Gábor Kovács’ paper on “Rethinking Fashion Retail: The Case of MrSale” was published in Luk Bouckaert and Steven Van den Heuvel (Eds.): Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve – Spiritual Foundations and Business Applications (London, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2019, pp. 335–349).
In his paper Gábor Kovács focuses on spiritually driven entrepreneurship and spiritual leadership by introducing a case study that involves MrSale, a Hungarian fashion retail company. The business activities of MrSale are determined by the value orientation of the owner, whose Buddhist meditation practice plays a major role in shaping and executing the credo of the company, which is “serving society and contributing to social wellbeing”.
The spiritual practice of the owner influences the scope of business activities and the way these activities are executed. Besides profitability, the company focuses on four areas of responsibilities: (1) social and environmental engagement, (2) employee satisfaction, (3) improving the morals of commerce, and (4) consumer satisfaction. The case study demonstrates that spirituality contributes to innovative business practices that may appear to contrast with the logic of mainstream business. The case also shows that social responsibility is not at odds with profitability, but rather the reverse: genuine ethics promote profitability.