Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company

Claudia Gross

management revue. Socio-economic Studies, 2010, vol. 21, issue 1, 60-81

Abstract: Organisational spirituality has gained popularity. While some authors see a spiritually fulfilling workplace as a benefit for employees and organisations alike, critical authors point out the potentially totalising effects of organisations that try to colonise employees’ minds, hearts and souls. Whereas most existing critical studies are based on literature analyses and mainly refer to societal developments and how organisations are affected by them, the paper at hand provides a single case study on the organisational level. The case study allows a more detailed examination of how organisations can employ spirituality to serve organisational goals. The article identifies three aspects in which workplace spirituality can be misused: to mislead members about the nature of their work, about what an organisation can offer to its members and about the societal value of an organisation.

Keywords: spirituality; critical management studies; normative control; direct selling; multi-level-marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 A13 A14 I30 J08 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hampp-verlag.de/hampp_e-journals_mrev.htm#110 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rai:mamere:1861-9908_mrev_2010_1_gross

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Rainer Hampp Verlag, Journals, Vorderer Lech 35, 86150 Augsburg, Germany. A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available at
http://www.hampp-verlag.de/Hampp_Recherche_e.htm

Access Statistics for this article

management revue. Socio-economic Studies is currently edited by Matthias Baum, Ina Ehnert, Marcel Erlinghagen, Simon Fietze, Susanne Gretzinger, Wenzel Matiaske and Sylvia Rohlfer

More articles in management revue. Socio-economic Studies from Rainer Hampp Verlag
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rainer Hampp ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).