Jesuits have a lot to teach MBA students
LEADERSHIP
All this material that we teach MBA students, the Jesuits have been doing in quite a natural way
FOR more than a decade, Bento da Silva, assistant professor of organisational studies at Warwick Business School in the UK, has been studying the Jesuits, but not as a historian or religious scholar.
His interest lies in how the Jesuits successfully managed a global organisation for nearly 500 years, with nearly 200,000 employees spread across the globe. It is the sort of operation from which businesses can learn, especially those with “going global” at the core of their structure.
The Society of Jesus — its members are called Jesuits — was founded by Basque nobleman, soldier and future saint Ignatius of Loyola, who turned to religion after a French cannonball blew part of his leg off in Pamplona in 1521.
Dr da Silva believes the Jesuits are the first multinational organisation and have been the only truly global operation, adapting their culture to fit each geographical region.
“The Jesuits are truly global, not only in the sense that they adapt locally their businesses, or that they have an international presence. They are truly global because they have no country of origin: they are neither Basque, nor Spanish, Italian, French, nor a Portuguese company — they are just a global organisation,” he says.
“What they do across the globe is, though, completely different — it’s tailored to the culture. All these lessons and all this material that we teach Masters of Business Administration students at business schools, the Jesuits have been doing for almost 500 years in quite a natural way.”
The importance of learning local culture emerged as Dr da Silva’s research discovered just how influential the Jesuits are.
The first Europeans to reach the Himalayas were Jesuits; the first Europeans to cross the Mississippi River were Jesuits; the first recorded crossing of Africa from coast to coast was made by Jesuits; the Brazilian city of São Paulo was founded by a Jesuit; Descartes, one of the fathers of modern philosophy, trained as a Jesuit; 18 craters on the moon are named after Jesuits; our calendar was created by the Jesuits. And you could go on and on.
“Their impact on science is huge,” says Dr da Silva. “So many scientific developments right up to the beginning of the 20th century came from Jesuits. Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel Prize winner, traces the emergence of liberal views on economics back to 16th-century Jesuits.”
Dr da Silva was particularly interested in studying how the Jesuits’ organisational structure has evolved and how the way they are organised might explain why they have always been so successful.
“Instead of putting the emphasis on strategy, they devoted most of their first 20 years trying to devise the perfect organisational structure,” he says. “What is interesting about them is that they’re one of the very few organisations that has never changed structure, although they have grown a lot.”
As the Jesuits set about establishing their global structure in the 16th century they looked to the recent past for inspiration and Venice was the obvious place to start. From the 13th to the 15th centuries the Italian port was the centre of world trade.
“Some of the key structural dimensions they took from business ventures that they knew in Venice because their founder, Ignatius, spent a lot of time there. His key lieutenant was the son of a Venice merchant,” says Dr da Silva.
“They developed a very simple network-based structure and with it they were able to rapidly spread across the globe, in a way that very few organisations can achieve; it is quite amazing.
“Of course, from a human resources point of view, they have some advantages over other organisations — a religious vow is very different to a contract.”
The structure put in place by Ignatius remains in place and when the Jesuits set up a new network, they simply repeat it.
“The Jesuits may have 200,000 employees, but not in a hierarchical structure. Instead, they have mainly three hierarchical levels and they’re organised along geographical regions. They have their headquarters in Rome and they have people managing several what they call ‘provinces’, that we would call geographical regions.
“The current pope, Francis, was in charge of the province of Argentina; he was Provincial of Argentina,” Dr da Silva says.
THE Jesuits have operations in more than 100 countries spread across six continents and though strategy is devised in its Vatican headquarters, the regions are given plenty of leeway in implementation.
“The provincials have lots of autonomy in terms of managing the daily operations in each geographical region, but the strategy is devised at the headquarters, following the procedures of the General Congregation — the equivalent of, in the corporate world, a shareholders’ assembly,” says Dr da Silva.
“Below all these regions you can have lots of different businesses because they have a very simple way of approaching strategy.
“They have five key strategic principles. Education, which is their main business; intellectual activity — engaging with universities and higher education; China as a single market — they’ve been obsessed with it since the 17th century; Africa as a continent; and refugees, either war refugees, political, or urban refugees.”
Education is probably the most famous of the Jesuits’ missions. “Since the 17th century the Jesuits have had the biggest network of private schools in the world,” says Dr da Silva. “They have lots of universities across the world and lots of high schools.”
THEIR focus on education has proved to be a good source of funding since the 16th century, a way of engaging with state-of-the-art knowledge and educating those most in need. For Dr da Silva, it is one of their most distinctive strategic endeavours.
“Through education the Jesuits can spread the gospel, educate, network with other areas of knowledge rather than the religious, and help people move from poverty by giving them access to education.”
Companies putting corporate social responsibility at the heart of their strategy could learn a thing or two from the Jesuits.
The Jesuits’ refugee service leverages resources from all over the world while not being associated with any particular country.
“The Jesuit Refugee Service is, like the Jesuits themselves, a truly global organisation,” says Dr da Silva.
“They’re replicating their way of structuring an organisation, so the headquarters of the Jesuit Refugee Service organisation is in Rome; the refugee camps are around Africa and Asia mainly, but one of their main activities there is teaching.
“They have a distance learning programme and in 2013 they had their first graduates on a three-year arts course, taught in the refugee camps by their network of US universities.
“The headquarters of the programme are in Rome, their clients in Africa and Asia, and people doing the teaching and delivering a degree (are) from a US university. Although this seems a very simple arrangement, it is not that easy for business corporations to replicate,” says Dr da Silva.
“If you think about it, how many organisations with around 200,000 employees spread across more than 100 countries and surviving for almost 500 years do you know?
“None.”