Religions, Global Marketing and International Business

1. Introduction to the Religions of the World
2. Is the mankind religious?
3. Influence of religion on business
4. The need to include the religious variable in the international marketing strategies
5. Influence of religions on the current civilizations

The Subject “Religions of the World” belongs to the following Online Programs taught by EENI Global Business School:

Doctorate: Ethics, Religions & Business.

Masters: International Business, Foreign Trade, Religions & Business.

Bhagavad Gita Courses, Realization of the Gita

Why study Religions and Business?.

Languages: or Religiones Mundo Éthique.

Religions of the World, Marketing, and International Business

This question is difficult to answer, mainly due to two reasons:

1. The first; it is hard to know exactly the number of people practicing each religion (lack of official data in many countries, by ex. religion in China), and
2. Secondly because the answer to this question will vary much if the response is from an European, Asian, American, or an African. Nor will it be the same answer for a Buddhist, a Muslim, or an Agnostic

Perhaps the most serious and reliable statistical study of the Religions of the World is the Pew Research Report. According to this analysis, nearly 6,000 million people worldwide, (84% of humanity) states belongs to some religious affiliation, with an average age of twenty-eight years. While 16%, about 1,000 million people, have no religious affiliation.

The four religions with most followers (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) represent 77% of humanity.

1. An estimated 32% of humanity, some 2,200 million people, are Christian (besides being the most globalized religion, average age of all the Christians is thirty years)
2. 23% are Muslim (1,600 million with a presence mainly in Asia and Africa. The average age of twenty-three years)
3. 15% are Hindu (average age of twenty-six years) and
4. 7% are Buddhist (average age of thirty-four years)

Furthermore, 73% of humanity lives in countries where their religious group constitutes the majority of the population.

The Asia-Pacific region has three characteristics from the religious point of view:

1. It is the region with the more religious diversity: Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism
2. About 76% of people not affiliated with any religion lives in Asia-Pacific (no doubt influenced by the nearly 700 million of the Chinese that not claim to belong to any religion)
3. It is also the region where most Muslims live (about 62% of all the Muslims)

Europe and America, are predominantly Christian areas (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy) although from business we must take into account the crucial role of the Jewish community in the U.S..

Two religions are majority in Africa: Islam and Christianity. Although we always take into account the influence of the African Traditional Religions.

These final data should make us reflect on the need to include the “religious variable” in our international marketing strategies.

Global Ethics and Business.

(c) EENI Global Business School (1995-2024)
We do not use cookies
Top of this page