Abstract
"In these times of intellectual austerity, there cannot be enough praise for such remarkable effort." These were the words, justly used by Pierre-Yves Gomez, whom I had asked to write, ending the editorial for the summer 2009 double edition, entitled "The Pope and the Administrator: Why you should read the encyclical letter Caritas in veritate". In fact, what more beautiful introduction could there be to the dossier of 19 articles on "managerial innovations" than to ask the Director of the Institut francais de gouvernement des enterprises (French Institute of Corporate Governance) to open us up to deeper reflection and, as always in our review, reflection beyond the narrow path of popular thinking. In the editorial of the last edition of 2008, "Consumatum est", we made it our first resolution of 2009 to undertake "widespread managerial reflection" to bring economy and management back to the forefront of re-creative intellectual perspectives. Referring to "Caritas in veritate", as Pierre-Yves Gomez does, far exceeded my initial expectations and I can only give him my most sincere thanks. As our editorialist wrote, the encyclical letter of Pope Benedict XVI, recaptures "this Christian realism (which) will without doubt be particularly appreciated by administrators who know that human activity and its management cannot be reduced to ideological formulae that give either State, or market, or even business an exclusive role." It banishes to the history books, Joseph Stalin's famous expression : "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" and gives all the more relevance to the American President's speech in Africa on "moral leadership which is more powerful than any weapon" by taking up the idea of one of the greatest experts in the field : Napoleon. When faced with the tenacity of Pope Pius VII, Napoleon recognised that "There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit: [and] in the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."