The material nature of spirituality in the small business workplace: from transcendent ethical values to immanent ethical actions

Abstract

We interviewed leaders of small businesses who have integrated spirituality from diverse spiritual traditions into their workplaces. We contribute to a better understanding of the motives and deeply held values behind the integration of spirituality in the small business workplace, of how spiritual values and meaning are manifest in small business, and of how spirituality can be integrated into small business processes and behaviors. We build upon previous theoretical development of an authentically and spirituality informed management theory by focusing on the concepts of immanence and involvement, and integration and interconnectedness, as they relate to ethical and socially responsible behavior in workplaces. Our findings contrast some ways that workplace spirituality has been reported to be institutionalized in the management, spirituality, and religion literature.

The Effect of Muslim Religiosity and Innovation Capability on Firm Survival: A Study on Small Enterprises During the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…High religious increase one's motivation in living life. Driscoll et al (2019) revealed that spirituality is related to ethical and socially responsible actions. Entrepreneurs who have high spirituality try to maintain their companies to help employees.…”

Examining Influence of Religiosity on Ethical Attitude Towards Business: Evidence from India and China

“…Many cross-cultural studies comparing the relationship between religiosity and ethical attitude in different countries, considering demographic factors like gender, age, and education have been also conducted (Small, 1992;McGee et al, 2015;Haloub et al, 2016;Grunbaum, 1997). Religious values help in institutionalising workplace spirituality and integrating ethical and socially responsible behaviour in organisations (Driscoll et al, 2019). Religious values play a significant role in defining work behaviour (Adnan et al, 2019) and organisational culture (Astrachan et al, 2020).…”

Integrating Christian Spirituality at Work: Combining Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches

“…However, for both the Faith-Avoiding and Faith-Safe organizations, aiming for eudaimonic ends is unlikely to involve overt spiritual aspects, or be sourced in spiritual motivations (Guillén et al 2015). The other two organizational types aim at these 'goods of excellence' (Arjoon et al 2015) because spiritual beliefs and values are embedded in their organizational identity and culture, and in the practices of their leadership and employees (Delbecq 1999;Danyluk 2002;Fry and Nisiewicz 2013;Dyck 2017;Driscoll et al 2019).…”