Work ethic, mindset and religion: the case of stock investors in Adana

The relationship between religion and economics has been a complex and multidimensional topic of discussion that many researchers have focused on throughout history, and this relationship has played a very important role in the analysis of social relations. This study also focuses on this relationship, and the question of whether religion hinders economic development forms the main problem of this study. The primary objective of this study is to demonstrate that rational attitudes toward work and earning money are more prominent than traditional attitudes and that religion does not hinder economic development. In this study, which uses quantitative research methods, a survey was used as the data collection tool. The population of the study consists of 222,898 stock investors residing in Adana province, while the sample consists of 506 investors reached using purposive sampling, one of the non-probability sampling methods. In the study, the problem was first identified, the literature was reviewed, data were collected and processed using SPSS, descriptive analyses and Chi-Square analyses were conducted, and the findings were evaluated by comparing them with the relevant literature. Although religion has a decisive influence on work ethics, mindset and investment philosophy, the influence of religion decreases and secular and rational understandings accompany this process, especially in the areas of making credit transactions, thinking about investment independently of religion and investing in the participation index. Therefore, it is possible to say that the participants compromise religious values in order to earn more and are secularized and integrated into the investment process in order to hold on to the market. On the other hand, the fact that the participants have the ideal of financial freedom by planning for the future, make credit transactions in order to have more by pushing aside the austerity attitudes, tend to stocks other than the participation index, evaluating investment independently of religion, emphasize the role of the individual in the process rather than God's providence, especially in terms of wealth, and approve wealth in any case without any conditions are the findings that show that religion is not an obstacle to economic development. Findings related to work ethic, mindset, and religion based on investment philosophy are summarized under the discussion and commentary section of the study. In this context, the typology of work ethic related to work ethic in our sample group is "needs-oriented," "security-oriented," "value-oriented," and "pleasure-oriented"; the typology of investment understanding is "uncalculated," "measured," "prudent," and "professional"; and regarding mindset, a typology that includes both of these typological analyses: "contented mindset that knows when to be satisfied," "middle-of-the-road mindset that seeks balance," and "rational and secular mindset that wants more." Keywords: Work ethic, religion, investment philosophy, secularization, mindset typology.