IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bushst/v64y2022i7p1346-1368.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Wesleyan work ethic? Entrepreneurship and Weber’s protestant work ethic in the case of Isaac Holden, c. 1807–1897

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew Hollow

Abstract

In recent years, business historians have started to become more interested in the relevance of Max Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic thesis. This article builds on this recent work by providing an in-depth case study of the career of the Wesleyan wool entrepreneur Isaac Holden (c. 1807–97) in order to assess and evaluate the usefulness of Weber’s work for our understanding of the ways in which religious beliefs can influence commercial decision-making. Ultimately, what it suggests is that, whilst Weber’s work offers a valuable starting point for business historians looking to explore the links between religion and business, there is a need for more consideration to be given not only to the theological differences that existed between different branches of Protestantism, but also the informal institutional pressures and constraints that influenced Protestant entrepreneurs in the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew Hollow, 2022. "A Wesleyan work ethic? Entrepreneurship and Weber’s protestant work ethic in the case of Isaac Holden, c. 1807–1897," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(7), pages 1346-1368, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:7:p:1346-1368
    DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2020.1781817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2020.1781817
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00076791.2020.1781817?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:7:p:1346-1368. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FBSH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.