The spiritual organization: Critical reflections on the instrumentality of workplace spirituality

Case, Peter; Gosling, Jonathan

Abstract

This article offers a theoretical contribution to the current debate on workplace spirituality by: (a) providing a selective critical review of scholarship, research and corporate practices which treat workplace spirituality in performative terms, that is, as a resource or means to be manipulated instrumentally and appropriated for economic ends; (b) extending Etzionis analysis of complex organizations and proposing a new category, the spiritual organization, and; (c) positing three alternative positions with respect to workplace spirituality that follow from the preceding critique. The spiritual organization can be taken to represent the development of a trajectory of social technologies that have sought, incrementally, to control the bodies, minds, emotions and souls of employees. Alternatively, it might be employed to conceptualize the way in which employees use the workplace as a site for pursuing their own spiritualities (a reverse instrumentalism). Finally, we consider the possible incommensurability of work organization and spirituality discourses. © 2010 Association of Management, Spirituality & Religion.

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Oct 27, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 6, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion
• Print ISSN: 1476-6086
• Electronic ISSN: 1942-258X
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 257-282
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2010.524727
• Keywords: workplace spirituality, peformativity, anti-positivism, Etzioni, spiritual organization
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/983861
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2010.524727
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an electronic version of an article published in Case, Peter and Gosling, Jonathan (2010) The spiritual organization: critical reflections on the instrumentality of workplace spirituality. Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, 7 (4). ISSN 1476-6086 (In Press). Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion is available online at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14766086.asp.
• Contract Date: Nov 6, 2016