The monastic economy: the management of sobriety, between innovation and tradition

Since the 6th century, Christian contemplative monasteries have balanced their lives between prayer and work, according to the precept ora et labora, as dictated by the rule of Saint Benedict and taken up by the various monastic rules. What is the situation today? How do these age-old organisations manage to maintain this delicate balance, caught between their spiritual priorities, their life of sobriety in seclusion from the world, the increasing scarcity of vocations, the need to find the income to live – or survive – and the ever more pressing and standardised demands of the market? The work of Marie-Catherine Paquier, one of the very few management researchers to work longitudinally in monasteries, reveals the way in which these ecosystems have appropriated management tools to develop an art of managing sobriety. Between tradition and innovation, Marie-Catherine Paquier describes a nuanced practice of marketing based on sufficiency.