrepreneurs as their enterprises were not developed from an externalized “opportunity discovery” process.4 Rather, these ventures discovered them through an inner “calling” that they could not ignore. With no formal management training, no business plans, and no marketing experience, they followed this inner guidance and have formed successful enterprises for creating social wealth. This chapter examines this “call” as not only being a journey of enterprise development, but also one of developing a greater sense of self through “integrity.” It uses three case studies to illustrate and contribute to new theory regarding integrity in organizations. The following section reviews the literature related to integrity and enterprise development through work as a “calling.”
Integrity as an Eternal Truth
There has been a surge of research into character strengths following the development of Peterson and Seligman’s virtues in action (VIA) framework.5 Significantly, Sosik, Gentry, and Chun’s recent study found that integrity was the most significant character strength that contributed to executive performance and the ultimate success of the organization.6 They found that executives with strong integrity had the courage to make brave decisions and to act fairly and consistently “with their decision in the face of adversity and multiple constituents with competing interests and agendas.”7 Without integrity executives were not able to receive the same levels of trust, support, and communication from their associates. Such a study demonstrates the important link between integrity and organizational performance. While there has been little agreement on the meaning of integrity,8 a number of qualities emerge as consistent, as reflected in Becker’s definition of integrity as a “commitment in action to a morally justifiable set of principles and values….”9 This, along with other definitions, suggests that integrity requires a strong moral base, consistency, and wholeness.10
Becker argues that integrity is both subjective (personal) and objective (social).11 Subjective integrity consists of personal integrity that is based upon one’s own moral norms, and moral integrity that is based on someone else’s subjectivism. Objective integrity is more than adherence to a subjective set of values (whether personal or moral). For Becker, integrity is embedded in a rational set of principles that extent beyond personal emotion. This conforms to the first quality which is adherence to a universal moral principle. These moral principles have been described by Parameshwar as “eternal truths” that guide us.12 These eternal truths mirror the six virtues Peterson and Seligman synthesized from the 24 character strengths valued by moral philosophers and religious thinkers (bravery, courage justice, temperance, transcendence, and wisdom).13 While their initial research included integrity as a character strength contributing to courage, in later work integrity has been deleted in favor of honesty.14 Yet, as Sosik et al. found, integrity is instrumental for organizational success and hence is central for moral guidance.15
A second important quality of integrity is consistency in action. As Drucker notes, integrity is the “congruence between deeds and words, between behaviour and professed beliefs and values.”16 This requires an inner alignment to respond consistently across time and space,17 demonstrating that integrity is not a static one-off performance but is recognized, built upon, and developed over time. Paine confirms that those with integrity “stand for something and remain steadfast when confronted with adversity or temptation.”18 Integrity, therefore, needs to be earned and yet can be tested and challenged at any time which could, from one poor decision, diminish a person’s stockpile of integrity.
The final quality characterizing integrity is wholeness, which means integrating the mind, body, and spirit. Jacobs explains that a person who has integrity is a whole person and is “likely to respond to a problem without compartmentalization… blending reason and emotion, self-interest and social consciousness in his or her work… [Thus] integrity implies a conscious reconciliation of variables.”19 Palanski and Yammarino extend this reconciliation process by stating that wholeness is when one’s moral dispositions complement each other.20 Feeling whole therefore enables one to attain clarity of insight which supports adherence and consistency to the eternal truths. Being whole also means the boundary between self and other become blurred, allowing one to live in a relational world with more equanimity. Integrity allows us to detach from our “small-egos” and we are able to connect to something far deeper than ourselves, a central feature of transcendence.21 In suggesting that integrity is an eternal truth, the integration of both life purpose and meaning builds a vital energy that assists in mutual transformation.
Enterprise as a Calling
Klein suggests that most of the literature on entrepreneurial opportunity discovery focuses on the entrepreneur being alert to opportunities in the external environment.22 Recent research also views opportunities as a creation process which depends more on iterative, inductive, and incremental decision making.23 However, both of these perspectives still view entrepreneurship as an objective phenomenon and there has been little research into entrepreneurship as a “calling,” a subjective and inner directed sense of knowing.
A calling relates to having a perceived purpose in one’s career or work life.24 Dik and Duffy suggest that a calling is “a transcendent summons, experienced as originating beyond the self, to approach a particular life role in a manner oriented toward demonstrating or deriving a sense of purpose or meaningfulness that holds other-oriented values and goals as primary sources of motivation.”25 While there is some disagreement regarding whether a calling is an external summons, for example, from God, or from some inner directive,26 most of the literature supports that it emerges from within as a result of intense self-reflection, regardless of the source.27
Elangovan et al. attribute three conditions to a calling which they define as, “A course of action in pursuit of pro-social intentions embodying the convergence of an individual’s sense of what he or she would like to do, should do, and actually does.”28 Thus, a calling is action-oriented and links with entrepreneurship, as both are agency based. Second, there is clarity of personal mission where life and livelihood become one. This clarity helps identify the course of action and direction that create a meaningful purpose for those being called. This clarity emerges from a deeper awareness that disconnects the narrow confines of the ‘small-ego’ and connects with the great whole as part of the eternal truths.29 Finally, a calling involves prosocial intentions in helping others. Elangovan et al. cite Buechner in describing a calling as “the place where your deep gladness… and the world’s hunger meet.”30 This emphasizes the growing awareness of enterprise as a mechanism for global connectivity and poverty alleviation. Thus, a calling will have some moral principle or cause at the core of its intention to help others and make the world a better place.
Case Studies
This section describes the three case studies of integrity in action. The first case study describes a New Zealand entrepreneur, Kerry Hilton, who gave up his corporate life to set up an enterprise in Kolkata, India, solely to assist women leave the sex trade. Freeset now employs over 200 women in the textile industry and the central criterion for employment is the need to leave prostitution rather than the more conventional skill-based requirement. “Freeset is a fair trade business offering employment to women trapped in Kolkata’s sex trade. We make quality jute bags and organic cotton t-shirts, but our business is freedom!”.31 Kerry says,
“If you’re in business, you try and get the best skilled people for the job, right? In Freeset though, we take on women out of their need to be free, not on their skill. We have one woman here who costs us a fortune because she breaks and ruins the textiles, she just can’t sew. Now, that’s not a good business model for making a profit but it’s our social purpose that drives us.”
The second case is set in South Africa. Rain Africa, a handmade labor-intensive bath and body range was created by Bev Missing who has a mission to provide employment in a region with high poverty, high unemployment, and high crime. She began by making soap for her bed and breakfast, but quickly realized that her dream of providing high employment could only be realized through the global distribution of her products. Thus, she set upon expanding retailing stores throughout the world. Currently, there are eight in South Africa, one in New York and Amsterdam, and others are planned. The products are handmade with care and passion using local, indigenous, and wild-harvested plants.32 The products are presented in 100% handmade gift packaging that is recyclable. Currently Rain Africa employs 100 people in their manufacture. Bev’s vision for Rain Africa is to provide employment, education, and healthcare for her people:
“I want a full factory—humming and happy. I also want to have small local project groups and businesses growing from our demand—small entrepreneurs employing people and selling us things we don’t make, like ceramics for example. I would like to see some sort of community living set up: small but nice houses with communal orchard, vegetable garden, indoor bathrooms… sheer luxury for them compared to what they have now, a small day care facility for the kids, a trust fund for education scholarships for staff children. We already do team building things, but with a bigger budget, we can really do good things with the staff. Sadly all of this costs money which we just do not have—so to get to a point where we can do things, the company needs to become profitable and that means more stores and more economy of scale—a process and a challenge.”
The third case study involves the enterprise of Rose Circles, begun by Australian woman Anne Godfrey who now lives in the small town of Parola in the Maharashtra province, 400 km north-east of Mumbai, India. The purpose of Rose Circles is to give work to the many impoverished women in India who are in situations without hope. Anne says,
“Our video [website] shows the conditions that these women live in and the reality is just appalling. And then the joy that they get from making these wonderful products of love because we have given them one thing that they didn’t have in their lives, and that is hope. They are locked into an economy where they can’t go into a market like we can in Australia. They don’t have that possibility. If a woman’s husband dies, the parents often kick her out because they can’t afford to keep her without the wage of their son. This is the fate of many of the women that we work with. They don’t have any hope to improve their lives without assistance.”
Using off-cuts of fabric from large textile manufacturers, Anne helps the women, with no technical skills, to make quilts and other products that can be sold in the West. The rose symbolizes love, and Anne’s hope is that this message will inspire other women to purchase these products to improve the quality of the women’s lives in India. Rose Circles is therefore a project with a mission to economically uplift women in rural and marginalized areas around the world, beginning in India.33
The following discussion describes and theorizes how enterprise development requires integrity for success and how this expands global transcendence. The discussion begins with further explanation on the discovery process of a calling to work with the poor in an emerging economy. The discussion then examines the qualities of integrity and enterprise success.
Discussion
Discovery of “Calling”
These entrepreneurs confirmed that finding their calling was both internally and externally inspired. But rather than being one or the other,34 they experienced this awakening from both sources. Kerry recalled, “I had this quiet knowledge. I discovered this incredible power of God calling me and it got to a stage where my life was about the poor and I just had to go and do something. When we landed here in Kolkata we were as naïve as anything. During the first night in our rented home, we realized we were in the middle of the largest red light area in the city. So it was very clear what I needed to do! You would have to say there was some guidance there, wouldn’t you? So choosing Kolkata—it was a God moment for me and the rest just followed.” This demonstrates how a calling requires listening to the small voice and in Kerry’s case, it intensified over time. The “unsettling” deepened until he did something active and then the path became clear.
Anne’s experience of discovering her calling was instantaneous. She recalled, “He [the master] was the defining moment in my life. He just walked in and I experienced divine love. It just smacked me over. I didn’t want anything else after that. It just changed me. If a human being carries that much energy, you just want to follow. But we were shocked when we heard what he had in mind for us in India. We thought no one could live where he suggested as there were no redeeming features. It was 50 degrees and it was like a piece of rock with only one or two trees. But now, 10 years later it’s been transformed into a lush and bountiful oasis that supports nature and people.”
Bev’s calling too developed over time. Like Kerry, she explained how both internal and external sources guided her. She also articulated the effects of not listening to the call, an unsettling that is evident in this quote. “It’s that still small voice inside, your conscience. You know when you are going off the path because something doesn’t feel right or there is a feeling of guilt or a feeling of discomfort. And sometimes it comes from outside sources. You may be reading and something just really hits you between the eyes and it says this or that. And it’s not what you want to hear, but you just know it’s true.”
These comments illustrate how being called can be unsettling. It may be instantaneous, but more often deepens with awareness over time. It involves a quiet listening, and more importantly, it is about the actions that follow the call. In these case studies, these actions resulted in significant prosocial behavior in creating their enterprises. Further, the call directed their action into their social mission of helping others and thus confirms the three attributes that Elangovan et al. note characterize a calling: action based, clarity of purpose, and prosocial behavior.35 This data also demonstrates that the discovery of a calling means that there was a quiet knowledge that this is what one was meant to do, possibly for the rest of their lives. Their calling absorbs both life and work and provides clarity, meaning, and absorption.36 Bev confirmed that if she had to leave where she is, she would create a similar enterprise elsewhere. Kerry also stated, “This is not a stepping stone for somewhere else. I have no desire to go on and get a better job. Let me put it another way… There is nothing better, for me, than what I am doing now. Being able to witness freedom in action every single day of my life. I mean it’s hard… we have women that die, that have suffered, we live with a lot of pain … but I’ve got nothing better to do. This is it. Giving freedom for life, I mean it’s incredible. Why would you want to do anything else? What else is better than this?”
Enterprise as Social Wealth
Anne, Bev, and Kerry all spoke of the need to be successful commercially alongside their social mission and these tensions were evident in all of these enterprises. Bev explained, “The manufacture of our handmade products is done very deliberately without machinery. It is expensive because obviously if you can cut a large number of boxes at once, it’s a much cheaper option. But we don’t, we do everything by hand and that’s very precious to me and I fight vigorously to preserve that. But the accountants, they always want economies of scale. They want to see that you can do something cheaper and get better margins. But we won’t sacrifice that hand-made touch because that’s what the company is about—job creation.” This illustrates how maintaining integrity can mean standing steadfast when challenged by adversity,37 and that maintaining true to one’s purpose is a core attribute of integrity through both adhering to one’s moral principle and consistency of action.38
Anne noted that her intention was to assist in making the women independent. “We are training them to be independent of us, and they have leaders in their villages that can help them to sell their product, so we are not responsible for marketing everything. So our goal is to train the women with skills to make products that are saleable: to help them source materials from commercial people with off-cuts, and to give them some hope that they can sell on the international market.” This stresses the importance of skill development for social wealth to be created in these local communities.39
Kerry discusses the need for being commercially successful in order to create social wealth. “There are a lot of social organizations who are trying to make products and then they have to go around asking people to buy them. But we began by making products that people were already buying. So that was our first starting point and our whole enterprise is run from a very business-like manner. The freedom for these women depends on whether we do good business or not. We have to make sure that the products we have on offer are good and are those that people want to buy.”
The above comments illustrate three qualities that are needed in creating social wealth. The first is that job creation can significantly increase through handmade and locally sourced products. The unique, custom-made aspect of these goods offers a point of difference that is not evident in mass production processes. There is a quality of love and care that is imbued in handmade products that is difficult to imitate commercially. This is important for a more differentiated consumer market that seeks unique, fair trade, and ethically made products. Anne confirms this, “The customers who bought our garments were touched by the plight of these women in these photographs and they wanted to help. Many of the shop owners who bought my stock also said that they would prefer to buy from me rather than from someone who wasn’t doing this social work.” This supports a global study of 17,000 consumers in five Western countries that found nearly half (48%) indicated a preference for fair trade products over mass production.40 This trend indicates a growing awareness by consumers of products that are made with care. Job creation also stimulated sustainable capability development within the local communities. As Bev, Kerry, and Anne noted, their primary purpose is to empower local people. While most of the women at Freeset are good machinists, Kerry also employs women who don’t always have good technical skills. “While this is not a good business model for making a profit, we continue to make one anyhow so somehow we have a blessing on us,” he noted. Finally, they observed that the way to achieve this social purpose was through competent and credible commercial practices so that they became examples of excellence regarding how business can be done through integrating both a social and commercial purpose.41
A second theme of social wealth creation became evident in some of the day-to-day stories of how these entrepreneurs made transformational impacts in these communities. Bev’s story related to a young girl who recently came from a village. “My staff don’t have two cents to rub together either, but they bought a new girl some clothes, some shampoo, and a hairdryer and tried to get her to look like something other than a ‘wild woman from Borneo.’ They have been really sweet and are gradually teaching her. She’s bought herself a cellphone and we asked her how she knew who was calling her as she can’t read. But she’s worked out a little system for herself. She’d asked you to phone her and she would save it with an icon. So she will know that it’s my number if it comes up with a question mark, or a star, or whatever.” This demonstrates how small acts of compassion can result in large-scale outcomes.42 These acts emerge from the moral principle of integrity, where the staff connected with the girl in need to assist in alleviating her suffering. This also demonstrates both the subjective and objective nature of integrity in that it emerged from personal acts and yet was imbued by a universal quality of care.
Anne’s story of transformation relates to giving the women opportunities to see what can be achieved. “We train the women in Tapovan when they come and stay here. For them, this is a life changing experience because they have never seen running water and they just play in that water for hours. Back in their villages, they have to walk 10 kms for their water and then carry it back on their heads. Here they just turn on the tap and they are just amazed. It gives us so much joy to see them so happy.” This reinforces the reciprocal nature of energy transfer that accumulates over time. In giving to the women, feelings of joy are returned.
Kerry recounted a story following his frustration with an alcoholic and sometimes abusive husband of one of the women, and demonstrates that transformation is a two-way process. After a bad night Kerry said to the woman, “We have to put a stop to this. He is not good for you and we have to get rid of him. I will sort it out. She stops and quite calmly says to me, ‘so Kerry, you love me enough to help me, but you don’t love him enough to help him?’ And it hit me, that she understood this stuff better than I did. So there are always little moments like that when I have to correct myself. So here I am thinking that I would show them, and actually they show me.” This example illustrates the depth to which integrity can be challenged. With integrity being the ability to consistently maintain adherence to a moral principle,43 this instance demonstrates the subjective nature of personal integrity44 with both parties perceiving the situation somewhat differently. Yet it also demonstrates how objective integrity through reflective thought can help in the reframing of the situation for deeper mutual understanding.
Creating a Just Society Through Enterprise
These comments illustrate a strong sense of justice and a desire to create equal opportunities for others. Anne, Bev, and Kerry noted that alongside being called to develop their enterprises, they also felt a strong sense of need to help the poor emerging from their own privileged backgrounds. Yet what they found was that they learnt as much about their own freedom as what they were giving. Kerry said, “The poor give me a gift… they teach me in every moment in every day. It’s not just about freedom for these women and it’s also about freedom for me.” They stated that working with the poor helped them work out what was important in their lives, and materialism and consumption did not rate highly. Thus, working with the poor helps settle a balance (justice) in terms of creating social wealth in the local communities, while also building a deepening awareness of what is important for the entrepreneurs.
Transformation Through Integrity
This final section integrates theoretical aspects of integrity and how it may contribute to the development of a more just and equitable world. The first quality of adherence to an objective moral principle was particularly guided through the enterprise development as a “calling.” All three participants spoke of this calling becoming clearer from some form of summons—either from God or from an inner directive. Significantly, these calls resulted in an action orientation in the form of a commercial enterprise with a social purpose. This prosocial behavior provided the entrepreneurs with a clarity of purpose which became totally absorbing, where their work and play became intertwined in this purpose.45 Bev said, “I feel a responsibility to make a difference. There are so many people in this country that go without. So maybe deep, deep down there’s a guilt or a sense that I need to fix it or give back a bit of what I had and they have never had.” The strength of the call and their dependency on such a moral principle may indicate why the enterprises are successful.46 This ideal of job creation for creating freedom, hope, and independence for those less able became an overarching eternal truth which guided their moral behavior. Thus, the objective-based integrity guided their personal subjective actions.
In having this clear moral guidance, the second quality of integrity, consistency, was readily achieved. As noted, the commercial aspects of their enterprises created challenges, but their adherence to the social mission of their calling never wavered. Again, this involved both objective and subjective integrity through the clarity of purpose providing a framework within which subjective integrity could reside.47 This suggests that having a strong moral purpose and clarity of action helps to guide the second quality of consistency. Thus, moral principles are the conditions under which consistency can be practiced. Being consistent means being the witness as well as the actor for ongoing transformation and learning. This requires a reflective nature to absorb where and how consistency is being acted out. This example of Kerry’s illustrates his own reflective learning of integrity regarding how he walks alongside the women he works with. “That’s really important to me, to be able to listen, to learn, and to walk alongside. It’s not about resources, it’s about relationships,” he says. He gave other examples too regarding his need to listen more deeply, and many of the central tasks are now managed by the women themselves. “One day I realized that they knew more than I did,” he reflected.
The final feature of wholeness is an outcome of the condition of moral principles and consistency of actions. The data had many references to how integrity expanded wholeness, which is a key attribute in transformation. Wholeness is relational; in being whole we relate in full presence to those around us. We have a growing awareness of the dynamics that result from our interactions. In being whole, we experience joy and harmony. Thus, wholeness is an outcome of relational depth. Anne’s explanation of wholeness is evident in this comment that touches on empowerment. “When the women come here, we sing and dance together and they feel this wonderful feeling that comes up from inside them and that empowers them. That was dormant in their lives with no hope. When they feel their own power again, that affects the other women too. I guess it’s a bit like lighting a candle and that candle lights others. So I am in India to be someone who can catalyze that. And it’s fulfilling me.”
Integrity therefore assists in care toward others. It’s built on universal moral principles, requires practice for consistency, and creates wholeness as an outcome. Integrity based upon care is therefore a relational activity. It is a process and yet also a value to live by. Integrity through care touches hearts and this connectivity expands and deepens our awareness of each other to live in more equanimity in a relational world.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined how the development of a prosocial enterprise shapes the relational space through integrity. The case studies of Kerry, Anne, and Bev have provided the context to explore how integrity is both an objective and subjective experience. The data contributes through providing insights into the three principles of integrity. These contributions focus on moral principles as conditions for the development of integrity as evident through their calling for enterprise development. In some ways, their purpose as a calling has intensified the expression of this moral principle. Second, the chapter demonstrated how the development of integrity is a practice through consistency of actions. This again has been intensified through the action focus of entrepreneurship. Finally, becoming whole is an outcome of integrity where life, work, and values become absorbed into a new relational awareness of being human. This aspect too is developed through the prosocial aspect of social wealth creation where personal ego becomes subsumed with relational equanimity. Thus, integrity, through conditions, practices, and outcomes facilitates a spiral of shared care and responsibility to flow out for global transformation.
Key Terms
Calling—“a course of action in pursuit of pro-social intentions embodying the convergence of an individual’s sense of what he or she would like to do, should do, and actually does.”28
Character strengths—seminal research that classifies 24 positive psychological traits that characterize being human.48
Eternal truths—the moral truths that bind all humanity such as justice, compassion, meaningfulness, and courage.
Integrity—“commitment in action to a morally justifiable set of principles and value.”9
Purpose—being guided by positive action that serves others.
Transcendence—strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and thereby provide meaning.
Study Questions
1. Define the three qualities of integrity that emerge from this research.
2. How comprehensive are these three qualities?
3. Find examples of these three qualities and describe how they build integrity within organizations.
4. How does the notion of a “calling” create organizational integrity?
5. Discuss the relationship between enterprise development as a calling and poverty alleviation.
6. Find further examples of enterprise development and poverty alleviation. What are the issues and solutions that may stem from this?
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Anne Godfrey (Rose Circles), Bev Missing (Rain Africa), and Kerry Hilton (Freeset) for their contributions to this study, and for allowing their personal thoughts and actions to be publicly revealed for research purposes. Without such grace, our academic inquiry would not be as rich.
Further Reading
Dacin, P., Dacin T. and Matear. M. (2010, August). Social entrepreneurship: Why we don’t need a new theory and how we move forward from here. Academy of Management Perspectives 37–57.
Elangovan, A., Pinder C. and McLean. M. (2010). Callings and organizational behaviour. Journal of Vocational Behavior 76, 428–440.
Stoner, J. and Wankel, C. (2007). Innovative approaches to reducing global poverty. Charlotte: IAP.