Organizational spirituality: The sceptic's version
Reva Berman Brown
Organization; May 2003; 10, 2; ABI/INFORM Global
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salvage it. The final section draws the threads of the discussion together.
Spirituality
Let us begin by considering 'spirituality'. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as 'attachment to, or regard for, things of the spirit as opposed to material or worldly interests'. And that which is spiritual pertains to, or emanates from, the intellect or higher faculties of the mind, where 'spirit' is regarded from either a religious or an intellectual perspective.
Mitroff and Denton (1999a: 23-5; 1999b) provide the following explanation: spirituality is broadly inclusive and embraces everyone; it is universal and timeless, the ultimate source and provider of meaning and purpose in our lives; it asserts the sacredness of everything, including the ordinariness of everyday life; it provides the deep feeling of the inter-connectedness of everything; and it is integrally connected to inner peace and calm. Additionally, spirituality is not formal, structured, organized or denominational, in contrast to conventional religion. It expresses the awe we feel in the presence of the transcendent, and provides the individual with an inexhaustible source of faith and willpower, because spirituality and (religious) faith are inseparable. It is the last point that atheist, agnostic and secular individuals have the greatest difficulty with.
For King (1997: 668), spirituality is the search for direction, meaning, inner wholeness, and connectedness to others, to non-human creation and to a transcendent.
Gibbons (1999b) suggests a threefold typology of spirituality:
• Religious spirituality is accepted as real in the major religions of the world. Its beliefs are theistic and its practices are demonstrated in ritual and ceremony both within the 'sacred space', be it church, synagogue, mosque or temple, and also in everyday activities.
• Secular spirituality includes earth-centred, nature-centred and humanistic spiritualities. Its beliefs may be pantheistic or atheistic, and its practices include social and environmental activism.
• Mystical spirituality can be seen within Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and is present in the Eastern traditions. Its beliefs are theistic and its practices, like those of religious spirituality, can take place in a dedicated sacred space or in everyday circumstances.
Organizational Spirituality
Cavanagh (1999) comments that the field of spirituality in the workplace expanded rapidly during the 1990s, and that a bibliography distributed at a session on spirituality in the organization at the 1998 Academy of Management conference listed no fewer than 72 books on the subject, 54 of them published in the five years since 1992—see, for example, Conger (1997); Defoore and Renesch (1995); and Schechter (1995). Numerous journal articles have appeared on the subject, as well as special issues of
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journals devoted solely to the concept—see, for example, the special issues of the Journal of Managerial Psychology (1994); Chinmaya Management Review (1999); the Journal of Organization and Change Management (1994 and 1999); and American Behavioral Scientist (2000). A special issue of the Journal of Management Education (2000) has advocated the teaching of the subject to management students. There are also two journals devoted to the topic: Spirit at Work and Business Spirit.' My literature search has thrown up doctoral theses (Beazley, 1997; Perez, 1999; Trott, 1996) and a Master's-level dissertation (Gibbons, 1999).2 And, in 1999, the American Academy of Management Annual Meeting set up the Management, Spirituality and Religion Interest Group, an indication of (American) academics' interest in the topic.
For reasons of space, let us accept that the description provided above is an adequate survey of spirituality. In which case, what is organizational spirituality? Konz and Ryan (1999: 201) state that '[n]o agreed-on definition of spirituality in business exists' and cite Kahnwiler and Otte (1997) and McGee (1998) in support of this statement.
'Organizational spirituality', if not viewed as a direct synonym for 'workplace spirituality', is problematic. If one accepts the reification of an organization into an entity with its own reality, rather than considering that an organization is a collection of people engaged in purposeful activity, then it is a short step from endowing the reified organization with attributes. Organizational spirituality subsequently shares the same grammatical meaning as aspects such as 'organizational culture', which concerns the culture of the organization, and 'organizational strategy', which concerns the strategy of the organization. However, whereas culture is an activity (the way we do things around here) and strategy is a process (the way we decide or plan things around here), spirituality is a far more abstract quality, and sits uncomfortably with the other concepts. OS is neither an activity (the way we act spiritually round here) nor a process (the way we spiritualize around here). At best, OS is a belief; at the least, it is a feeling about reality and transcendence; in between, it is a quality that can be exhibited by the individuals who make up a workforce. But it is not an attribute of organizational functioning.
Synonyms for Organizational Spirituality
There are other terms for the phenomenon which might be more helpful: 'workplace spirituality', 'spirituality in the workplace' and 'spirit at work'. They eliminate the necessity to consider the term at organizational level, where it cannot exist, and return the concept to the individuals who work for the organization. These terms concern a transcendent belief system that rises above rationality and holds that there is a power beyond the self or the ego, which could, and should, be included in an individual's working life and working environment/organization.
Butts (1999: 329) suggests—and these are suggestions, without empirical examination—that one useful way of integrating spirituality in the
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workplace is through 'sacred/ultimate/whole-system values' which enable the human spirit to grow and flourish. The benefits of these 'time-honored, life-affirming, and unifying values' are that they can enhance profit and productivity. The benefits further include truth and trust (which liberate the soul), freedom and justice (which liberate creative and co-creative genius), creativity/innovation, collective harmony and intelligence, wholeness, synergy, deeper meaning and higher purpose. In short, introduce spirituality to your organization and you have Utopia on a plate.
Workplace spirituality is being put forward as a universal cure to the ills of modern management. For instance, Biberman and Whitty (1997) suggest that spirit in the workplace can lead to greater kindness and fairness, and even to industrial democracy, also known as co-management or power-sharing. Indeed, they assert, 'rekindling the spirit in work is not only good business, but also subconsciously sought after by workers and managers alike' (p. 135).
It would seem that workplace spirituality is many things. The list of positives includes a means through which to
• promote wholeness and integration
• include ethics and aesthetics in the workplace
• assist in the development of emotional and spiritual competence
• encourage holistic ways of working
• develop community at work
• empower the workforce
The list of negatives suggests that is a means through which, without appearing to do so, to
• control the workforce
• 'push' acceptance of organizational goals and practices
• manipulate meaning
• avoid conflict
• achieve compliance, if not cooperation
At its best, workplace spirituality is intended to provide a means for individuals to integrate their work and their spirituality, which, it is alleged, will provide them with direction, connectedness and wholeness at work. At its worst, workplace spirituality is a new management fad, with sinister undertones, which, when unmasked, is likely to prove ineffective and ephemeral. Because most of the literature is discursive, there is little empirical evidence to show which aspect is most likely.
It would seem that, at the moment, workplace spirituality is predominantly a North American phenomenon. The primary texts are popular (rather than academic) books. The basis of their truth claims is largely assertion, and the literature tends to be optimistic and uncritical in tone.
For the individual, workplace spirituality will apparently foster his/ her journey towards integration of work and spiritual life (work is
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prayer). It will provide a boost to individual creativity, intuition and well-being at work. For the organization, workplace spirituality will allow for a culture that respects and nurtures employees, assists in the design of work, and helps with team- and community-building.
Some of the concepts being labelled as 'spiritual' resemble Organizational Development concepts such as 'values' and 'participation'. This leads the more sceptical to wonder whether workplace spirituality is a repackaging or rebranding of these older concepts, which, incidentally, debases the currency of the word 'spirituality'.
The reason so many books and papers avoid issues of operationalizing or measuring workplace spirituality is the obvious difficulty of doing so. Even accepting that there can be a spiritual path (which the more secular and agnostic would deny), there are many paths emanating from many worldviews. Which is the One Best Way? And how to deal with those who consider that they aren't spiritual, who attempt to conduct their lives according to humanistic values, and who place their faith in science, in rationality and even in the material?
Even if individuals are prepared to give their heart and soul, these would be more likely to be given to their work activities than to their employer or to the organization that is the reified symbol of their employer. And delicate issues are involved if they did do so.
Are organizations justified in asking employees to give their heart and soul to them? Where are the guarantees that the trust that is central to spiritual expression is not abused? How is the diversity in spiritual (and religious) beliefs to be dealt with, not even considering those individuals who deny possessing spiritual and religious beliefs?
Conclusion
The sceptical question is whether workplace spirituality would warrant attention if it did not, in some recognizable way, contribute to organizational output. Currently, the debate seems to be based on well-meaning attempts to rehumanize work and the workplace. Even if the Spiritualized Organization did improve its outputs—and even if this could be shown to be the result of its spiritualization—to whom do the benefits accrue? And would these be material benefits or spiritual benefits?
If organizational spirituality 'takes off as a concept for research and implementation in management and organization studies, it is more likely to succeed in North America, which has a different attitude to organized religion and issues of spirituality than the UK. Emmons and Grumpier (1999) assert that 95 per cent of Americans say they believe in God. Using church attendance as an indicator of the difference in attitude, Inglehart (1997) reported that 44 per cent of Americans attended church once a week, not counting funerals, christenings and baptisms, compared with 27 per cent of people in the UK. Three years later, Inglehart and Baker (2000) provided the figures for monthly church attendance—40 per cent in the USA compared with 7 per cent in the UK.
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Inglehart (1997) suggests several possible explanations for the great contrast between the USA and the UK. The emphasis on religion could be a legacy of America's frontier mentality, in which a strong sense of faith was necessary in order to brave the unknown. It could also have a more contemporary cause: a social welfare system less developed than those in most Nordic or European countries. And high American church attendance and interest in religion may also reflect a well-educated and rapidly ageing population's search for the meaning and purpose of life. This would indicate a greater willingness to consider issues of spirituality at work among Americans than the British.
Besides providing a sense of orientation and security in an insecure world, one of the functions of religion is to help satisfy the need to know where we come from and where we are going. There are non-traditional ways of gaining comfort and transcendence, as indicated by the New Age movement (Heelas and Dawson, 1997) and the growth of ecological concerns. I suspect, however, that, despite the continued existence of spiritual concerns for individuals, there is likely to be a greater scepticism or lack of enthusiasm for this great new management tool among UK employees, in that peace, prosperity and the welfare state have produced an unprecedented sense of security within people that is more likely to be expressed as consumerism than as spirituality. The postmodern worldview is linked with a diminishing need for absolute rules. But it also brings a growing concern for the meaning and purpose of life. Thus, though established religious organizations have declined in most advanced industrial societies, we are not witnessing a decline in spiritual concerns, but rather a redirection of them.
It may be a matter of waiting and seeing. For all I know, in five years' time, organizational spirituality and its synonyms may be being used in a majority of UK organizations, as a proven way of enriching organizational life. The sceptic in me prevents much optimism.
Notes
1 Spirit at Work, six issues per year, edited by Judith Neal, Professor of Management at New Haven University, PO Box 420, Manalapan, NJ 07726, USA; and Business Spirit, six issues per year, The Message Company, 4 Camino Azul, Sante Fe, NM 87505, USA.
2 In the United Kingdom, the research undertaken and written up at doctoral level is called a thesis and at Master's level is called a dissertation. In America, the terms are normally doctoral dissertation and Master's thesis, respectively.
References
American Behavioral Scientist (2000) 'The Development of New Paradigm Values, Thinkers, and Business', 43(8), Special issue.
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Beazley, H. (1997) 'Meaning and Measurement of Spirituality in Organizational
Settings: Development of a Spirituality Assessment Scale', doctoral thesis,
George Washington University, USA. Biberman, Jerry and Whitty, Michael (1997) 'A Postmodern Spiritual Future for
Work', Journal of Organizational Change Management 10(2): 130-38. Butts, Dan (1999) 'Spirituality at Work: An Overview', Journal of Organizational