Governance and missionary effectiveness of the Company of Jesus: lessons from an extended theory of governance

From its very beginning, the governance of the Company of Jesus featured a certain number of specificities : vow of obedience to the pope, strong authority of the order's general, as well as the ignatian spirit which is transmitted through the spiritual exercises to all generations of jesuits. This article shows that the young Company's governance system played a decisive role for the order's missionary effectiveness. This is due, in great part, to its action as a cognitive and behavioral lever.