As the new academic year gets underway at universities and colleges, what are the prospects for students heading for a career in business? The proverbial 'milk round', when big companies visit universities to recruit the most promising finalists, is in as steep decline as perceptions of the integrity of business. In the UK, trust in business leaders has slumped to just above that of trust in politicians at only six per cent of the population.

But towards the end of last term at Harvard, in the world's most renowned business school, some students began to address this mistrust head on. With help from two professors, they created an MBA oath that committed swearers to eight pledges, such as shunning decisions that 'advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the people it serves'.

On circulating the oath, the students hoped 100 fellow MBA finalists would sign it. To their surprise, more than half of them did (over 400). Since then, requests to use the oath have poured in from scores of business schools worldwide and the number of signatories has grown exponentially. As the leader of the initiative, Max Anderson, a former theology student, put it: 'Our inbox just exploded'.

Not all responses have been so enthusiastic. Some have dismissed it as naïve idealism that will dissipate as soon as the oath-takers are confronted with the fiduciary duty of managers to maximize profits for shareholders. Whatever the truth of such criticism, the oath represents an attempt to elevate business to the status of a profession and there are good reasons why this ought to be welcomed.

First among these is the notion of calling. In the monastic communities that birthed the universities, the divine call (vocatio) required a human response (professio) that went beyond a profession of faith to include a commitment to excellence in areas of study that would serve humanity. Thus emerged the non-clerical 'professions', such as law and medicine, each with norms focused on service. Ironically, however, the one area of expertise on which all the others relied – wealth creation – failed to be regarded as a proper calling.

In popular perceptions ever since, business has languished as a sphere for amateurs in which service of self, rather than of others, is the ruling norm. While this is reflected in the use made of MBA graduates as scapegoats for the economic crisis, it is heartening that some of them are keen to embrace business as a professional vocation, with all its ethical implications.

Peter Heslam

It was me. That's what a bright, young, Eton- and Oxford-educated former banker called Tetsuya Ishikawa, who spent seven years at the forefront of the credit markets, admits about himself. During a banking career within some of the world's major banks, he structured and sold subprime securities to global investors. Now he confesses all in the form of a novel that is taking the bestseller lists by storm.

The title of his book, How I Caused the Credit Crunch, is as intriguing as its contents. Too often during the current financial crisis the emphasis has been on technical problems of risk management, and on what technical fixes now need to be imposed. Ishikawa's book provides, in contrast, a vivid reminder that financial markets are not the workings of cold mechanical forces, but of warm flesh and blood. Reflecting human choices, they have innate moral dimensions.

What is true of financial markets holds true for the rest of the economy. The attempt to understand and to operate in markets through the suspension of moral judgement forces economics and business into a moral vacuum that eventually suffocates them. Because they are essentially about relationships, markets require sound morals to survive. The credit crunch is as much a wake up call to the destructiveness that can occur when morals go wrong as 9/11 was to the destructiveness that can occur when religion goes wrong.

But attempts to use bad morals as an excuse to eliminate moral responsibility from markets – whether through the imposition of secular worldviews or of mechanical fixes - will be as misguided and counterproductive as the attempt to use examples of bad religion as an excuse to banish religion from public. For most people in the world, religion is the magnetic field in which they set their moral compass. It is the context in which they perceive and pursue visions of the common good, stimulated by the sense of personal moral responsibility that religion tends to engender.

This is what inspired Mel Gibson to ask the camera crew of his blockbuster The Passion to film his hand as that of the centurion holding the nails that were driven through Jesus' wrists. Gibson's act reflects a mindset Ishikawa's book can help stimulate. For while his spotlight is on bankers, Ishikawa insists that ‘we are all responsible in our small way' and that ‘the arrogance of the [banking] industry has gone out. There is a greater sense of humility'. Were we all to embrace such humility, the green shoots of recovery would be sooner to appear.

Peter Heslam

When Jeff Skoll became the first full-time employee and president of eBay, he had two failed businesses behind him. But he wrote a business plan that led this start-up company to legendary success. It was so successful, in fact, that when he cashed out a portion of the company, he joined the ranks of the world's billionaires.

He could be spending the rest of his life on golf courses, private jets and luxury yachts. Instead, he has founded Participant Media, a company that has funded Oscar-winning feature films and documentaries that promote social values; and the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is behind the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University.

This week, the Skoll Centre has been hosting its annual Skoll World Forum for around 800 of the world's leading social entrepreneurs from 65 countries. Prominent figures from the public, academic, finance, corporate and policy sectors have engaged with them in debates, discussions and workshops focused on accelerating, innovating and scaling market-based solutions to some of the world's most pressing social issues.

The climax of the 3-day Forum is the giving of the Skoll Foundation Awards. This year's recipients included a young woman called Soraya Salti. She left a job in business consultancy to join INJAZ al-Arab, the only education programme in the Arab world that helps students learn entrepreneurship and life skills as part of their school education.

Another awardee, Gary White, is the founder of WaterPartners International. Over twenty years ago in Guatemala, he watched a young girl carry contaminated water back to her shack alongside a stream of open sewage. At that moment he decided to dedicate his life to helping poor people gain access to safe drinking water but in a way that was commercially viable.

Similar stories of vision, passion, risk and adventure have poured forth, not only from the podium but in hundreds of hushed but animated twilight conversations in darkened streets and college precincts. It is as if the dreaming spires above have born silent testimony to the enduring values of stewardship and responsibility that put such things as entrepreneurial skills and a cup of clean water in the hands of a poor child.

For the faith that inspired those spires teaches us that the hands that receive them are Christ's own. It's the kind of faith that inspires business plans for start-ups from people who have failed more than once in business but who have a social conscience. It can even help lift the global economy from its knees.

Peter Heslam

The Pope's message is remarkable for at least two reasons. First, it sets commercial enterprise at the heart of poverty alleviation. This may not sound remarkable to those who recognize that the only solution to material poverty is material wealth, and that the only means of generating such wealth is business. But the church's centuries-long antipathy towards business means that church leaders tend to be reluctant to acknowledge this.

The Pope also argues, secondly, that commerce is fundamental to the building of peace. This too is rarely heard from church leaders, even though it can be found in the work of Thomas Aquinas and at the foundation of the Enlightenment, the Dutch Republic and the United States. More recently it has featured in the 'Golden Arches Theory' of conflict prevention proposed by the New York Times' Thomas Friedman, according to which, no two countries with a McDonalds restaurant have ever gone to war with each other. While this may no longer be true, the contribution of commercial enterprise to peace and security is key to the role of enterprise in alleviating poverty because it is almost impossible to attract commercial investment to areas of conflict.

But it's not totally impossible.

As Middle East envoy, Tony Blair has helped initiate an ambitious investment plan to boost the peace process through the creation of jobs for thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and the same vision has inspired the equally impressive achievements of the Portland Trust. These efforts go some way in fulfilling the vision of earlier generations in this region, whose hope for peace was often tied to the vision of the coming messianic age, in which trade had a key role (Isaiah 60:5). Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah's purchase of a field in the context of war was regarded as a sign of hope that the peace that will allow the buying and selling of fields would one day be restored (Jeremiah 32).

One of the Pope's predecessors, Paul VI, declared 'the new name for peace is development'. It's a phrase as compelling as the one with which Pope Benedict ended his New Year message: 'to fight poverty is to build peace'.

Peter Heslam

Key to the solution is entrepreneurship. While this requires no state programmes to initiate, governments that do assist aspiring entrepreneurs get good value for money - the average cost of a business start-up is less than the average annual cost of keeping a student at university, a prisoner in jail or a family on welfare.

Entrepreneurship is also largely independent of race, gender and class. As such, it is one of the most meritocratic spheres of society. And whereas in many workplaces, careers are thwarted by whimsical managers, there's little to stop entrepreneurs once the spirit of enterprise has been awakened within them. Taking what amounts to a step of faith, they mobilise their talents, knowledge and judgement in pursuit of a vision.

Although this vision can only be realised in service to others, until recently 'entrepreneur' was a dirty word. While those with engineering and business qualifications vied for jobs in large firms, directors of such firms often dismissed entrepreneurship as none of their business.

But this week's Global Entrepreneurship Week (17-23 Nov) testifies to a worldwide entrepreneurial revolution. Employers in organisations of all sizes now test potential recruits for entrepreneurial mindsets; governments are supporting entrepreneurship as the best antidote to poverty; and church leaders are validating pioneer forms of ministry that give birth to fresh expressions of church.

Some may wonder whether entrepreneurship has biblical warrant. But if entrepreneurship is about innovation, judgment and risk-taking, archetypal figures such as Abraham, Jacob and David reflect, despite their faults, strong entrepreneurial traits. Yet the primary model of entrepreneurship occurs at the very start of the Hebrew scriptures, where the curtains open on a God who overflows with innovation, wise judgment and the willingness to take risks - especially the risk of creating human beings and inviting them to join his start-up as stewards of the earth.

Redundant workers should not all be told they need to become entrepreneurs. Studies indicate that less than fifteen percent of us have what it takes. But those who do have what it takes deserve our help in unleashing their potential. For they represent the source of jobs and wealth through which all of us receive our daily bread.

Peter Heslam

Most westerners have long had access to grassroots saving institutions, such as building societies and credit unions. But recently, while commercial banks have focused their investment opportunities on 'high net worth individuals', financial institutions targeting the 'sub-prime' market have proliferated. The growth of this anti-thrift sector is partly responsible for the high levels of consumer debt that have become an accepted feature of advanced economies, but now threaten to undermine them.

This raises questions not only about the morality of debt, about which today's moral and religious leaders are generally outspoken, but also about the importance of thrift, about which such leaders are generally silent.

Despite this silence, Hebrew and Christian scriptures support a theology of thrift. Literally, thrift means 'prosperity' or 'well-being', meanings encompassed in the Hebrew notion of shalom, which is central to the biblical theme of redemption. True, Jesus warned against laying up treasure on earth. But his warning is against greed and miserliness, which undermine thrift. In fact, the fear that generally accompanies these vices is evident in the words and actions of the third servant in Jesus' parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). This servant's fear, based on a harsh picture of God, led to actions that were unimaginative, unproductive and risk-averse.

In contrast, the fearless words and actions of the two servants who 'put their money to work', reflect a God who inspires the imagination, productivity and risk-taking that characterize the thrift needed to convert barren money into fruitful capital. Having made this conversion, which underlies all investment and entrepreneurship, these two servants are welcomed into God's shalom economy: 'I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness.' Their thrift leads to stewardship and happiness. This resonates with two further meanings of thrift: 'prudence' and 'providence', words that appear in the names of two large companies that began as explicitly pro-thrift institutions: the Prudential and Friends Provident.

Opinion formers emphasizing 'happiness' should draw inspiration from the way happiness is obtained in Jesus' parable, to mount a public education campaign on thrift, linked to government-backed bonds to be sold at National Lottery ticket outlets. Millions of consumers, currently bombarded with gambling and credit options, would thus be offered the freedom and opportunity to save. This is the freedom and opportunity of the market economy - an economy built on thrift.

Peter Heslam

When our visual imaginations fail us, our moral imagination needs to kick in. We see this in the rapid and vigorous response of governments, relief agencies, NGOs and faith groups to Burma's unfolding tragedy. But there is another sphere of life that is allowing the moral imagination to play a role in its response to human need, though this is generally ignored or denied by the rest of civil society.

As the news of Nargis' devastation was still breaking, leaders of the world's largest multinational corporations (MNCs) were holding a consultation in London to showcase how the commercial activities of their enterprises are helping to alleviate global poverty. The purpose was chiefly to inspire each other through the sharing of best practice.

Although the development community is becoming more willing to affirm the positive potential of business, this tends to include only micro-credit and fair trade. When it comes to big business, the focus, if not entirely negative, is generally restricted to corporate philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Micro-enterprise can indeed help poor people achieve subsistence, provide for their families and secure them against abject poverty. Fair trade can bring benefits to certain groups, and philanthropic and CSR initiatives can help MNCs increase their pro-poor impact.

But of much greater long-term significance is private equity and the core activities of MNCs, not least in facilitating the conditions needed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to flourish. SMEs are the world's foremost creators of new jobs, wealth and opportunity, making healthy contributions to gross domestic product in many of the developing economies that are growing.

Significant development potential also rests in the fact that the poor represent sizeable markets to large companies that can use efficiencies of scale to supply goods and services that are within the purchasing power of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Three quarters of Vodafone's new customers, for example, are in low-income countries.

It is not only the moral imagination, therefore, that is shaping business' response to poverty. It is also self-interest and the spirit of enterprise. All three are powerful drivers of human behaviour. When they converge, the results are an important part of what the poor recognize as good news.

Peter Heslam