Does Transparency Transpire? Nuances of Virtue Ethics in Strategy-Making in Religious Organizations

Abstract

This article examines how the ethical dimension shapes strategy-making in religious organizations. Many aspects of ethical work in modern capitalism have been taken for granted due to their cultural and historical roots, leading to limited scholarly engagement with them within organizational studies. Within the strategy-as-practice approach, such reflections arise particularly at the intersection with the corporate governance literature, positioning ethics as a normative anchor for strategic practices and aligning them with corporate governance models. Despite this proximity, it is necessary to understand how strategy-making changes in contexts where ethics is central. A qualitative study was conducted, with data collected through semi-structured interviews with senior leaders from three Catholic dioceses. The findings indicate that strategy-making in the organizations studied differs substantially from that observed in organizations more broadly. Drawing on the concept of virtue ethics (Tsoukas, 2018), the study explains how certain practitioners are positioned, how practices are selected, and how praxis is shaped in an ongoing pursuit of transparency. The study advances the understanding of strategy as practice through the lens of virtue ethics, demonstrating how practices are chosen, practitioners are empowered, and praxis is developed in the pursuit of “letting transparency transpire.”

Keywords
strategy as practice; governance; ethics; transparency; church

Resumo

Este artigo objetiva analisar de que modo a dimensão ética exerce influência sobre o fazer da estratégia em organizações religiosas. Muitos aspectos do trabalho ético no capitalismo moderno foram aceitos como certos tendo em vista suas raízes culturais e históricas, o que fez com que seu aprofundamento fosse alvo de menor interesse nos estudos organizacionais. No âmbito da estratégia como prática (ECP) tais reflexões surgem especialmente na intersecção com a literatura de governança corporativa (GC), evidenciando a ética como elemento balizador das práticas estratégicas, aproximando-as dos modelos de governança corporativa. Apesar desta proximidade, ainda é necessário compreender como o fazer de estratégia se altera em contextos nos quais a ética é um elemento central. Realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa, com dados coletados através de entrevistas semiestruturadas com os principais gestores de três dioceses católicas. Conclui-se que o fazer da estratégia na organização pesquisada difere substancialmente daquele das organizações em geral. Mobiliza-se a acepção da ética da virtude (Tsoukas, 2018) para explicar como determinados praticantes são habilitados, práticas são selecionadas e a práxis é modelada em uma busca constante de transparência. O estudo permite a apreciação da Estratégica como Prática a partir da ética das virtudes, demonstrando como práticas são selecionadas, praticantes são habilitados e a práxis é moldada em uma busca de “transparecer transparência”.

Palavras-chave
estratégia como prática; governança; ética; transparência; igreja

Introduction

Understanding why certain work practices are more ethical than others involves revisiting the Weberian perspective (Sharma & Rai, 2015) of how religious ideas and foundations influenced the development of modern capitalism and the expected behaviors of actors within modern capitalist organizations (Weber, 2020). These foundations largely explain the presence of values like hard work, discipline, and frugality in organizational settings, whether directly or indirectly shaped by religions such as Protestantism or Islam (Kalemci & Kalemci Tuzun, 2019). Catholicism has also fostered discussions and reflections on the spirituality of work, aiming to clarify its view of ethical work in cultures where its values and beliefs are prominent, even though such studies remain sporadic and unsystematic (Höpfl, 2007).

There is a clear gap in understanding between how ethical work is practiced in organizations and certain principles, beliefs, and values associated with religion, especially those rooted in Catholic thought (Bernacchio, 2019). This is mainly because strategic management research has been influenced by a North American paradigm where the main focus was on determining factors of business performance (Schendel & Hofer, 1979). Along with this main focus, understanding how strategy is developed and executed was also seen as important (Pettigrew, 1992). Both of these interests can be viewed within the larger context of the secularization of beliefs, which traces back to the influence of Protestant ethics on business (Kalemci & Kalemci Tuzun, 2019; Greenwood & Lawrence, 2005). Despite these origins, the field has gradually minimized moral reflection (Tsoukas, 2018) or has shifted its focus solely to cost-benefit analyses and the practical results of ethical actions (Crossan, Mazutis, & Seijts, 2013).

Whittington’s (1996) strategy-as-practice (SAP) approach offers a more suitable analytical framework for applying a broad range of epistemological and ontological premises to theorizing about strategy-making and to understanding the nuances of everyday organizational life (Chia & MacKay, 2007). From this perspective, social practices are the core element of strategy-making, as actors are largely subordinate to them, and their daily conduct is guided and molded by what those practices prescribe (Chia & MacKay, 2007; Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Whittington, 2006). This perspective has also been used to examine the concept of governance (Ezzamel & Reed, 2008; Rese, Bulgacov, & Ferreira, 2015) as a regulatory practice that influences actors’ behavior within organizations, setting behavioral standards to ensure actors operate in accordance with the interests of capital owners.

This article reaffirms the interest of organizational studies in the nuances of ethical work, examining how ethics, regarding the interrogation of the values that guide human actions (Chanlat, 2022), influences strategy-making in religious organizations, with a particular analytical emphasis on Catholic dioceses. The dissemination of a message of eternity or spiritual salvation, which is part of the Catholic Church’s mission, creates a demand for honesty and transparency toward church members. It is worth noting that access to this object of study remains quite rare. A search across four databases revealed that topics such as ethics, governance, and strategy as practice yielded 3,387,514 articles, yet when these topics were connected to the Catholic Church, only 18 publications appeared between 2010 and 2020.

The Catholic Church carries out its mission through tangible organizational structures such as dioceses, eparchies, prelatures, parishes, schools, hospitals, and other ecclesial bodies. Its goal is continuity, which is achieved only by retaining churchgoers. Churchgoers stay as long as they see consistency between what the organization proclaims and what it does. Practitioners, their references for correct action (practices), and the way they enact them daily (praxis), therefore, all work toward ensuring this coherence. From this perspective, the Church’s strategy-making is also influenced by numerous actions, controls, interactional events, hierarchies, daily practices, and the pursuit of virtuous action, making the Church a productive site for analysis and for seeking answers to questions related to virtuous conduct and its associated practices (Bernacchio, 2019).

This study contributes to reflecting on SAP, emphasizing ethical work as highlighted by Catholic values and beliefs. In this context, demonstrating humility, righteousness, concern for others, and doing the right thing daily are constant imperatives linked to the virtues needed in this environment, as understood through Tsoukas (2018). According to the data collected, the practitioners best suited for strategy-making in Catholic organizations are those who embody character virtues, shown through qualities such as bishops’ lifelong histories of humility evident since childhood or the specialized knowledge provided by councils. Additionally, current practices focus on enabling what is morally right to be done in any situation, especially drawing on life stories as sources of organizational inspiration and transmitters of practical wisdom (Ames, Serafim, & Zappellini, 2020). The praxis enacted by practitioners becomes the daily exercise of strategy-making aligned with internal expectations and those of higher authorities — called ad intra and ad summum — forming what can be described as a life worth living (or “the good life”).

The following sections outline the key concepts related to the research objective within the presented theoretical context, aiming to establish a framework for analyzing the empirical setting. The methodological choices are then explained to meet the rigor criteria of SAP research. Subsequently, the data collected throughout the study are described and analyzed, making connections with relevant literature. The article concludes with a discussion of scientific and managerial implications, along with the findings, while also addressing limitations and future research directions.

Theoretical framework

One of the founders of sociology, the German Max Weber (2020), aimed to explain why the work ethic in societies heavily influenced by Protestantism was so instrumental in developing capitalist organizations. He noted that the technical focus of the Protestant message promoted values such as hard work, self-discipline, frugality, and the pursuit of results in approaching work. The subsequent history provided empirical support for this idea. Kalemci and Kalemci Tuzun (2019) observe that, when reviewing the literature on ethical work, it becomes clear that the beliefs and values Weber identified supported the growth of capitalism not only in societies where the Protestant value system dominates. According to the authors, these values have become secularized worldwide, and even countries with very different value systems, such as India, where Hinduism is dominant, have shown higher rates of Protestant values in comparative studies than the United States or the United Kingdom, for example.

Similarly, for Bernacchio (2019), Catholic reflection can shed light on business ethics and explain why certain behaviors are more common in contexts shaped by this religious tradition. According to the author, it is possible to adapt Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation to the business world by focusing on issues like understanding the moral limits of behavior, the gradual process of careful examination of actions, and the importance of solidarity and empathy in the discernment process. However, as Höpfl (2007) notes, analysis from a Catholic perspective is not simply about adopting doctrinal positions as an ultimate goal, but about seeking a truly distinct way of living and the sensibilities it involves.

In the field of business strategy studies, the connection between values and beliefs — the moral dimension — and the daily practice of strategy-making has, according to Tsoukas (2018), been curiously left unexplored. The author suggests this gap can be more productively explored through MacIntyre’s (1985) concept of virtue ethics. Other studies within strategy as practice (SAP) — the theoretical perspective most conducive to understanding the sociopolitical intricacies of the strategic process (Chia & MacKay, 2007) — have made some inroads in connecting the moral dimension with strategy as social practice.

There is a small body of governance research that views it as a regulatory practice (Ezzamel & Reed, 2008; Rese et al., 2015). In this perspective, a form of surveillance is established over actors, prompting them to enact a praxis aimed at demonstrating that their actions align with the expectations of other relevant actors. This occurs through the implementation of practices designed to ensure the legality of their actions within the organization’s scope of interests (Stacchezzini, Rossignoli, & Corbella, 2020). However, there is a risk of turning governance procedures — which are central to organizations — into just an “ideal” to pursue, set at such a high standard that they lose their practical effectiveness, turning governance into a panacea for all organizational problems (Buta & Teixeira, 2020).

In this context, integrating governance with SAP, guided by virtue ethics, helps to understand the beliefs and values embedded in strategy-making within organizations. These concepts and perspectives are explained in the following subsections.

Strategy as practice and its analytical triad

The main idea of SAP involves a shift in how strategy is understood. Instead of focusing on processes, planning, or strategic events, it redirects attention to strategists and the practices they perform. This perspective first aims to identify who strategy practitioners are and what knowledge and skills they have (Coraiola, Oliveira, & Gonçalves, 2012). According to Whittington (1996), SAP emphasizes how strategy practitioners act and interact, paying close attention to how practice unfolds over time amidst routine management activities like conversations, producing official texts, meetings, and encounters.

SAP’s concern is not mainly with performance or how organizations beat competitive barriers, but rather with which practices practitioners carry out in strategic praxis (Jarzabkowski & Whittington, 2008). These categories, additionally, form the core conceptual triad for understanding a strategic process through the SAP perspective. This is because each action and each practice are experienced within social fields (Whittington, 2006), where specific rules, behaviors, and procedures are revealed. Practices, praxis, and practitioners are present in any organization, whether public or private, profit or non-profit, since these realities are inherent to human action, especially human action aimed at organizational development.

According to Whittington (2006), practices are institutionalized patterns for carrying out activities, generally linked to norms, tools, and methods that guide the actions of relevant actors. For Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009), they include all the diverse routines that develop over time within an organization. Additionally, they can be seen in discourses, in the concepts used in daily work, and in the technologies employed for strategic task completion. Practices can be divided into: i) rational, which involves the means used to coordinate strategy, such as plans, budgets, forecasts, and performance indicators; ii) discursive, referring to discourses directly related to strategy, providing linguistic, cognitive, and symbolic resources for its achievement; and iii) episodic, connected to specific moments of interaction among strategy practitioners, such as meetings, seminars, training sessions, and similar events (Walter & Augusto, 2012).

Praxis, in turn, relates to the activities performed daily within organizations, with the purpose of the “materialization” of strategic practice execution (Whittington, 2006). It represents the continuous flow of actions through which strategy is informed by practices and executed over time (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009). Praxis is not the unthinking execution of practices (Whittington, 2006). Instead, it is the practitioner who, guided by their beliefs and values, decides how to enact a given practice in daily operations, thereby shaping the praxis. Although these decisions are made by actors immersed in a social context, there is some room, though limited, for a praxis that can differ significantly from what practices establish (Machado-da-Silva, Fonseca, & Crubellate, 2005).

Speaking of the actors involved in strategic practices and praxis is also central to SAP. Johnson, Melin, and Whittington (2003) highlight that SAP research on strategic processes advances through observing actions and, most importantly, the actors behind those actions, the practitioners. Early on, Whittington (1996) pointed out that the theory should focus on strategy practitioners, investigating how they act and interact, thereby forming strategic processes within organizations. Practitioners include everyone involved in strategic action (Passos, Wollinger, Santos, & Marinho, 2018), not just those at the top of the organizational hierarchy or those with a specific role, as traditional strategy theories assumed. Practitioners are all individuals who create, influence, and primarily execute strategy in everyday work (Whittington, 2006). They can be grouped into: i) leaders, who are formally responsible for setting strategy; ii) groups, which include various categories involved in shaping and implementing strategy, possibly including internal or external actors; and iii) individuals, who operate strategy and may also be internal or external (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009). Other relevant practitioners, such as middle managers, have also had their roles studied within the context of strategy-making in organizations and now represent an important group of actors to understand.

Thus, the SAP lens is centered on three key elements through which an organization’s strategy is understood. The unique aspects of each strategy-making process, considering the specific traits of the social entity involved, can be examined in contexts where rationality is more practical, more meaningful, or indeed guided by particular values and beliefs. In the following subsection, a theoretical re-evaluation of strategy-making is approached through the perspective of virtue ethics.

Reinterpreting the SAP triad through the notion of virtue ethics

The theoretical foundations of SAP focus on practitioners’ actions and interactions in the contextualized translation of practices and the routine enactment of praxis. However, according to Tsoukas (2018), there has been neglect of the role and implications of the moral dimension within this triad. This opens the possibility of analyzing how moral content operates within each of these categories, highlighting the characteristic of “ethical managers” (Behnam & Rasche, 2009, as cited in Tsoukas, 2018). In establishing this distance and gap, the author argues that the relationship between ethics and strategy research is difficult to define.

As a bridge across this divide, Tsoukas (2018) revisits MacIntyre’s (1985) concept of virtue ethics, arguing that it enables a re-interpretation of the definitions of practices, praxis, and practitioners through a meaningful and morally appropriate perspective. This idea is based on three key principles valuable for moral reasoning in the business environment. The first is the principle of “the good life,” which relates to the adequacy of actions that allow individuals to reach their full potential in their activities. In other words, a life worth living is one where a person can realize their full potential through their actions, or more simply, when those actions are meaningful to the individual. The second principle focuses on character virtues, which involve consistent behaviors that minimize weaknesses and enhance strengths. From this perspective, individuals develop a tendency to act in morally appropriate ways across a variety of situations. This continual effort to improve or act more morally makes these individuals virtuous. The third principle is known as practical wisdom, which pertains to developing a strong capacity for judging situations where morally better choices are possible—a kind of disposition toward judgment or deliberation (Ames & Serafim, 2019). Cultivating this capacity for judgment and action allows an individual to act confidently even in challenging situations or in those previously unfamiliar. In this way, one achieves a wisdom that applies across many different contexts, guiding virtuous actions in nearly all circumstances.

It is therefore possible to apply concepts from virtue ethics to reinterpret the ideas of practices, praxis, and practitioners. Practice would then be seen as a collection of inherently moral actions that require the exercise of virtue so that values, beliefs, and standards of excellence can be achieved (Tsoukas, 2018). Praxis, in turn, ceases to be the pure and simple exercise of practice and comes to involve also the revelation of a certain conception of life underlying the action — or an expression of what the right thing to do is (Sayer, 2011). Finally, regarding practitioners, it is important to understand that it is not only the organizational roles and positions related to strategy that make them participants in strategy-making. Under this lens, the character they have formed over the course of their lives, and its daily expression, also become relevant to understand (Lockwood, 2013) — particularly in the sense that only by being endowed with the capacity to make adequate decisions across a variety of challenging situations will the actor be a pertinent person to exercise that role.

From this perspective, SAP can incorporate specific aspects of virtue ethics (MacIntyre, 1985), especially regarding how morality aligns with the pursuit of excellence. This is because strategy practitioners, in their daily practice, not only develop and refine their actions but also improve themselves (Tsoukas, 2018), aiming to show that what they do is morally right and meets expectations.

Social practice of governance

Governance in organizations mainly aims to align relationships among different stakeholders, focusing on improving activities (Ávila & Bertero, 2016). Establishing governance actions is also a key part of developing and implementing an organization’s strategy. It fundamentally concerns how the organization wants to be perceived, guided, and overseen, as highlighted by the Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC, 2018). When establishing strategy and especially in its implementation, it becomes essential to put in place mechanisms or control systems that help make actions visible, improve guidance, and ensure proper oversight.

Ezzamel and Reed (2008) define governance as a multi-colored code. With this concept, the authors refer to the various nuances that governance encompasses. Similarly, Rese et al. (2015) emphasize that governance often appears with an adjective describing it, such as corporate, public, political, or network-based. By attaching these adjectives to the idea of governing something, the concept highlights the characteristic of aligning actors’ behavior with the expectations of a higher authority, whether it is a corporation, a group of public officials, political actors, or any other entity capable of demanding specific behaviors.

Viewed this way, governance becomes a set of practices, or nuances of those practices, that help regulate relationships aimed at fulfilling expectations within a social structure, striving to create an order where mutual gains are achieved (Rese et al., 2015). This occurs when practitioners design and implement, for example, compliance programs with codes of conduct, audit functions, oversight boards, dual-signature systems, and, in more advanced cases, the formation of compliance departments and action-monitoring systems, as shown by Stacchezzini et al. (2020).

Thus, understanding a social practice of governance necessarily involves a set of objectives set by a higher authority and a set of actions performed by a lower authority (Rese et al., 2015; Stacchezzini et al., 2020). These authorities are linked through artifacts that help verify differences and similarities between expectations and the actual implementation of actions in praxis. By bringing behavior closer to what is expected, a necessary transparency is created so that both authorities understand that everything is happening as it should.

Methodological procedures

This article adopts a qualitative approach, with data collected through in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview guide conducted with individuals primarily responsible for diocesan management — bishops and diocesan finance officers — and, to a lesser extent, through documentary research, especially texts and publications issued by the organization on administrative topics. The semi-structured interview script was designed to allow interviewees the freedom to express their realities more accurately regarding daily practices and praxis (Silva & Russo, 2019). Drawing on the strategy-as-practice (SAP) theory, a baseline interview script was developed and initially tested with diocesan finance officers through previous application. Based on perceived repetitions and the identification of questions deemed too closed, the questions were refined, resulting in the final interview script. The interviews produced a larger volume of data by revealing the actions and positions of strategy practitioners, thus forming the primary basis of this research.

A total of six interviews were conducted, with participants selected specifically for their active involvement in the administrative process, as outlined in the Code of Canon Law (2010), including bishops and diocesan finance officers. The interview process was concluded once data saturation was achieved, meaning the collected data no longer showed significant variation in the phenomenon being studied (Falqueto, Hoffmann & Farias, 2018). The interviews were carried out over five months, depending on the availability of the interviewees. Data analysis focused on the communication of the interviewees to extract, based on the theoretical framework, the insights needed to understand how strategy practitioners behave (Minayo & Costa, 2018). The data were grouped and analyzed according to the categories defined beforehand (Bardin, 2016), which are central to the theoretical framework: practices, praxis, and practitioners.

To categorize the data obtained from the interviews, a systematic organization of the field research content was conducted by identifying similarities and differences across the discourses (Gioia, 2019). This initial categorization aimed to stay true to the terms used by the interviewees while also drawing parallels between SAP theory and the discourses (Gehman et al., 2017). Of the six interviewees, two participated via online video call tools (Google Meet), while the other four preferred in-person interviews. Overall, each interview lasted about two hours, totaling twelve hours of interviews. The transcripts were coded in chronological order, with identifiers indicating whether the interviewees were diocesan finance officers (D) or bishops (B). It is also important to note that three dioceses from southern Brazil were selected — two in Santa Catarina and one in Rio Grande do Sul.

The analysis procedures followed the methodological approach proposed by Gioia (2019), which involves three distinct stages: i) Extraction of primary concepts (1st Order Concepts); ii) Conceptualization connected to theory (2nd Order Concepts); iii) Perception of “nascent concepts” or “concepts existing in a new domain” (Data Structure / Conceptual Aggregations). These steps provide the essential foundation for reporting findings and discussing the topic. The methodology aims to interpret the data by aligning the voices of informants or interviewees with the researcher’s judgment, always considering context and theory, leading to the development of an emergent inductive model (Nag & Gioia, 2012). Therefore, the extraction of first-order concepts — the initial methodological step — aims to gather evidence for the first coding based on terms and themes that genuinely represent the interviewees; as Balogun and Johnson (2004) point out, the codes are typically the expressions or phrases used by the informants themselves.

The choice of this field, these organizations, and these participants is justified for several reasons. First, the Catholic Church is an organization that is not typically studied and analyzed, as previously mentioned in the introduction. Additionally, its nature is oriented toward longevity, with its existence linked to retaining churchgoers, who stay as long as they believe the organization fulfills its mission, making transparency a significant concern. A relationship is established among churchgoers in which the “need to believe” (Motta, 2014b) in the organization’s actions becomes clear, making them eager for greater participation. This creates a suitable context for analyzing the ethical aspects of strategy-making. Finally, it can be noted that the dioceses studied are representative of the typical diocese in Brazil, meaning they are small in administrative size, serve multiple municipalities, and have limited financial resources. Therefore, the bishops and diocesan finance officers interviewed reflect the common strategy-making process in these organizations.

Data description and analysis

This section starts by describing the organization being analyzed and its strategic process. The categories and interview excerpts related to them are then used to show how the concept of virtue ethics helps in understanding how strategy is practiced within the organizational reality.

The Catholic Church as an organization

Initially, it is important to highlight that the Catholic Church exists concretely within the structures of its dioceses. The term “diocese” describes a territorial way of organizing the Catholic Church. The diocese is led by the bishop (episcopus), who holds executive, legislative, and judicial authority over it. According to the Code of Canon Law (2010), the body of particular law of the Catholic Church, in managing the diocese, the bishop is directly supported by an economic council led by the diocesan finance officer, who acts as the administrator.

It must be emphasized that analyzing diocesan administration requires considering the dominant type of rationality. Administrative logic within the Church does not see economic behavior as central to human nature (Ramos, 1989). The Church views financial results as a key part of fulfilling its fundamental mission. The Church’s administrative model, represented here through its dioceses, aligns with the concept of substantive rationality as described by Serva (1997), whose administrative praxis is oriented toward rational debate and ethical judgment of each action, guided by a logic of values and the pursuit of both personal and social satisfaction — even as ethical actions are intertwined with practical management procedures, as becomes clear during the data analysis. These observations are important, considering that one characteristic of this rationality model is that its control mechanisms are largely replaced by informal practices (Serva, 1997).

The administrative process of the Catholic Church, across all its various structures, is organized similarly to public and private organizations; however, it is positioned within the Brazilian State’s structure as a third-sector organization, meaning an entity that responds to collective needs, does not pursue profit, and is not affiliated with the state apparatus, nor is it equivalent to private companies (Paula e Silva, 2001). Its form of structuring, even if similar to that of first- and second-sector organizations, carries an imperative of moral or virtuous action in pursuit of practices that demonstrate good management, called governance, with particular emphasis on transparency.

However, religious organizations, which are situated within the non-profit sector, have fragile monitoring systems because there is no regulatory or political framework that requires them to implement such systems, nor the motivation from capital or product markets to redirect management (Jensen, 1993). Therefore, the strength of governance in these organizations depends directly on the actions of boards (or councils), whose mission involves care, skill, and integrity (Andrés-Alonso, Cruz, & Romero-Merino, 2006). It should be noted that Brazilian law does not mandate the presence of administration or executive boards in non-profit organizations (Lacruz, 2020); however, it is required by church law for dioceses and the parishes within them.

In the church structure, boards or councils support their actions through a continuous pursuit of “social governance,” which considers characteristics such as beliefs, meanings, and values (Ávila & Bertero, 2016). Although the Code of Canon Law outlines the roles of board or council members, it is not legal or juridical bonds that compel them to act, but rather the moral significance or weight each member carries. Therefore, the practices developed over time and daily praxis, in pursuit of a governance project, and especially of the characteristic of transparency, are infused with a strong moral weight. The organization consequently has an internal oversight mechanism focused on demanding evidence that strategic administrative actions are being carried out in accordance with what is regarded as morally right and ethical.

Practices, praxis, and practitioners in the Catholic Church

The interviews conducted helped confirm the type of rationality guiding each manager’s actions. The rationality present in the management model of the dioceses is not primarily instrumental. Its purpose is not profit for its own sake, nor does it allow itself to be driven by “market pressures,” the relentless pursuit of targets, or the strict fulfillment of pre-set activities in the strategic plan (Rocha, 2019). Dioceses, in their management activities and in developing strategies to improve their administration, are primarily guided by a type of substantive rationality. However, they also accommodate, in the everyday instrumentalization of administrative procedures, the coexistence of different types of rationality to varying degrees (Santos, Serafim, Pinheiro, & Ames, 2019), which reflects a shared values-based logic and the pursuit of both individual and collective satisfaction (Serva, 1997). In the concept of substantive rationality, there is an emphasis on preventing the reduction of the human being to a mere economic actor (Bizarria, 2019).

Tsoukas (2018) called this type of rationality the pursuit of the “good life,” which in the specific context of management relates to the possibility of creating practices that promote human development and help achieve the organization’s shared purpose. The good life within an organization results from the engagement of various ways of thinking, feeling, and desiring by each practitioner, all aimed at reaching their common goal. Therefore, all practices chosen by the strategy practitioners in the Church, especially within its dioceses, are not primarily driven by a desire to meet the highest standards of excellence in corporate governance, as outlined by models designed for managing public or private companies; instead, they are about reaffirming the core values that are important to the religious organization, allowing it to be morally receptive to adopting the best governance practices. Upholding such values, including those related to spirituality, can bring benefits to organizations, such as increased organizational commitment (Tecchio, Cunha, & Santos, 2016).

The body of data shows that the religious organization must handle specific means of funding and practical actions for managing financial resources and assets. Most of the dioceses’ resources come from donations, subsidies, and contributions from third parties (Oliveira, Faria, Cezar, & Boechat, 2018), similar to how any non-profit organization sources its funds. These resources are used to maintain structures, pay staff, and support clergy who serve churchgoers full-time. It is the responsibility of the bishop and the diocesan finance officer to guide the proper use and growth of these resources and to establish uniform management practices for the diocese’s shared patrimony. In this process, managers are directly supported by the members of the administrative council, who oversee, monitor, advise, and approve extraordinary administrative actions.

Dioceses carry out strategic practices and daily routines through quite distinctive actions, as systematically cited by the interviewees. These practices mainly involve annual budget planning, generating management reports, annual accountability reports, meetings of councils and collegiate bodies, creating administrative directories, various training programs, and using management software. They also include accounting and legal advisory services, which are usually provided by external collaborators. Additionally, these practices are evident in meetings to implement administrative directives, especially with internal staff, or through routine efforts to improve management tasks. Notably, all interviewees avoided using the word “strategy” because in the church context, it has a negative connotation, seen as manipulative. Instead, they preferred terms like “project” or “guidelines.” Still, there is enough evidence to consider the elements of the triad of the strategy-as-practice (SAP) approach as coherent in explaining strategy-making within the organization.

Table 1
Categories and their applications

Practices	Practitioners	Praxis
Constitutive definition: These are the established patterns for carrying out activities, usually connected to norms, tools, and methods that direct the actions of relevant actors (Whittington, 2006).	Constitutive definition: Relevant actors involved in the organization’s strategic process, responsible for developing, shaping, and executing the strategy (Tureta & Lima, 2011).	Constitutive definition: Elaboration, by practitioners, of spatiotemporally delimited enactments of practices, which are influenced by the social context in which the praxis occurs (Jarzabkowiski & Spee, 2009).
Operational definition: Code of Canon Law Input and Output Controls Balance Sheets Accountability Sending information to accounting Rules for the constitution of an economic council.	Operational definition: Bishops; Finance officers; Priests; Counselors; Churchgoers; Accountants.	Operational definition: The creation of input and output controls by the actors, usually characterized by meeting the needs of accountability, but at the same time not so strict as to, in their view, restrict actions and question their virtue of honesty.

Practices

When examining the practice of strategy in the religious organizations studied, it becomes clear that they are guided by a wide range of instruments, codes, and documents shaped by the need for transparency. Interviewee D2 (2020) explicitly states the tools used in this strategic practice: “At the diocesan level, basically, it’s the priests’ meetings, we do monthly accountability, right?! For the parishes... as we require the parishes to provide accounting reports, the monthly balance sheet, right?!” Additionally, this excerpt highlights the importance of paying attention to the hierarchy between the main organizational levels – the diocese and the parish – which are discussed further later.

The main practice recognized as a formal pattern of activities is accountability. Understanding accountability is directly connected to the idea of transparency. In some cases, transparency is seen simply as the activity of providing balance sheets, recording financial transactions in accounting ledgers, or sending fiscal and financial information to the accounting advisory service. Interviewee D1 (2020) emphasizes their perspective in this regard, stating:

[...] because the Church is not democratic, it is hierarchical. Therefore, its accountability differs from that at a civil level... our transparency includes all the mechanisms within the Church to prevent corruption and deviations, but nonetheless, we are human.

Even when already institutionalized, practice still relies on the morality of practitioners because legislation can “fail,” and the human nature of agents may allow some unfair actions against transparent procedures. Practice guides actions, but not enough to ensure transparency; therefore, it is crucial that practitioners have their own moral integrity to act virtuously, as will be shown in the following subsection.

Practitioners

In characterizing the strategy practitioners in the religious organizations studied, aspects of their self-understanding about their origins and personal histories came to the forefront, recalling MacIntyre’s (1985) concept of character virtues. Of all the interviewees, only one did not highlight aspects of their origins. The others stressed that their family backgrounds and initial development occurred in a context marked by simplicity, humility, and sometimes even poverty. For these interviewees, humble beginnings served as one of the main reasons supporting their moral authority in carrying out strategic roles within the organizations they serve. Tsoukas (2018) emphasizes that this moral fabric cannot be ignored when researching the development of strategy, which supports a differentiated understanding of the strategy practitioner observed in the cases studied here — specifically, the practitioner who deserves their position because of their moral qualities associated with virtue ethics. Whittington (2006), in defining the purpose of SAP, also highlights that it must consider all influences, histories, educational backgrounds, and experiences of those responsible for strategy-making.

These indications can be verified in the statements of the interviewees. The manager identified as B2 (2020) emphasized that his family upbringing included lessons that shaped the filters he uses to decide what is right and wrong, such as: “My father used to tell us: ‘If you pass by a person and they are looking at the ground, down, be suspicious. They’re hiding something... it’s eye contact...’” He also said: “I learned from my father, who was a farmer with only a fourth-grade education, never to spend money you don’t have.” Manager D2 similarly shares that he experienced “a formative journey that began in the family [...] the whole family worked together, right?! So, father and mother and the three of us children. The upkeep, from cleaning the house, from a young age [...] work with the crops, with the farm, and then when we went to the seminary, it was always a lot of work too.”

The simplicity of homes and the rigidity in family upbringing and education are identified as key traits for guiding current administrative work, so that practitioners’ practical choices are shaped by this influence of moral behaviors learned throughout their lives. There is a close link between the traits of simplicity and humility, instilled from the family, and the virtues needed for strategic organizational work – honesty and transparency. Sometimes, realities blend in a way that it becomes hard to tell whether one is discussing moral values or attitudes vital to administrative duties, sometimes drawing from personal backgrounds, other times from theoretical knowledge (Tsoukas, 2009). It is understood that each interviewee’s background, in a sense, points toward their administrative path, toward integrity in managing the institutions they oversee.

The question of origins is raised not only to validate the legitimacy of the actors’ positions but also to establish the coherence of pastoral and evangelizing efforts before churchgoers. As interviewee B2 (2020) notes, they are mostly “humble people who do their best to ensure that nothing is lacking, neither in worship, nor in evangelization, nor in anything for us personally.” Therefore, building proximity with churchgoers involves demonstrating shared moral values, forming part of the necessary transparency efforts already at the strategic level of practitioners. The discussion of practitioners’ importance reflects the diocesan organization’s goal to operate cohesively based on shared values among the members of the ecclesial hierarchy and churchgoers. This highlights that the bond uniting strategy practitioners in religious organizations like the one studied is the practical wisdom of morally oriented good actions in any situation, an idea akin to Aristotle’s, as understood by Tsoukas (2018).

Another important group involved in the strategy-making process of the organizations analyzed in this study is the members of councils. Councils are groups of churchgoers — either members of the hierarchy or lay churchgoers — convened by the direct superior of the organizational instance in question (such as diocese, parish, or religious order) to provide counsel or consent, depending on the situation. From an administrative standpoint, the economic council’s role is to oversee the diocesan administrative process. Its main responsibilities include receiving the annual accountability report from the diocesan finance officer. The model of the diocesan economic council is also extended to parishes through the creation of parish economic councils.

In this regard, economic councils resemble boards of private companies, primarily serving to gather information to promote transparency. Interviewee B2 (2020) supports this view by stating:

I believe everything should be very transparent, although we need to be mindful of the right moment to make certain things transparent, because when you work with administrative and economic issues, you’re operating in the corporate and business world. As a business, you can’t... well... discuss things too early. So, we try to keep the process transparent. What’s the venue for this? The economic council. The council is informed of all the steps we’re taking and any businesses we’re involved in, right? So... [disclosing certain information] for the community and even for the clergy as a whole, this is a second step.

The accounting advisory service is connected to the economic council. This service, which involves recording, controlling, and monitoring the organization’s financial, fiscal, and labor information, has also become a sort of “control body,” and in some cases, is viewed as the primary technical management body. According to diocesan managers, it is the responsibility of the accounting services that are part of the diocesan administration to conduct precise oversight of the financial and patrimonial activities of various entities linked to the diocese, with the parish being one of the main ones. The accountant and their assistants now serve as “watchmen” over expenditures, always staying alert to what relates to or does not relate to the organization’s main activity.

On the other hand, even though it is a canonical obligation – canon 492 states that members of the economic council must be “truly expert in economics and civil law” (Code of Canon Law, 2010) – the composition of the councils does not always take such aspects into account. From this perspective, interviewee D2 (2020) emphasizes that the economic council must consider not only specific knowledge but, above all, participation in the ecclesial life of the communities (in their words, the “ecclesial ground”). It is noted that both the councils and the accounting services assume the supervisory role proposed by Brennan and Kirwan (2015), marked by a condition of being a highly relevant entity in promoting transparency. The moral obligation of practitioners who develop strategy daily is, therefore, to maintain good standing with the members of the councils and the accounting services, who, even if not full specialists, rely on their knowledge of the religious organization and their life stance to identify and address any flaws in the records and reports produced.

Praxis

The praxis in the religious organization examined consists of simple actions such as recording the receipt and expenditure of resources, adjusting controls, and preparing accountability reports with a longer time horizon. It also involves sending balance sheets and financial statements, usually providing information to higher authorities within the Catholic Church, including councils. Actors outside the organization — or in its environment — also receive this information, sometimes through councils and sometimes directly. This process promotes transparency because, once validated, the activities are considered to have been performed correctly. In other words, if councils, accounting services, and higher authorities validate these documents, the strategy-making process will have achieved its goal.

When describing the activities they perform when asked about their administrative and strategic work, interviewee B1 (2020) states that “the parish priests deliver the monthly balance sheets of each parish, encompassing the main churches and the chapels,” highlighting the recurring nature of this practice. The interviewees expressed a perception that improvements can be made, pointing to possible paths for enhancing strategy-making with a focus on transparency. According to interviewee D3 (2020):

The diocese seeks to be transparent, but still needs to explore this area further. At the end of each year, an accounting report is given to the diocesan priests, but this remains the only way to show the financial results.

It is important to highlight that in all interviews, the terms transparency, accountability, and even administration carried a moral connotation or represented virtuous actions by individuals directly involved in management, almost equating to honesty. An accountable manager is, according to the data and the interviewees’ perspectives, nearly always honest. This is supported, for example, by the description given by interviewee B2 (2020), who states: “So, I think I have to convince, through arguments, the resistance, that without honesty and without transparency, there is no administration and there is no Christianity,” and adds.

Above all, we need transparency… in the small rural community, in the parish, in the diocese, in the Catholic Church. Everything that comes in must have an origin, it has to be registered, where it comes from and where it goes. There has to be a record of the outflow, proof of the outflow, of everything. Otherwise, we have no moral authority to demand honesty; we have no basis to speak out against corruption, nothing.

Interviewee D1 (2020) affirms that reporting what has been done is a rigorous practice requiring seriousness, control, and commitment, saying:

…transparency is achieved through control… and the priest and I always say that management is done with two words: control and then trust. Not that we distrust people, but once there is control, trust is automatic, right… they know that if they do something with inadequate documentation, they know that when it arrives here, we will check document by document, we check the accounts of eight hundred and some chapels, right?! Among all the parishes, every month, systematically. This way of checking, they know that if there is an inappropriate expense, it will be questioned, and then they won’t make the expense. And so this helps in the process of transparency.

Another aspect related to transparency is the fulfillment of hierarchical relationships between individuals and organizational entities, as reported by D1 (2020), and already emphasized earlier.

The Church is not democratic, it is hierarchical. Therefore, its accountability differs from that at a civil level. Why? Because in civil society, power emanates from the people, right?! If we look at it from that point of view. In the Church, power is God, right?! He institutes it, it’s a vocation, it’s a calling from God, it’s God who calls the bishop, the vocation of Bishop, of the Holy Father, of the College of Cardinals, all the bishops, this mission… so, it is hierarchical, right?! It is not democratic… it’s not the people who say: oh, I don’t want this priest, I want another… I don’t want this bishop, I want another… and, as such, our transparency includes all the mechanisms within the Church to prevent corruption and deviations, but nonetheless, we are human.

Hierarchically, with a spiritual entity at the top of the hierarchy, the duty of transparency is maintained throughout the exercise of strategy in religious organizations.

It is observed that transparency no longer functions as a public disclosure of legal and regulatory obligations, as described, for example, by the principles of Corporate Governance (IBGC, 2018), but often becomes simply the fulfillment of transparency through the submission of financial and fiscal documents to the accounting body of the dioceses. In this context, transparency is focused inwardly within the organizational structure itself. Using a term of religious origin, it is a transparency ad intra.

Furthermore, the combination of transparency efforts with accountability has a second key focus, which can be called ad summum—that is, always directed upward in the hierarchy. This means that diocesan managers are consistently concerned with presenting their reports to those in higher hierarchical positions. Transparency ad summum can also be seen in another specific aspect of praxis. Every five years, all bishops are required to visit the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This is the Ad Limina Apostolorum Visit, which includes three specific components: a) veneration of the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul; b) meeting with the Holy Father, the Pope; c) discussions and presentation of the Quinquennial Report to the Roman Curia. This report, called Formula Relationis Quinquenalis, aims to provide both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the diocesan bishop’s actions concerning his diocese, including administrative and financial matters. However, even here, in the presentation of the quinquennial report, there is no obligation on the part of the Roman Curia nor is there an obligation to disclose relevant data about diocesan financial and patrimonial management.

Accountability is limited to the organization and, as mentioned earlier, is only exercised for higher-ranking bodies. It is important to highlight that the Code of Canon Law does not require bishops, diocesan finance officers, or their councils to provide accounts to lay churchgoers, who are at the base of the hierarchical pyramid. Those who do so do so voluntarily and not because of a legal or canonical requirement.

Among all the interviewees, only one mentioned the importance of sharing information with those who are hierarchically below the individuals or entities responsible for financial and patrimonial oversight (Nunes, 2019). According to B2 (2020):

People have the right to know, and the priest and bishop have an obligation to reveal. When you do this, I believe you build trust, and by building trust, I no longer have that difficulty today. I think this is not only possible but also necessary. Because Christianity marked by lies, disguise, and concealment is not Christianity; it denies our faith.

This stance highlights an increasing complexity of moral questions in church leadership. Reporting on the administration to lay churchgoers is a matter of conscience and transparency, revealing the actions of the members of the ecclesial hierarchy. Although it is not a legal or canonical obligation, this approach is recommended as a way to dispel prejudices or misunderstandings regarding ecclesial affairs (Hortal, as cited in the Code of Canon Law, 2010).

Based on these observations, it is possible to say that the praxis of transparency is somewhat incipient. The actions that constitute it are generally oriented toward the interior of the organization and toward the hierarchically superior layers, persons or bodies, and involve a profound dependence on the morality of the agents involved. These are not actions grounded in external regulatory standards (Hasnan, Mohamad, Zainuddin, & Abidin, 2016), but are essentially oriented by particular law. The creation of a regulatory system typical of the organizations – and indeed quite different from those of private and public organizations – strengthens governance actions, in particular transparency ad intra and ad summum (Lacruz, 2020).

This awareness of the need to improve governance mechanisms, especially by deepening the focus on the morality of actions, is already, in a sense, present in the Church’s own reflection. Pope Francis, on the occasion of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, emphasized that the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, which highlights the need for the development of effective and transparent institutions at all levels, signified a sign of hope for the entire world. The morality of actions originates from a conscience in constant development, through a gradual process where moral improvement happens by aligning acts with explicit moral principles (Bernacchio, 2019).

Discussion

The relationship among practices, praxis, and strategy practitioners helps in recognizing the moral element within the strategic process of the religious organizations examined here. These organizations aim to promote transparency. This behavior aligns with the governance concept promoted by Ezzamel and Reed (2008). The key difference is that, given that ethics is a central part of the social system, transparency is pursued as a result of the need to demonstrate excellence, while still recognizing the importance of ongoing improvement and adjustments. Strategy as practice (SAP) enhances the analysis by shifting focus from its usual scope (public and private companies) while also providing insight into a crucial component for understanding, grounding the analysis of SAP in virtue ethics or reliance on virtues, as suggested by Tsoukas (2018).

The traces left in relief by morality evoke practices that are strongly oriented toward the exercise of what virtue ethics (MacIntyre, 1985; Tsoukas, 2018) conceives as the good life, practices that enable an enactment of daily life permeated by excellence in doing what is right. Thus, what in public or private companies is understood as doing the right thing, generally termed “good practices,” is the element that defines the practices to be adopted in the religious organizations analyzed. Consequently, this study suggests that there is potentially a broader range of organizations marked by the demand for transparency, in which the ethical element can be quite explanatory and very useful.

The practitioners identified in the study of the religious organization conceive of their histories and characteristics as moral guarantors of their position in strategy-making. This understanding adds a moral dimension to the comprehension of the guiding elements of the identification of strategy practitioners, which is predominantly technical in origin (Whittington, 2006). While the literature generally seeks to understand practitioners through their position and participation in the strategic process, top organizational managers, middle managers, analysts, consultants, and so on, this study suggests that it is also important to evaluate the social credentials that qualify them to exercise such positions and roles. It is no coincidence that the demand for transparency renders their character virtues almost as selection criteria for occupying the positions they hold.

Praxis, in turn, reveals a conception of life coherent with the set of practices mobilized and with the characteristics of the practitioners, and is therefore somewhat incipient. While all controls related to resources are taken very seriously and advance ad intra and ad summum, they are not as strong or exhaustive as in a private company. Often they are taken only to a certain point, from which the practical wisdom of how to honestly perform that part of strategy-making would itself amount to a questioning of the moral credentials of the practitioners. This reinforces the point that the institutional process is eminently recursive, as Machado-da-Silva et al. (2005) suggest. This becomes evident upon recognizing that actors, endowed with interpretive capacity, select the practices that are pertinent and adapt the praxis on the basis of their system of values and beliefs.

Some principles require a natural rebalancing of forces — or indeed their strengthening — such as the proper functions of the councils, which can become even more participatory in the decision-making process. Soltani and Maupetit (2015) emphasize that a great part of governance problems and failures originate from an internal institutional regulation that is itself flawed, which remains evident in numerous organizational actions, opening a vast field for activities based solely on the exercise of what Brazilians call “jeitinho” — the personal adjustments that bypass the bureaucracy being imposed (Motta, 2014a).

In their analysis, Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009) highlight that an organization’s collective intention reflects the actions, motivations, and intentions of each practitioner involved, whether internal or external. Praxis and daily routines are capable of giving the organization a “face.” If the organization seeks to “let transparency show through,” this virtue — this moral action — must permeate all its processes. To this end, proper preparation and constant organizational adaptation are necessary, especially through the making explicit of the necessary moral content.

From a managerial perspective, this study contributes by indicating that it is pertinent to analyze the character virtue attributes of strategy practitioners in contexts where transparency is essential, or where superior surveillance instances demand actions aligned with their expectations. From this perspective, transparency, as a characteristic of the exercise of compliance, takes on the features of constancy in virtuous action, not as a normative imposition, but as an extension of the objective of good living within organizational practices. Thus, thinking and acting virtuously are evidenced as unambiguous credentials of practitioners. It is demonstrated that this is achievable through the choice of adequate practices that favor transparent communication between levels.

Ultimately, consistent practice of this kind tends to develop a state where practitioners are able to assess a wide range of situations daily and act morally and ethically as expected. For managers, there is also the ongoing responsibility to prepare and explicitly communicate the moral principles that underlie the detailed aspects of practitioners’ practices and praxis, integrating them into routines and administrative directives as a vital part of daily work.

Furthermore, in the sense of ethical work, it is possible to perceive that the beliefs and values dear to the Catholic Church are profoundly present at the foundation of the behavior of the actors analyzed in this study, consistent with what Höpfl (2007) suggests. Thus, the debate on the roots of ethical work (Kalemci & Kalemci Tuzun, 2019) can also be informed by the analysis of the moral dimension of strategy-making in studies such as the one undertaken here.

Conclusion

This study aimed to offer an understanding of the relevance of the ethical dimension in strategy-making within religious organizations. The gap in organizational studies was highlighted, both regarding this organizational model and regarding the potential for ethical deepening in the daily exercise of strategy. The articulation of the strategy-as-practice (SAP) approach with elements of virtue ethics (Tsoukas, 2018) made it possible to demonstrate nuances of Corporate Governance as a structuring element of strategy-making, above all in contexts whose moral valuation dimension is central.

The theoretical implications of the study may extend beyond religious organizations as moral environments and loci for the integration of virtues into strategy. The research contributes to demonstrating that the centrality of ethical reflection and positioning can not only alter the logic of personal choices but also, for practitioners, touch and redefine practices and praxis, especially with regard to managerial processes. In a certain sense, the study points toward a strategy beyond its technical character, as an action impregnated with values and virtues, which can also be critically analyzed. From a managerial point of view, this research suggests that organizations evaluate whether the practices they are choosing for strategy-making are adequate to the results they seek. Organizations often execute methodologies and use tools that are well known but that do not stimulate the necessary debates, do not prioritize the important results, and do not bring cohesion to the group.

This reflection encounters several limitations. The main one is perhaps the breadth of the research field. Since the analysis is conducted with few interviews, even though they are representative of a common pattern in the field and were conducted in depth, some important details that might contribute to the analytical breadth of the generalizations naturally made throughout the study may be escaping the analysis. Thus, there is an urgent need for deeper investigation in other ecclesial bodies and in organizations with similar characteristics. The said analysis could also be conducted in first- and second-sector organizations, with the primary aim of evidencing the proximities and discrepancies between organizational logics. Furthermore, another limitation is the limited academic content with reflections drawn from religious organizations in the fields of administration and strategy. Even though SAP theory is widely studied, the areas of reflection are generally oriented toward governmental and business organizations.

For future research, it is recommended to deepen reflection on the ethical conduct and moral assumptions involved in the management of institutions that present themselves publicly as virtuous, such as the Catholic Church. Additionally, on a more theoretical level, research could explore how specific values and beliefs of particular organizations help explain their chosen practices for strategy-making, how these values influence practitioners’ roles and positions, and ultimately, how they account for the small adjustments made in praxis.

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O&S encourages data sharing. However, in compliance with ethical principles, it does not demand the disclosure of any means of identifying research participants, preserving fully their privacy. The practice of open data seeks to ensure the transparency of the research results, without requiring the identity of research participants.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 July 2026
• Date of issue
  May 2026

History

• Received
  11 Mar 2023
• Accepted
  01 Oct 2025