School of Law

About the project

The main aim of our research is to explore how ‘corporate purpose’ is manifested in the structure, operation, and decision-making of faith organisations.  Faith organisations (defined widely) have been chosen as the focus of this study because of the strong links between religion and social responsibility which have been identified in the management, business and ethics literature.  It is anticipated, therefore, that faith organisations will have relevant experience in operationalising corporate purpose in the context of the current UK legal framework and that from this experience, opportunities and challenges for purposeful business which are relevant more broadly to the secular, for-profit sector can be discerned and assessed. 

Firstly, we want to investigate to what extent the structure and governing documentation of faith organisations is influential on their ability to operationalise their purpose.  What legal structures do faith organisations use?  What are the opportunities and barriers created by these legal structures?  How do faith organisations use their governing documentation to express their purpose and what impact does that have?  Secondly, we want to explore what challenges or opportunities are experienced by faith organisations when navigating promotion of their purpose within the parameters of their legal and fiduciary duties.  How does purpose affect decision-making and how is purpose used to navigate competing interests?  And finally, we want to investigate to what extent the pursuit of purpose in faith organisations leads to socially responsible outcomes and investigate how faith organisations are held accountable in their pursuit of purpose.