IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aka/soceco/v40y2018i4p553-570.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Buddhist Economics Approach to Innovation and Capacity Building: The Case of Siam Hands

Author

Listed:
  • Wanna Prayukvong

    (Mahidol University, Nakhon Sawan, Thailand)

  • James Hoopes

    (Babson College, Boston, USA)

Abstract

The prevailing view of capacity building is summed up in the adage: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” In other words, simple compassion is counterproductive; utilitarian measures of effectiveness are the best standard for evaluating a social innovation. This paper will explore the alternative possibility that practicing simple compassion as the highest virtue, as did the Buddha, can be so productive that the aphorism should be: “Give a woman a fish, and she may help you build a fish farm.” This argument is illustrated by an exploratory case study of a Thai firm, Siam Hands. The company exemplifies a Buddhist economics approach to social innovation and capacity building, as opposed to mainstream Western utilitarianism.

Suggested Citation

  • Wanna Prayukvong & James Hoopes, 2018. "A Buddhist Economics Approach to Innovation and Capacity Building: The Case of Siam Hands," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 40(4), pages 553-570, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aka:soceco:v:40:y:2018:i:4:p:553-570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/204.2018.40.4.5
    Download Restriction: subscription
    ---><---

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

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Buddhist economics; innovation; capacity building; Thailand;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B19 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Other
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    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:aka:soceco:v:40:y:2018:i:4:p:553-570. 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: Kriston, Orsolya (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://akademiai.hu/ .

    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.