Businesses frequently exclude spiritual values, viewing such values as impositions that belong in business as much as a priest belongs at a bachelor party. Yet spirituality should not be viewed as impositions from without, but as inclusions from within. Spiritual values should be included in a company to the extent that these values are shared by the principals of a firm. Excluding spiritual values found in a “convergent consensus” runs contrary to freedom and liberty that Milton Friedman, among others, champions. (...) Furthermore, the exclusion of such values from a business threatens to alienate business persons from their moral integrity. By cultivating what I will call “the spiritual imagination,” businesses can facilitate fidelity between the convergent values of its principals, and the actions, policies, and culture of a company. (shrink)

The issue of communicated accountability is particularly important in Faith-Based Charity Organisations as the donated funds and use of those funds are often meant to fulfil religious obligations for the well-being of society. Integrating Stewart’s (1984) ladder of accountability with the Statement of Recommended Practice guidance for charities, this paper examines communicated accountability practices of Muslim and Christian Charity Organisations in England and Wales. Our content analysis results indicate communicated accountability to be generally limited, focusing on providing basic descriptive information (...) rather than judgement-based information. Our interviews with trustees and preparers of Trustee Annual Reports in Muslim Charity Organisations identified the reasons being due to high donor trust and consequently weak demand by stakeholders for the latter type of information, as well as internal organisational issues related to the organisational structure and culture, lack of internal professional expertise and high accountability cost. (shrink)

Workplace spirituality is a construct widely discussed over the past few decades and it is a much-disputed inquiry field which is gaining the interest of practitioners and scholars. Some clarifications regarding concepts and definitions are necessary in order to structure and direct the current debate. The aim of this conceptual article is to gain a better understanding regarding the direction in which this field of study is progressing and to put the question on the table namely, whether workplace spirituality is (...) only a new tool to be used in leadership development or is it a trend to be taken seriously? The results showed that this field has potential to further development. This article can be used as foundation for future studies within the knowledge area of practical theology. (shrink)

Employee engagement and spirituality have both been the focus of increasing interest by researchers and practitioners, and both are still early stage theories with ill-defined constructs and definitions. Emergent empirical work related to engagement and spirituality has supported the promise of improving both organizational performance and employee conditions. Responding to the call by theorists to examine engagement antecedents and specifically, the relationship between spirituality and employee engagement, a cross-sectional study was performed to examine self-reported individual spirituality as measured by the (...) DSES and employee engagement measured using the UWES-9 including the dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption. 124 usable surveys were collected from a snowballing convenience sample and after confirming demographic representativeness and identifying the individual’s organizational role as a potential influential variable, analyses of the relationships between individual spirituality, overall engagement, and three individual engagement dimensions were performed using multiple regression controlling for organizational role. Empirical support was found for relationships between individual spirituality and engagement, vigor, and dedication but not for the engagement dimension of absorption. The findings should encourage further future exploration of the relationship between spirituality and engagement and inquiry into why results differ across engagement’s dimensions; specifically, why the relationship was not supported for absorption. The empirical support for spirituality as a predictor of engagement informs practical decisions for addressing workplace spirituality and concerns with the potential to assist in countering the declining engagement trend. (shrink)

This article discusses the ethics and drivers of philanthropic foundations in emerging markets. A foundation organizes assets to invest in philanthropic initiatives. Previous scholarship has largely focused on developed countries, especially the United States, and has questioned the ethics behind the activities of foundations, particularly for strategic motives that served wider corporate purposes. We argue that philanthropic foundations in emerging markets have distinctive characteristics that merit separate examination. We scrutinize the ethics behind the longitudinal activity of such foundations using 70 (...) oral history interviews with business leaders in 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. We find that 55 out of 70 foundations associated with these leaders have been used as vehicles for a specific type of philanthropic ethics defined as “spiritual philanthropy”. These foundations often embodied personal or family traditions, culture, and religious values, which emphasized charitable giving and social responsibility. As in the case of many of the industrial foundations in Europe, these foundations also carried founding family names and provided a structure to maintain family control and enhance corporate reputation. We argue that, as business leaders in emerging markets are more directly exposed to dire social, educational and health deprivation than their counterparts in developed countries, they are less inclined toward grandiose world-making, and their foundations are more focused on delivering immediate benefits to communities in their home countries, motivated by implicit or explicit spirituality. (shrink)

Charity governance is undergoing a crisis of confidence. In this paper, we suggest an alternative approach to how governance could be perceived and conceptualized by considering the ethical notions of governance embedded in religious enquiry, with a specific focus on the Islamic perspective of governance. We firstly develop an ethical framework for charity governance, utilizing insight from the Islamic perspective. Secondly, we undertake an empirical study to assess the experience of governance within Islamic charity organizations. Our theoretical framework provides a (...) comprehensive approach to viewing organizational governance with an emphasis on governance as a mechanism for working towards social justice and the public good. However, our empirical findings reveal an ‘ethical gap’ between the ideals of the Islamic Ethical Framework and the reality of governance practice within Muslim charity organizations. We consider the implications of these findings and outline avenues for future research. (shrink)

Family values are argued to enable ethical family business conduct. However, how these arise, evolve, and how family leaders articulate them is less understood. Using an ‘identity work’ approach, this paper finds that the values underpinning identity work: arise from multiple sources, evolve in tandem with the context; and, that their articulation is relational and aspirational, rather than merely historical. Prior research mostly understood family values as rooted in the past and relatively stable, but our rhetorical analysis unlocks a more (...) dynamic and promising research direction advancing family business ethics. (shrink)

Background and Objectives: Attention to spirituality has dramatically increased over the past recent years. With regard to the positive effects of spirituality in the workplace, this study was conducted to predict job satisfaction and motivation in special education school teachers based on spirituality in the workplace in 2014. Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 80 teachers working at special education schools in Kerman, Iran. Due to the small population of the study, all teachers were entered into the study through (...) the census method. The data were collected using the Workplace Spirituality Scale, Dantt’s job satisfaction questionnaire, and Habibi’s job motivation questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by means of stepwise regression. Results: According to the results, job motivation showed a significant direct relationship with the sense of community and spirituality in workplace. Sense of community predicted 0.35% of job motivation variance, while the other two components did not show any significant relationship with this variable. The three components of spirituality in workplace, namely meaningful working, alignment with organizational values, and sense of community explained 0.35%, 0.15%, and 0.5% of job satisfaction variance, respectively. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, it seems that the promotion of spirituality in the workplace can lead to the enhancement of job motivation and satisfaction among the teachers working in special education schools. Consequently, this issue should be given more attention by education authorities. (shrink)