Workplace Spirituality

This chapter aims to provide a succinct overview of the workplace spiritualityWorkplace spirituality movement in order to provide a context for exploring the concept ofDisciplines and professionsethics and superstition superstitionSuperstitions. Rather than providing an in-depth analysis of the subject matter, it describes some of its salient aspects arising from the literature. It is not essential to understand workplace spirituality in any depth in order to appreciate the role ofDisciplines and professionsethics and superstition superstitionSuperstitions in organisational decision making, but it helps. Since what is construed to be spiritual, and what is construed to be superstition, depends upon the constructions brought to the subject matter, it is inevitably contested territory. Workplace spiritualityWorkplace spirituality is a relevant context for debating the impact of superstition in organisational decision making because amongst its community of scholars, questioning what might be regarded as spiritual or not, is integral to the movement and all its various lines of enquiry. The chapter provides a working definition of workplace spiritualityWorkplace spirituality and an account of the attention it has captured in the business and management literature in preceding decades. It refers to the common spiritual valuesSpiritual values arising from scholarly and empirical work and discusses how workplace spiritualityWorkplace spirituality is associated with tangible benefits that are recognised by some large and successful businesses. Some attention is given to spiritual leadershipSpiritual leader(ship) and servant leadershipServant leader(ship)/servanthood, as well as the global impact of the movement, more generally. Based on the literature, ideas about how organisations can cultivate and demonstrate workplace spiritualityWorkplace spirituality are shared with reference to constructs such as organisational spiritual identityOrganisational spiritual identity (OSI).