Spirituality as a Discarded Form of Organizational Wisdom

Abstract

In this article, we examine what really happens when spirituality enters profit organizations. We suggest looking at workplace spirituality as a form of organizational wisdom. When surveyed, managers and consultants attested that spirituality improved their awareness at work, enhanced communication, and reduced stress. Yet our results show that workplace spirituality suggests alternative ways of thought and behavior that organization members perceive as threatening and thus reject or discard. The chief clash is related to assumptions about social order and social relationships. Our work adds value to translation research by giving more significance to the impact of core organizational ideas in the encounter with new wisdom. We also contribute to workplace spirituality literature and to the emerging field of organizational wisdom by analyzing the initial stages and essence of the encounter between existing and new wisdom.

“Power From Within” and Masculine Language: Does New Age Language Work at Work?

“…The current article’s findings also demonstrate that NAS language, and hence NAS ideas, are generally rejected in Israeli and New Zealand work organizations. This finding supports earlier research conducted in Israeli organizations indicating a negative response to those who express their New Age inclinations at work (Zaidman & Goldstein-Gidoni, 2011).…”

“…Yet, when involved with spiritual practices in the organization’s public domain, they suffered negative emotions, such as shame, or a deterioration of their image at work. As a result, they had to participate in spiritual practices privately while concealing their involvement from colleagues (Zaidman & Goldstein-Gidoni, 2011). In line with this research, Casey (2000) argued that de-alienation and the search for meaning in work may be best pursued by reducing or ceasing involvement in large organizations.…”

“…In summary, existing research rarely focuses on women’s (or followers’) actual enactment of NAS within work organizations. Several studies (e.g., Grant et al, 2004; Hedges & Beckford, 2000; Zaidman & Goldstein-Gidoni, 2011) describe such encounters, but they lack a systemic theoretical explanation of it. The theoretical framework suggested in the studies focusing on women’s involvement at CAM, a context in which women are often self-employed, tend to overlook the complexity involved in the context of work in large organizations.…”

Exploring managers’ conceptions of wisdom as management practice

“…Participants in this study also did not mention other features of managerial wisdom discussed in the management wisdom literature. For example, strategic thinking (Hammer, 2002), spirituality (Zaidman & Goldstein-Gidoni, 2011), and moral maturity (Kolodinsky & Bierly, 2013) were not mentioned by the participants in this study. This has an implication for any future development of managerial wisdom frameworks or models, and for researchers to be mindful as to what elements are to be attached to managerial wisdom.…”

The translation of self-spirituality into organizations

“…Similar results, denoting how the translation of self-spirituality involves the positions and values of different organizational and non-organizational actors, can be seen in other studies. It has been noted that managers in for-profit organizations (like other actors, such as school principals, school teachers, and parents) are often involved in the translation process (Karjalainen et al, 2018;Zaidman and Goldstein-Gidoni, 2011). In other words, we argue that to some degree, the translation of selfspirituality into mainstream organizations reflects not only the core ideas of this culture, but also the values and perspectives of the other organizational actors involved in the process.…”