Path dependency, stewardship and human flourishing : an economic exploration

Can theologians, philosophers and economists have a fruitful conversation about human flourishing? In practice, that does not appear to be so easy. Nevertheless, I believe it is worthwhile to bring knowledge from different disciplines into conversation. In doing so, I choose an approach that could be described as an embedded approach that uses already existing coherent economic concepts and places the question of normativity in individual transactions of economic agents. I take my starting point from the stewardship approach (Davis, Schoorman, & Donaldson 1997) as a complement to the traditional agent principal approach (Jensen & Meckling 1976) and I demonstrate the impact on organizations. Using path dependence of institutions as proposed by Williamson (2000) and further elaborated by Pierson (2004), I explore a justice approach to normativity that has roots in theology and philosophy and relate them to positive economic concepts. Finally, transaction cost economics can be used to express outcomes in economic terms.