The Place Of Gratitude In An Islamic Bank’s Organizational Communication Culture

Abstract

This study explores how banking professionals of an Islamic bank interpret the communication processes in their organization. Moreover, it tries to discover the unseen side of organizational culture through exploring the gratitude culture of an Islamic bank. As Islamic banks are neglected in the sector, this research aimed to contribute to the literature with a case study. To realize this, the study leaned to an interpretivist research philosophy, adopted a qualitative approach, and took a fieldwork in Turkey. Thirty-one participants volunteered to participate in semi-structured in depth-interviews in 2017. Participants attended interviews from various cities including Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir, Kayseri, and Konya. Thematic analysis is applied to research material to catch patterns, create codes, and crystalize themes. After the analysis, two main themes evolved from the data topography. Those were; “No Gratitude Here” and “Yes but Not Enough” themes. The first theme revealed that there was no gratitude in the bank culture. This group hold the majority of interpretations. But the second group claimed that there was a gratitude culture but that was limited. For this reason, findings showed that the majority of the participants found gratitude in organization’s communication culture inadequate. Participants’ commitment was barely appreciated and this no gratitude policy was reflected to employees’ psychological mood negatively such as lack of motivation, feeling of worthlessness, anger, anxiety, sadness, and intend of leaving job.