Management, Spirituality and Religion: Foundational Research 9783111216058, 9783111214672

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
MSR foundational research: An anthology of JMSR best papers
Part I: Engagement with foundational contemporary management/organization issues
The “Acts” of Paul: Micro-processes and new institution creation
Calling to the anima mundi: On restoring soul within organizations
Divine callings: Religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process
Part II: Workplace religion research informing mainstream management areas
Buying monastic products, gift or purchase?
Work calling and humility: Framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation
The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout
Part III: Approaches/methodologies of engaging core spiritual/religious principles/practices
Black mothers at work: A contemplative and anti-oppressive approach to dismantling workplace oppression
When work becomes meditation: How managers use work as a tool for personal growth
Discernment in management and organizations
Servant leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior
Brief biographical notes on the contributors
Index

Citation preview

Management, Spirituality and Religion

Management, Spirituality and Religion

Series Editor Yochanan Altman

Volume 4

Management, Spirituality and Religion Foundational Research Edited by Yochanan Altman and Kathryn Pavlovich

ISBN 978-3-11-121467-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-121605-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-121658-4 ISSN 2700-7790 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023935230 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Ion Jonas, based on an idea by Yochanan Altman Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

The Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, a top ranked* journal in its twentieth year, is the largest depository of current knowledge in this fast evolving sub-field of religious and spirituality studies, practical theology, organization and management studies, ethics and leadership. The International Association of Management, Spirituality and Religion is proud to be the leading academic forum for the dissemination of knowledge, the development of theory, the probing of best practice, for the exchange of ideas and debate. The journal is accessible at: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/1942-258X Submissions are accepted at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rmsr Institutional Subscriptions are available with all major subscription agencies or by emailing to: [email protected]. For personal subscriptions go to: https://www.iamsr.org/subscriptions/

* ranked top quarter amongst over 1000 social sciences and religious studies journals (Scopus, 2022) 2nd out of 317 religion journals (Clarivate, Citation Journal Indicator, 2021).

Acknowledgments It is with great gratitude that we wish to extol the Sobey School of Business at St. Mary’s University, Halifax for their recognition of our best papers through their financing the annual prize award to the chosen best paper of the year. It not only helps bring to the attention of the Management, Spirituality & Religion (MSR) community the ‘best of the best’ in scholarship, but it also enriches the message with a significant monetary prize. In highlighting the role Sobey School of Business plays in promoting MSR scholarship, we wish to acknowledge the service rendered to our journal by Martin Rutte, of Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work fame, who matchmade the engagement between JMSR and Sobey School of Business. The book sees light on the 20th anniversary of our journal. This occasion accords us the opportunity to thank all those who have played a key role in its academic direction and development – the journal’s editorial teams who guided the journal over these past twenty years. In alphabetical order: Editors-in-Chief: Yochanan Altman, Gerlad Biberman, Louis (Jody) Fry, Robert Giacalone, Sandra Kauanui, Kathryn Pavlovich Associate Editors: Emma Bell, Nic Burton, Orneita Burton, Stacie Chappell, Daniel Ericsson, Heather Hopfl, James King, Robert Kolodinsky, Juliette Koning, Monika Kostera, Gabor Kovacs, Payal Kumar, Marjolein Lips-Wiersma, Kathy Lund Dean, Charles Manz, Karen Manz, Minh Hieu Thi Nguyen, Cecile Rozuel, Ora Setter, Jonathan Matheny, Mathew Sheep, Cynthia Sherman, Smita Singh, Charles Tackney, Shay Tzafrir, Timur Uman, Nurit Zaidman, Laszlo Zsolnai Yochanan Altman, London Kathryn Pavlovich, Waikato

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-202

Contents Acknowledgments

VII

Yochanan Altman and Kathryn Pavlovich MSR foundational research: An anthology of JMSR best papers

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Part I: Engagement with foundational contemporary management/organization issues Bradley A. Almond The “Acts” of Paul: Micro-processes and new institution creation

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Cécile Rozuel Calling to the anima mundi: On restoring soul within organizations

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Christopher P. Scheitle and Amy Adamczyk Divine callings: Religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process 77

Part II: Workplace religion research informing mainstream management areas Marie-Catherine Paquier Buying monastic products, gift or purchase?

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K. Arianna Molloy, Bryan J. Dik, Don E. Davis and Ryan D. Duffy Work calling and humility: Framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation 135 Mari Yang and Louis. W. Fry The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout

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Contents

Part III: Approaches/methodologies of engaging core spiritual/religious principles/practices Nicole Dillard and Christina M. Walker Black mothers at work: A contemplative and anti-oppressive approach to dismantling workplace oppression 179 Lasse Lychnell When work becomes meditation: How managers use work as a tool for personal growth 209 Kent D. Miller Discernment in management and organizations

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Mitchell J. Neubert, Cindy Wu and Kevin D. Dougherty Servant leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior Brief biographical notes on the contributors Index

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MSR foundational research: An anthology of JMSR best papers In this edited book, we provide a window to the current state of the field of Management, Spirituality and Religion1 (MSR). While it may have passed the stage of an ‘emergent’ field, MSR is yet to establish firm consensual conceptual and theoretical foundations, although we acknowledge that these will always change and be challenged over time – such as the notion of ‘opportunities’ in entrepreneurship or the ‘boundaries’ of diversity in diversity management. Here we wish to examine the current conceptual, theoretical and methodological foundations of MSR, inspired by the Best Papers from the 20-year-old Journal of Management, Spiritualty and Religion (JMSR) – considered the lead journal in this field of scholarship (Singh & Singh, 2022). The emergence and continuing evolvement of MSR is part of a growing interest in environmental, sustainability and responsible management movements that can be traced in various fields of management (e.g. ‘green’ HRM: Matthews et al., 2018; the SDGs: Howard-Grenville et al., 2019; well-being: Kong Man Ng, 2022). However, these tend to follow a linear path of empirical science assuming that there is a world “out there” to fix (Kumar 2013) through the pursuit of technocratic rationality (Giacalone & Promislo, 2019). The uniqueness of MSR, amongst other business and management domains, stands out as it advocates a narrative ‘beyond’ the present and material – whether it concerns our inner world (Manz 2015; Pavlovich, 2020; Tsao & Laszlo, 2019) or a transpersonal/ trans-communal consciousness (Palframan & Lancaster, 2019). Although we have evidenced over the past two decades MSR research increasingly being referred to in mainstream management scholarship, it is as yet not ‘mainstream’ and remains on the ‘fringe’. Surprising indeed, given that 84% of the world’s population identify themselves with some form of religious grouping (Sherwood, 2018). Also, religious institutions have been at the core of shaping of society and over time have been powerful initiators of social change (Pavlovich & Markman, 2022). We wonder whether some of the reluctance to integrate or refer to religious principles and spiritual beliefs in scholarly discourse may stem from a position of sciencereligion incompatibility or irreconcilability (Strauss, 1953), an economics/materialism focus (Smith, McMullen & Cardon, 2021), or from a perceived lack of adequate methodologies to capture the issues at hand (Marques, 2015). Furthermore, religion as a field of study does not avoid a wider social/political scrutiny – note for instance, the century long debate about laïcité (secularism) in France (Voynet-Fourboul, 2021); nor can it evade the implications for careers and well-being at work from parading one’s faith (Gebert et al., 2014). All of the above distance us from the pursuance of that elusive philosopher’s stone – the ‘truth’.

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Yochanan Altman and Kathryn Pavlovich

To attend to the above concerns, JMSR has provided a platform encouraging divergent views on management through religion and spirituality. The best paper awards recognize outstanding scholarship for each year, with the following criteria used by the selection committee team in this process: – Novelty of the research – Research rigor – Contributions to the MSR field – Interest beyond MSR – General readability The ten best papers from JMSR from 2013 to 2022, are by scholars at different career stages: from senior scholars (full professors) to early career academics (assistant professors); and in a variety of geographies: the USA, Canada, France, Sweden – representing a mix characteristic of the MSR community. Of the ten papers, seven emphasized a methodological perspective: conceptual, qualitative, quantitative methods, as well as one historical analysis – showing rigorous ways of capturing relevant aspects of management, organization and leadership. This reflects the significance judges attributed to the issue of methodology for the MSR field as a criterion of excellence; and the diversity of methodological approaches considered praiseworthy. Interestingly, our examination revealed two thought-provoking themes that the authors consistently noted: scholarship that endeavored to “influence” the domain of management at large through the lens of MSR. That is, how do religious/spiritual values and leadership shape workplaces – e.g. how servant leadership encourages a worldview that in turn influences the way a workplace is managed, or the influence of Paul of Tarsus on new venture creation processes. A second set of papers focused on “integrating” spiritual and religious practices into one’s general life, that extend to the workplace – for instance, how humility is manifested in workspaces, or how contemplative practices effect work routines. Clearly the authors of these papers believed that proving influence or demonstrating integration were important, and evidently the judges who picked up the best papers thought likewise. We argue that these two approaches to understanding how reference to or incorporation of a religious stand impacts organizational behavior and performance, has been essential for the validation of the field and provide an invaluable starting point in moving MSR forward. Other best papers provided ontological critiques, questioning the foundations of MSR and the need to bring alternative perspectives (i.e., placing relationships rather than technocratic and capitalist approaches) into the conversation. Several papers touched on the place and role of the feminine – such as connecting with the anima mundi – the soul world. Indigenous perspectives, ancient wisdoms and the nature of consciousness were also among the best papers, emphasizing alternative ontologies and ways of looking at the world of work. We have organized the book into three sections: Engagement with foundational contemporary management/organization issues; Workplace religion research informing

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mainstream management areas; and finally Approaches/methodologies of engaging core spiritual principles/practices. The following are brief summaries of these best papers, and how they contribute to the development of the field. Table 1 summarizes the ten papers key trajectories. Table 1: JMSR Best Papers 2013–2022. Year and Title name

Challenging ontologies

Workplace research

Engaging spiritual practices

Methods

✶ Paquier

Buying monastic products: revisiting the pro-anima gift

 Rozuel

Calling to the anima mundi: on restoring soul within organizations

Connecting with the anima mundi – the soul world

Conceptual

 Almond

The “Acts” of Paul: micro-processes and new institution creation.

The influence of Paul of Tarsus on the microprocesses of NVC

Historical analysis & grounded theory

A belief in a divine presence/God was singularly critical in the founding of the non-profit enterprise.

Qualitative survey

 Divine callings: Scheitle & religious Adamczyk sensemaking in the organizational founding process  Lychnell

When work becomes meditation: how managers use work as a tool for personal growth.

 Yang (Patel) & Fry

The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout.

Integrating a Middle Age gifting tradition into shopping behavior

Qualitative

How managers integrate insights from their spiritual development into their working life

Influence of spiritual leadership on burnout in a medical laboratory

Qualitative participant observation

Quantitative survey

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Yochanan Altman and Kathryn Pavlovich

Table 1 (continued) Year and Title name

Challenging ontologies

Workplace research

Engaging spiritual practices

Methods

 Molloy et al.

Work calling and humility: framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation.

 Miller

Discernment in management and organizations.

Discernment Conceptual integrates spiritual and religious values, wisdom and sensibilities into decision making

 Neubert et al.

Servant leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior.

Managers and ministers exercise influence inside and outside their organiztions – insights from servant leadership.

Quantitative surveys

 Dillard & Walker

Black Mothers at Work: A Contemplative and Anti-Oppressive Approach to Dismantling Workplace Oppression

Tracing both contemplative and anti-oppressive practices, the legacy of Black women as agents for inspiring change is highlighted.

Qualitative interviews

At the heart of a healthy work calling is a robust integration of humility

Conceptual

✶

Paquier paper dates to 2015 and is based on her 2013 paper presented at the third IAMSR conference in Lourdes for which she was awarded the best paper.

Part I – Engagement with foundational contemporary management/organization issues This set of papers challenge our mainstream ontological assumptions of reality. These papers acknowledge an awareness of a divine, a God, a gaia, as being part of the organizing practice of our world. In many ways, these papers contribute to how the strategic foundations and purpose of the organization are created – stemming from faith and calling, rather than rationalist intentions. They challenge the incompatibility of

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the economic/materialist perspective currently dominating management research to date (Smith et al, 2021; Strauss, 1953). Bradley Almond (2015) begins this challenge with his paper on the influence of Paul of Tarsus. Drawing from the literature on institutional work (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Scott, 2004), Bradley employed a grounded theory approach to the life and works of Paul of Tarsus as recorded in biblical texts (i.e., the book of Acts and Paul’s epistles) to develop a process model of the creation of a new institution which emphasizes micro-level processes. As a historically founding institution, the Church impact is deep-seated and therefore experienced or enacted by default in various domains of life. Was this mission to universalize Christianity a forerunner to current global consciousness? Is the fusion of a utilitarian cause and a moral axiomatic drive missing from our contemporary fight to save the planet from climate change? Bradley’s article discusses what we can learn from Saul of Tarsus about turning an esoteric cult of a territorial faith to a universal world religion through an architecture of new institution creation. Finally, worth noting is his use of textual analysis of sacred text – not a common methodology in management, more akin to the humanities, highlighting JMSR position as bridge journal between the humanities and business & management. Our second paper by Cécile Rozuel (2014) critiques the dominant business paradigm within the spirit-at-work literature. Rozuel argues that the patriarchal focus on rationality, organizational profit maximization and agency neglects the soul of the earth and the soul of people. This has ethical implications that critique the foundation of organizing. Drawing on a Jungian discourse, she contends that the feminine has an intrinsic connection with nature; and thus the anima mundi (the world soul) can restore balance and values in organizations if attended to respectfully and with care. This process involves an appreciation of the feminine in its practical and archetypal sense, and some extensive inner work in the spirit of alchemical imagination. In bringing forward the role of the feminine, she provides a foundational perspective that challenges the dominant positivistic ontology. Scheitle and Adamczyk (2016) also challenge the dominant rationalist paradigm. In their survey of non-profit founders, they found that reports of personal religious experiences were more common among these founders compared to other leaders. For these founders, their belief in a divine presence or a God was singularly essential in framing the founding of their enterprises. Scheitle and Adamczyk’s study examined the tension between ‘being called’ to start a new venture, and the uncertainty and unpredictability inherent within the founding process. Such findings confirm that religious sensemaking can indeed shape future behaviour and highlights how sensemaking is more than a rationalist process.

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Part II – Workplace spirituality/religion research inform mainstream management areas In this section of papers, we examine how MSR informs management practices within the workplace. While most of these papers focus on better ways of doing things, they also highlight different methodological approaches and some of the challenges associated with not being mainstream. We begin with Paquier’s (2015) research as she examines consumer behavior through the purchasing of retail monastic products. Applying a cause-related marketing (CRM) approach from a MSR perspective, she asks whether buyers are merely customers or whether under the cloak of an ordinary purchase trasnaction they engage in a religious gesture of gift-giving. The results of the qualitative study suggested that these are intertwined. Paying is a tangible way of “giving money, financial security and trust” (p. 280), and in return the purchaser receives an intangible asset of ‘love’ that transcends beyond the here and now, resonating with a begone age when gifting to the Church was the assured path to one’s salvation in the after-life. Molloy, Dik, Davis and Duffy (2019) continue this thread of a spiritual take on fundamental aspects of contemporary workplaces by exploring the notion of calling – characterized as having a sense of purpose that results in “personally fulfilling, spiritually uplifting, and/or prosocial ends” (p. 428). Having a calling can therefore result in a higher sense of motivation, resilience, and overall well-being. However, Molloy et al. claim that having a calling can result in an over-zealousness and thus create a dark side that includes, for example, job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation. In their study, they explore how the virtue of humility can function as a mitigating mechanism to ensure commitment and concern for creating greater-good workplaces. They propose a communicative framework based upon humility, acting as a compass that “recognize, evaluate, and address” to ensure that healthy boundaries are maintained between work and other aspects of life (p. 429). By championing humility within the workplace, a spiritual calling can leverage its positive strengths and mitigae the potential toxicity of excess. Inter alia the authors highlight the double edged sword of religion/spirituality at work, titulating between enlightment and bedevilment. Yang & Fry (2018) continue the theme of how spiritual values can improve essential aspects of work environments. They contend that spiritual leadership assists in reducing burnout for healthcare workers, as it drives consistency of leadership values and practices, to create a positive work climate (Gilley, Gilley & McMillan 2009; Gilmartin & D’Aunno 2007). In an era evidencing increased efficiency demands, minimum operations budget, expedited turnaround times, and the consequences associated with care provision errors; the outcome is burnout, resulting in psychological distress, job dissatisfaction and possibly even poor health. In their study Yang and Fry found that burnout was reduced for medical laboratory workers when spiritual leadership was enacted. Their study revealed that the leader’s inner spiritual life position was essential to creating a sense of membership and belonging, in positively influencing

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organizational commitment, work unit productivity, and employee life satisfaction. This paper is an example of developing a distinct contribution of MSR to leadership discourse, one of the key topics in management research, via a spirituality/religion lens, in this case Fry’s spiritual leadership model. (Fry, 2003; Fry & Nisiewicz, 2013).

Part III – Approaches/methodologies of engaging core spiritual/religious principles/practices This final section of papers examines the contemplative practices that engender religious/spiritual principles pertinent to workplace engagement. Again, we note some discrepancies between mainstream methodologies and the methodological approaches employed in faith informed research. Dillard and Walker (2022) argue that while contemplative and anti-oppressive practices have been leveraged separately across management discourses, the engagement of both in unison has yet to be explored. Their work brings these frames of reference together by exploring the experiences of working Black mothers in addressing workplace oppression. Aided by qualitative interviews and an extensive interdisciplinary literature review, they highlighted the legacy of Black women as architects for inspiring change that resulted in the development of the Contemplative Anti-Oppressive Practice (CAOP) model. In the CAOP model, they propose that contemplation, the process of cycling from stillness to action with God (Merton, 1971, 2007), if shaped by the six anti-oppressive “explanations of human social behavior” (Clifford, 1995, p. 66), can lead to a reduction in the actions and experiences of oppression and foster more inclusive organizations. Lychnell’s (2017) research too brings the concept of practices to the fore. His research is the outcome of a longitudinal project that applied a clinical approach governed by the dual aim of helping participants integrate insights from spiritual development into their working lives, and developing academic knowledge about that process. Lychnell identified and systematized an empirically grounded process for how managers may apply a meditative attitude to work. He argued that meditation practice provides managers with a foundation for personal growth by, for example, increasing their capacity to explore situations in a different light and changing their perspectives on life (Herriott, Schmidt‐ Wilk, & Heaton, 2009). Lychnell found that when managers actively engaged in challenging work situations with a meditative attitude, the process unfolded as the managers’ focus shifted from 1) attending to suffering to 2) witnessing what is and 3) responding with authenticity. The empirical material was generated from seven CEOs and owners of small businesses over a two-year clinical group intervention (Lychnell & Mårtensson, 2016) inspired by Edgar Schein’s (2001) clinical approach. Methodologically, this article contributes to phenomenological research on how managers apply spirituality in the context of their everyday working lives.

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Through conceptual research, Miller (2020) provided a blueprint on how to explore, analyze and implement a core theological and religious practice – discernment – into managerial decision making. Discernment is explained as a spiritual approach that includes emotional and spiritual intelligence that is then applied to individual and group decision making (Benefiel, 2005). Miller analyzed the literature on discernment according to three units of analysis – processes, practices, and meetings. He found that the quality of decision making depended on the values reflected in the process, not just reliant on the longer term outcome of those decisions. Miller found two traditions that were most likely to build discernment into their decision making practices: Ignatian and Quaker traditions both orient themselves toward God. However, they differ in that the Ignatian perspective focuses particularly on the individual discerner, whereas Quakers engage in a more communal process. Both traditions bring a spiritual orientation to the core of decision making. Like Molloy et al’s (2019) work that uses humility to mediate decision making and organizational commitment, discernment takes a parallel path in facilitating coordination and heightening commitment within organizations. Both demonstrate how core practices can develop stronger organizational purpose and cultures. Our final study examines servant leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior. Neubert et al. (2021) investigated how an individual’s spiritual discipline (i.e., prayer and reading sacred texts) may moderate the relationship of servant leadership by altering the salience of each leader’s behavior. Using data collected in two waves from 912 working adults, their findings demonstrated that in addition to workplace leadership influences, ministers who exhibit servant leadership in a place of worship influence workplace behavior, especially for workers who practice spiritual discipline. These findings contribute to the wider field of management by developing an insight into “variance unaccounted for” in typical research (Neubert, 2019). More specifically, that spiritual contexts and one’s own spiritual practices have crossover influences on mindsets and behaviors in the workplace that may result in the development of servant leader attributes that include doing the right thing, respecting others, and selflessly exercising authority. Importantly, each of these papers pushes us to re-think and re-consider our assumptions about often taken for granted theoretical and practical ways of knowing, thereby expanding our understanding of the lived world and challenging the business – society interface as we know it. The authors of our winning papers implicitly raised the question: if we were to reflect on the issue at hand from a faith/spiritual tradition, or armed with the unfolding evidfence from the expanding knwieldge base of MSR, what will we have to say that is different, what would be our message? The answers they provide are presented in the following pages as they illustrate that there is not a science-religion incompatibility (Strauss, 1953); that economics is more than a materialist focus (Smith, McMullen & Cardon, 2021), and that there are alternative methodologies to capture the issues at hand (Marques, 2015). We hope you will

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enjoy reading the papers in this volume as much as we enjoyed reading them first on the pages of the Journal of Management Spirituality and Religion.

Note 1 Religion is seen as an organized institutional belief system with some decree of faith in a transcendent hereafter (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Gümüsay, 2019; Gümüşay, Smets & Morris, 2020), whereas spirituality encompasses an individual transcendent search for meaning and purpose that stems from inner-based contemplative practices (Driver, 2007). Thus, while religion and spirituality have distinctive characteristics, for simplicity we use the term religion as inclusive of both.

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Herriott, E. N., Schmidt‐Wilk, J., & Heaton, D. P. (2009). Spiritual dimensions of entrepreneurship in Transcendental Meditation and TM‐Sidhi program practitioners. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 6(3), 195–208. Howard-Grenville, J., Davis, G. F., Dyllick, T., Miller, C. C., Thau, S., & Tsui, A. S. (2019). Sustainable development for a better world: Contributions of leadership, management, and organizations. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(4), 355–366. Kong Man Ng, J. (2022) The successful Chinese family businesses. Berlin: De Gruyter 2022 Lychnell, L. (2017). When work becomes meditation: How managers use work as a tool for personal growth. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 14(3), 255–275. Lychnell, L, & Mårtensson, P. (2017). Straight from the heart–a clinical group intervention to research management spirituality. Management Research Review, 40 (8), 870–889. Manz, C. (2015). Taking the self-leadership high road: Smooth surface or potholes ahead? Academy of Management Perspectives, 29 (1), 132–151. Marques, J. (2015). The changed leadership landscape: What matters today. Journal of Management Development. 34(10), 1310–1322. Matthews, B., Obereder, L., Aust, I., & Müller-Camen, M. (2018) Competing paradigms: Status quo and alternative approaches in HRM Contemporary Developments in Green Human Resource Management Research, 116–134 London: Routledge Merton, T. (1971). Contemplative prayer. Image Books. Merton, T. (2007). New seeds of contemplation (Illustrated ed.). New Directions. Miller, K. D. (2020) Discernment in management and organizations. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 17 (5), 373–402. Molloy, K. A., Dik, B., Davis, D. & Duffy, R. (2019). Work calling and humility: framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 16 (5), 428–444. Neubert, M. J. (2019). With or without spirit: Implications for scholarship and leadership. Academy of Management Perspectives, 33(3), 253–263. Neubert, M. J., Wu, C., & Dougherty, K. D. (2021). Servant Leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 18(4), 272–292. Paquier, M-C. (2015). Buying monastic products: revisiting the pro-anima gift. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 12 (3), 257–286. Palframan, J. T., & Lancaster, B. L. (2019). Workplace Spirituality and Person–Organization Fit Theory: Development of a Theoretical Model. Journal of Human Values, 25(3), 133–149. Pavlovich, K. (2020). Quantum empathy. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 17(4), 333–347. Pavlovich, K. & Markman, G. (2022). Spirituality, entrepreneurship and social change. Singapore, World Scientific Publishing Company. Rozuel, C. (2014). Calling to the anima mundi: on restoring soul within organizations. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 1 (2), 123–142. Schein, E. H. (2001). Clinical inquiry/research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: participative inquiry and practice (pp. 228–237). London: Sage Publishing. Scheitle, C. & Adamczyk, A. (2016). Divine callings: religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 13 (2), 94–116. Scott, W.R., (2004). Institutional theory. In: G. Ritzer, ed. Encyclopedia of social theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 408–414. Sherwood, H. (2018). Religion: why faith is becoming more and more popular. Retrieved from https://www. theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-growing-and-what-happens-next Singh, R.K. & Singh, S. (2022). Spirituality in the workplace: a systematic review. Management Decision, 60 (5), 1296–1325.

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Smith, B. R., McMullen, J. & Cardon, M. (2021). Toward a theological turn in entrepreneurship: How religion could enable transformative research in our field. Journal of Business Venturing, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106139. Strauss, L. (1953). Natural Right and History Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsao, F. C. & Laszlo, C. (2019). Quantum leadership: New consciousness in business. San Francisco: Stanford University Press. Voynnet Fourboul, C. (2021) Leadership Spirituel en Pratiques Paris: Editions EMS Yang, M. & Fry, J. (2018). The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion. 15(4), 305–324.

Part I: Engagement with foundational contemporary management/organization issues

Bradley A. Almond

The “Acts” of Paul: Micro-processes and new institution creation Abstract: How do new institutions get created? And what role do micro-processes play in this creative process? To date, there have been minimal efforts to fully describe and model the process by which the discrete and various micro-level activities of institutional actors contribute to the creation of new institutions. Drawing from recent scholarship in institutional work, in this paper, I employ a grounded theory approach to the life and works of Paul of Tarsus as recorded in biblical texts to develop a process model of the creation of a new institution which emphasizes micro-level processes, particularly sensemaking. The model centers on two simultaneous and iterative processes by which Paul crafts a message for his various audiences and reinforces these teachings with behavioral, relational, and structures. The emergence of an institution is conceived as the long-term accretion of many discrete institutional acts. Keywords: institution creation, institutional work, religion, Christianity, institutional theory, doctrinal How do new institutions get created? And what do those who seek to create them actually do? Surprisingly, less attention has been paid to these two questions than might be expected. Institutions relate to society’s fundamental and taken-for-granted belief and practice systems – such as religion, the capitalist market, democracy, and the corporation – those forms of meaning, organization and exchange which interpenetrate across all domains of social life, and which are so engrained and routine to those within their purview that they become practically unconscious (Scott 2004). And while studies of the influence of institutions in the creation and reconfiguration of organizations and industries abound (Brint and Karabel 1991, Leblebici et al. 1991, Holm 1995, Ingram and Inman 1996, Sherer and Lee 2002, Almond and DeJordy 2012), studies that focus on the actual creation of new institutions are much less common. And yet, a thorough understanding of the creation of new institutions is critically important given institutional theorists’ concerns with how institutional forces influence the configuration, organization, and meaning of society. In this study, I therefore examine the earliest origins of the Christian religion – one of the central institutions of the modern West (Friedland and Alford 1991) – with a view to better understanding both the process by which new institution creation occurs and

Source: Bradley A. Almond. The “Acts” of Paul: micro-processes and new institution creation, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 3, 186–226, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2014. 965784 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-002

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the role that micro-level processes play in this creation. This study will entail the use of a grounded analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1998) of biblical texts to construct a process model (Mohr 1982, Van de Ven 2007) of new institution creation that emphasizes the role of micro-processes (Powell and Colyvas 2008), particularly sensemaking (Weick 1995, Weick et al. 2005). This study makes a number of significant contributions to existing streams of work. First, it addresses the need for understanding the role of microprocesses in institutional creation, particularly how local day-to-day enacted practices and understandings aggregate, coalesce, and emerge over time as higher order, enduring macro-institutional forms (Powell and Colyvas 2008). Second, by attending to processes, this study moves beyond the emphasis on variance models (Mohr 1982) common in studies of institutional entrepreneurship (Hardy and Maguire 2008, Battilana et al. 2009) to show not only the enabling conditions that make actors in institutional contexts more likely to successfully engage in institutional work but also the specific actions and processes these actors employ on a day-to-day basis to accomplish their objectives. Finally, this study addresses a number of factors that have not yet been given sufficient consideration in empirical studies of institutions: namely, the role of non-discursive elements in new institution creation, the process by which followers are mobilized to create and sustain a new vision, and the ways by which the efforts of an institutional actor vary from one context to another (Battilana et al. 2009).

Institutions, institutional creation, and micro-processes Institutional theorists define institutions as “both [the] supraorganizational patterns of activity through which humans conduct their material life in time and space, and [the] symbolic systems through which they categorize that activity and infuse it with meaning” (Friedland and Alford 1991, p. 232). Institutional theory (Scott 2004) relates to whether, how, and to what degree these patterns and symbols become established, and, once established, whether, how, and to what degree they recur and endure as the taken-for-granted mechanisms by which a society and its organizations function and maintain their existence over time. Although some organizations partially embody, represent, and reinforce a society’s institutions, institutions are rarely, if ever, identical with the organizations themselves. Rather, institutions comprise and encompass much of the broader societal sphere within which individual organizations and fields exist and to which they must conform to maintain their legitimacy. Furthermore, various domains within society such as higher education or health care exist as institutional or organizational fields (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, Scott 1995, Wooten and Hoffman 2008). These fields consist of multiple, interdependent organizations who routinely interact with one another and who also must collectively function within the parameters set by the various institutions of the society in which they operate.

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In contemporary Western society, the most central and influential institutions include the capitalist market, the bureaucratic state, the nuclear family, democracy, and the Christian religion (Friedland and Alford 1991). Each of these institutions possesses its own unique institutional logic (Thornton and Ocasio 2008) – a set of core organizing principles and practices that lend it coherence and invest it with power but which also can cause it to come into conflict with other logics within an organizational field. This conflict between logics can result in dissonance or ambiguity within organizations or fields, and can therefore serve as the opportunity or impetus for change (Seo and Creed 2002, Thornton and Ocasio 2002, Misangyi et al. 2008, Almond and DeJordy 2012). For example, much of the history and evolution of higher education in America can be understood as the aggregate attempts of various colleges and universities to resolve conflicts among the institutional logics of the Christian religion, the secular academy, the state, and the capitalist market (DeJordy et al. 2014). Closely related to this idea of institutional change, one of the current concerns of institutional theory is the question of how and to what degree the existence of an institution affects or determines the behaviors of its inhabitants – those who live and work within organizations governed by its dominant logic (Creed et al. 2010). In this vein, and in response to an earlier emphasis on how institutions shape or determine the behavior of social actors, institutional scholars have more recently wrestled with the paradox of embedded agency (Seo and Creed 2002, Battilana and D’Aunno 2009) – the question of how it is possible for actors whose behaviors and understandings are embedded in and shaped by their institutional contexts to enact change to the very institutions that constitute those contexts. To address this paradox, institutional scholars have sought to develop a theory of institutional entrepreneurship that can account for the emergence of divergent changeoriented behaviors within institutionalized contexts (DiMaggio 1988, Dorado 2005, Munir and Phillips 2005, Hardy and Maguire 2008, Battilana et al. 2009, Levy et al. 2010). Generally, this stream of research emphasizes the enabling conditions for institutional action (Battilana et al. 2009) – the contextual and social characteristics that make actors more likely to successfully engage in institutional entrepreneurship, such as contradictory logics (Seo and Creed 2002), opportune field characteristics (Hardy and Maguire 2008), favorable social positions (Battilana et al. 2009), and political skills (Fligstein 1997). Seeking to broaden the scope of institutional entrepreneurship, recent scholarship on the deliberative and change-oriented actions of individuals within institutional contexts has developed the concept of institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006, Lawrence et al. 2009) which situates much of the work of institutional entrepreneurship within a more comprehensive repertoire of institutional action that includes and differentially addresses both the creation of new institutions as well as the maintenance and disruption of existing ones. For purposes of the present study, I shall use the term new institution creation rather than institutional entrepreneurship, since usage of the latter term has not been limited solely to the creation of new institutions, but has rather been interpreted and applied broadly to institutional change efforts within both emerging

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(Lawrence and Phillips 2004, Maguire et al. 2004) and mature institutional fields (Munir and Phillips 2005, Greenwood and Suddaby 2006, Levy et al. 2010). And as mentioned above, much scholarship relating to institutional entrepreneurship possesses a scope limited to elaborating the enabling field and social conditions for successful institutional change efforts (Hardy and Maguire 2008, Battilana et al. 2009), rather than the actual streetlevel tactics and processes employed by the agents to effect such change. Related to these tactics and processes, recent scholarship has been critical of the relative over-emphasis of exogenous factors, macroprocesses, and political behaviors in accounts of institutional change, and has called for more attention to be paid to cultural and cognitive micro-processes with a view to the development of theories that incorporate everyday processes such as enaction, interpretation, translation, and meaning-making, as well as “how individuals situate themselves in social relations and interpret their context” (Powell and Colyvas 2008, p. 277). These micro-processes are seen as a necessary component for the development of a more comprehensive understanding of how new institutions emerge in that they permit the possibility of demonstrating how the micro- and macro-levels are connected and related (Weick et al. 2005, Powell and Colyvas 2008). Specifically, a focus on micro-processes stands to greatly expand our understanding of the emergence of new institutions by allowing us to establish how emerging individual and local micro-processes aggregate and “ratchet upward” to become institutionalized in new organizations, fields, and logics, rather than how wider macro-categories in society (e.g. environmentalism) get “pulled down” by institutional actors to become embedded in the everyday practices of a specific, pre-existing organization or field (Powell and Colyvas 2008, p. 278). Much more is known about the latter than the former. One fruitful approach to the analysis of micro-processes is the consideration of sensemaking (Weick 1995, Weick et al. 2005, Powell and Colyvas 2008). Sensemaking is an in-the-moment micro-practice by which individuals interpret who they are and how they understand their environment so as to convert and channel new and emerging circumstances into action (Weick 1995, Weick et al. 2005). Sensemaking involves both the construction of identity and the situating of identity within an ever-evolving narrative that over time grows more comprehensive and resilient to criticism as it incorporates new data (Weick et al. 2005). Sensemaking generally relates to two questions: What does an event mean? And what should I do next? (Weick et al. 2005). A sensemaking approach to the analysis of micro-processes emphasizes the importance of language, routines, and communication, including the use of metaphors (Powell and Colyvas 2008). And while sensemaking has been lauded as a promising analytic tool within studies of institutional creation and change (Powell and Colyvas 2008), its actual application within studies of institutionalism has been rare (Weick et al. 2005). The foregoing considerations prompt my core research questions for this study: given the relative surfeit of emphasis on enabling conditions and the relative dearth of attention to micro-processes in accounts of institutional creation, how does the process of new institution creation unfold, and what role do micro-processes play in it? To

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answer these questions, I develop a process model of new institution creation that gives central consideration to the role of micro-processes. This model is grounded in an analysis of the institutional work of Paul of Tarsus as represented in biblical texts. The qualitative, inductive approach utilized in this study is preferable given (1) my theoretical interest in processes, (2) my desire to gain a deep understanding of the experiences of Paul and his followers, and (3) my goal of assembling the discrete and various pieces of these experiences into a coherent, general explanation (GoldenBiddle and Locke 1997, Schram 2003).

Data and methods The Christian religion is one of the core institutions of the modern West (Friedland and Alford 1991), and, as such, its influence has permeated and endured far beyond the limits of its formal authority and organizational structure. As a core institution, its influence is deep-seated and therefore experienced or enacted unconsciously in various domains of life. For example, Western ideals of altruistic and romantic love have their origins in Christian doctrine (de Rougemont 1956), and the profound influence of the King James Bible is pervasive throughout much of classic literature, even though no explicit representation of Christianity is present in most of these works (Cowan and Guinness 1998, Alter 2010). Surprisingly, although Christianity has served as the context for studies of institutional change (Creed et al. 2010), there have been few, if any, studies examining the origins of the faith from an institutional perspective. This is symptomatic of the wider neglect of the study of religion in organization studies recently identified by Tracey (2012). One advantage to studying the origins of Christianity as opposed to any of the other core institutions in the modern West is that Christianity has a clearly marked historical starting point: the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, c. 27–30 AD (Connick 1974). The original emergence of other core institutions such as democracy and the bureaucratic state are much more complex, diffuse, and gradual, and therefore less amenable to a study of this nature and scale. Another advantage of studying Christianity is the availability of historical material sufficient for establishing the link between everyday acts and new institution creation, a situation that is, lamentably, rare (Barley and Tolbert 1997). These materials exist in the biblical record with respect to Paul of Tarsus. While not himself the founder of Christianity, Paul of Tarsus was arguably the most controversial and famous personage among the principal early proponents of the Christian religion, and was clearly the most successful. Over the course of his career, he was responsible for transforming the fledgling faith from a marginal and controversial Jewish sect centered in Jerusalem into a robust and distinct entity, embraced by a diversity of peoples and having a developed doctrine, organizational identity, and leadership hierarchy (Ellis 1996). A remarkable historical irony, Paul’s own conversion to Christianity abruptly halted his violent campaign to eradicate the Christian faith by force. Paul’s

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institutional work spans an approximate 30-year period, beginning with his dramatic conversion around 36 AD until his martyrdom at the hands of Emperor Nero around 65 AD (Glover 2002). By the end of Paul’s life, the Christian faith spanned the greater part of the Roman Empire, particularly those parts on the eastern and northern coasts of the Mediterranean including sections of modern Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Italy (Holzner 1944). While the Bible records that other apostles also participated in the early work of the church, Paul’s contribution surpassed them in scale and scope in that he was first to attempt to systematically universalize Christianity by integrating and unifying Jews and Gentiles in a common faith. Fourteen books of the Bible serve as the data for this study, thirteen of which comprise Paul’s personal correspondence with churches and individuals, and one of which offers documentation of his career by Luke, one of his traveling companions. Table 1 contains the full and abbreviated titles, author(s) and recipients of these books, together with their approximate lengths. For purposes of this study, I have taken the texts of these books at face value as reliable and accurate historical documents, knowing fully that this is a matter of some debate among biblical scholars (Harris 1995). However, given the simple structure, relative brevity, and generally unequivocal narrative content of this particular subset of biblical texts – there are no prophetic, poetic, or apocalyptic writings included – and the limited, decidedly nontheological purpose for which I am utilizing it, this approach should not be perceived as tenuous or unduly extrapolative. Furthermore, Luke, a colleague of Paul and the author of the book which chronicles Paul’s institutional work and ministry, is the only biblical writer to explicitly claim to have taken a systematic, scholarly approach to his writing – to have “investigated everything carefully from the beginning” and to have written “it out for you in consecutive order” (Luke 1:3–4). Although this face value approach is adequate to the immediate purposes of the present study and with respect to this particular subset of biblical texts, the approach taken here should be not be considered a recommended approach to biblical hermeneutics in general, nor as an endorsement of any of the wider textual, historical, theological, ecclesiastical, or soteriological traditions surrounding these texts. In this study, I have simply chosen to include all canonical works about or attributed to Paul based on internal evidence (i.e. what the text itself says about who wrote it). Although there is some scholarly disagreement about even the authorship of some of the biblical texts attributed to Paul, these questioned texts are nevertheless often considered legitimate on the basis of their unity, integrity, and clear Pauline lineage – even in some cases to have been written by a close disciple carrying out Paul’s express wishes (Brown 1997). Other important factors of these works will be considered as the analysis proceeds. In general, these works comprise an incredibly rich dataset, filled with a gamut of emotional, situational, and interpersonal details such as traveling itineraries, meeting minutes, plans and ambitions, personal reflections, acts of persuasion, controversy and conflict, riots and violence, frustration, anger, sarcasm, and rejoicing.

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Table 1: Biblical texts relating to Paul’s life and works. Text

Length in Title of wordsa Biblical book

Abbreviated title

Author(s)

Recipient

Chronicles of the early Christian church and its apostles

 Acts

Acts

Luke

NA

The letter to the church in Rome

 Romans

Rom

Paul

Church

The first letter to the church in Corinth

  Corinthians

 Cor

Paul and Sosthenes

Church

The second letter to the church in Corinth

  Corinthians

 Cor

Paul and Timothy

Church

The letter to the Galatian churches

 Galatians

Gal

Paul and “all the brothers”

Church

The letter to the church in Ephesus

 Ephesians

Eph

Paul

Church

The letter to the church in Philippii

 Philippians

Philpp

Paul and Timothy

Church

The letter to the church in Colossae

 Colossians

Col

Paul and Timothy

Church

The first letter to the church in Thessalonica

  Thessalonians  Thes

Paul, Silas, and Church Timothy

The second letter to the church in Thessalonica

  Thessalonians  Thes

Paul, Silas, and Church Timothy

The first letter to Timothy

  Timothy

 Tim

Paul

Apprentice

The second letter to Timothy

  Timothy

 Tim

Paul

Apprentice

The letter to Titus

 Titus

Titus

Paul

Apprentice

Philmn

Paul and Timothy

Church member

The letter to Philemon a

 Philemon

These figures represent the number of English words in the New International Version of the Bible.

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Taken together, these data afford a unique opportunity to construct a model of new institution creation in that they allow the reader to observe not only the arms-length, third-person narrative record of activities, but also the real-time, first-person, and contextualized accounts of interpersonal battles, personal cogitations, and aspirations of a pivotal figure in world history. Regarding methodology, I base much of my approach on the procedure recommended by Barley and Tolbert (1997) for studying the link between actions and institutions. This includes the compilation of records of both the flows of action – “who interacts with whom in what ways and at what times” – as well as the meanings, interpretations, behaviors, and explanations that account for, accompany, and arise from these interactions (Barley and Tolbert 1997, p. 105). Relating this approach to the data in this study, the book of Acts is analyzed first to provide insight regarding who Paul interacted with, as well as when, where, and in what sequence he did so. Paul’s correspondence, on the other hand, is analyzed second to provide insight into the meaning and motivation for the actions and interactions, among other things. Furthermore, given (1) that the data in this study are historical texts rather than my own first-hand observations and (2) that I seek to model the process of new institution creation as it unfolds over time, I employ a grounded theory methodology (Strauss and Corbin 1998) to analyze these texts. The use of this methodology mandates that scholars remain as close to the data as possible when generating theory. To this end, I employ an iterative approach to data coding instead of specifying formal a priori hypotheses, preferring to code freely and comprehensively so as not to force my expectations onto the data and to allow categories, relationships, and dynamics to emerge from the data as organically as possible. Grounded theory further dictates that the coding process continue until saturation occurs – when new data does not contribute any new insights to the categories and hypothesized relationships already established by the theorist. Through this process, the grounded theory approach helps ensure a close fit between the data and the theory that is based on it. In addition, and following Pratt’s recommendation, I make use of copious in-line quotations and summary tables to “minimize the violence” done upon the source data when translating it into a theoretical model (2008, p. 499). This summarizes the general approach to this study. Further particular methodological comments are inserted throughout the analyses as needed for clarification.

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Starting with the Acts What exactly did Paul do? As it turns out, this question is complex and can be considered simultaneously at multiple levels. However, the first pass answer to this question in broad strokes centers on the book of Acts, which narrates Paul’s travels and activities over much of his career. To answer this question, I first read through the book and recorded every reference to geographic location or traveling relating to Paul. Next, I entered this sequence of nearly 100 place names into a column in a spreadsheet for further analysis. Then, I went through the text and recorded for each location or trip leg any contextual clues and activities that occurred there. Finally, I grouped all the activities into major categories to get a better feel for what Paul’s work looked like overall from the outside. I opted to organize the observations generated in this fashion according to meaningful types of behavior. This is one of Barley and Tolbert’s (1997) recommended categorization schemes for establishing links between actions and institutions. In the next section, I brifly summarize these high- level data before moving to more nuanced analyses incorporating Paul’s correspondence. In both of these sections, I first identify the constructs and processes I coded in the data, then illustrate them with quoted excerpts from the data (Pratt 2008). If the illustrative data for a particular concept are too numerous or too lengthy to be quoted, I simply insert references to the portions of the data from which the construct was derived.

Accounts of Paul’s activities from the book of Acts In seeking an answer to the question of what Paul did to establish the Christian faith, I first turn to accounts of his visible activities recorded in the book of Acts. Paul’s activities therein may be grouped into several different types of behaviors (Barley and Tolbert 1997): travels, speaking and other ministerial acts, coping with opposition, miscellaneous church duties, and secular labors. Each of these will be given a brief treatment below.

Travels Much of Acts chronicles Paul’s travels. A typical passage is given below.1 After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island. It was an Alexandrian ship with the figure head of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days. From there we set sail and arrived at Rhegium. The next day the south wind came up, and on the following day we reached Puteoli. (Acts 28:11–13; see also 13:6,13–14)

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Two other observations regarding Paul’s travels should also be noted: his continual use of traveling companions – some of whom remained with him for several years at a time – and the occasional adjustment of his itinerary to avoid strong opposition. [Paul] decided to go back through Macedonia. He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. (Acts 20:3–5) There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the good news. (Acts 14:5–7; see also 13:50)

Speaking and other ministerial acts In addition to traveling, much of Paul’s substantive work in Acts involved public and private speaking of various kinds and in various venues. At least three types of speaking can be identified in Paul’s work depicted in Acts: evangelistic appeals, religious training and encouragement for those already converted, and legal defense before accusers and governing authorities. Most of Paul’s speaking involves the first two of these. A survey of the text of Acts shows no fewer than 20 occasions when Paul proclaimed his message. Two of these messages are reproduced verbatim in the text – the messages delivered in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:13–41) and in Athens (Acts 17:22–31). The venues for his evangelistic speeches were varied, including many Jewish synagogues (where he customarily began his campaigns in a region; e.g. Acts 17:2,10 and 17), a marketplace (Acts 17:17) and a gathering of the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–34) in Athens, a rented lecture hall in Ephesus (Acts 19:9), a riverside in Philippi (Acts 16:13), and Paul’s own home while under house arrest in Rome (Acts 28:23). His messages to the already converted took place in more private settings, such as private households in Philippi (Acts 16:32,40), Corinth (Acts 18:7–8), Troas (Acts 20:7–8), and on a beach in Miletus (Acts 20:17–38). Finally, Acts records five occasions when Paul delivered messages to justify and defend his work to opponents and authorities while under arrest: before a hostile crowd (Acts 21:30–22:22) and before the Jewish ruling council in Jerusalem (Acts 22:30– 23:10), and on three separate occasions before governors or kings in Caesarea (Acts 24:10, 25:6, and 26:1). Furthermore, some of Paul’s speaking occasions were accompanied by the performance of various religious rites, such as baptism (Acts 16:15, 32–33, 18:8, and 19:5–6), miracles of healing (Acts 14:8–10, 28:8–9), and exorcism (Acts 16:16–18).

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Dealing with opposition A third general category of Paul’s activity is responding to the opposition frequently encountered during his campaigns. As I have already mentioned, sometimes this opposition involved formal arrest and trial, but frequently it was more frenzied and severe and resulted in bodily harm or imprisonment. The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. (Acts 16:22–24; see also 14:19–20)

In addition, occasionally Paul avoids further physical harm and gains leverage with authorities by invoking his Roman citizenship, a designation that granted him certain privileges, among them the right to a trial before being bound or corporally punished (Glover 2002). As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?” When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.” Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains. (Acts 22:25–26,29; see also 16:36–39)

Secular labors In addition to his overtly religious labors, Paul also engaged in the secular trade of tent making, which some historians now believe refers more generally to leatherworking, a highly portable trade requiring only minimal tools (Hock 1980). Acts indicates that Paul plied a trade in at least Corinth and Ephesus, where he spent considerable time. After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. (Acts 18:1–3; see also 20:33–35)

Miscellaneous church duties The final category in the initial sweep of Paul’s activities is miscellaneous church duties. Some of Paul’s labors involved dealings with the church and its leaders in Jerusalem. For example, when Paul and the church in Antioch received word of an impending famine in the region around Jerusalem, Paul helped to collect and deliver a monetary gift to the church there (Acts 11:27–30). Second, Paul attended a church council in Jerusalem to resolve a doctrinal controversy that had erupted, and afterwards delivered the

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decision of the council to some of the congregations affected by the dispute (Acts 15:1–35). Finally, on three separate occasions, Paul gave an account of his ongoing apostolic work to the church leaders in Jerusalem (Acts 9:27, 15:4,12, and 21:19). Taken together, the five general types of behavior outlined above illustrate much of the basic structure of Paul’s work in institutionalizing the Christian faith. They show a basic methodology to his approach: performing acts of rhetorical persuasion to members of many levels of society, continually searching for receptive audiences and avoiding antagonistic ones, involving others in travels and labors, maintaining a relationship with other church leaders in Jerusalem, and working a trade to provide for basic bodily and material needs. Fortunately, the existence of Paul’s correspondence allows for the analysis of his institutional work with greater subtlety and precision. This material also lets us move beyond merely structural and behavioral considerations to matters of motivation, intention, and content, as recommended by Barley and Tolbert (1997). All of these factors figure prominently in the model of new institution creation grounded in these texts. I now turn to the analysis of the body of Paul’s correspondence before moving to a final integration of all factors into the model.

Analyzing the letters Barley and Tolbert (1997) recommend that researchers couple observational records of an institutional actor behaviors with the actor’s own interpretations of his behaviors at the time. As such, Paul’s letters form a crisp and convenient analytic complement to the book of Acts. As mentioned above, Acts generally presents a chronological sequence and third-person description of many of the highlights of Paul’s career. With Paul’s correspondence, however, we have much more insight into his thought: specifically, through these letters, we are able to eavesdrop on private and semiprivate local conversations already in progress and by so doing identify personal and contextual details as well as a host of internal and external tensions, conflicts and controversies inherent in Paul’s efforts. In addition, Paul’s own descriptions, explanations, and commentary often can be directly mapped onto events recorded in Acts such that in vivo codes (Strauss and Corbin 1998) and concepts pertaining to Paul’s institutional work can be lifted directly from the raw chronicle provided in Acts. For example, whereas Acts merely records the sequence of Paul’s travels and gives an account of what took place in each locale, Paul’s correspondence sometimes provides the underlying rationale for these travels and actions: So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. (Rom 15:18–20)

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Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in another man’s territory. (2 Cor 10:15–16)

When integrated with the accounts and descriptions in Acts, these two sample passages provide several important insights. First, Paul’s travels were in part directed by his desire to evangelize virgin territories not yet familiar with the Christian message (i.e. “where Christ was not known”). This provides some preliminary explanation of why his successive missions in Acts tended further and further westward and away from Jerusalem. Second, Paul considered religious conversion to entail a maturation process (i.e. “. . . as your faith continues to grow”), a fact that offers some insight into why each successive mission in Acts has Paul first revisiting already established churches before pioneering new territory. Third, Paul hoped that the major Greek city of Corinth could become a hub out of which other evangelistic work could eventually proceed. This helps us understand why Acts records Paul remaining in Corinth for 18 months (Acts 18.11), while he stayed in other communities for much shorter periods. Also, by comparing the 2 Corinthians passage above to similar passages in Paul’s other correspondence it becomes clear that Paul utilized this hub-and-spoke approach in more than one metropolis. So, having illustrated how Paul’s letters can be used in tandem with Acts to develop insights into his methodology, I now move into a discussion of the letters themselves. My methodological approach to the letters was similar to my approach to Acts. I read each letter multiple times and coded a number of things from the text for each of them, including author and co-author(s) (if any), recipient(s), overall tone of the letter, types and arrangement of thematic material, indicators of ongoing correspondence with the recipient(s), the history of the relationship between Paul and the recipient(s), and the occasion(s) for the letter. While coding along these dimensions, additional lines of inquiry occasionally occurred to me that required my consulting Acts and other reference materials to adequately answer. Insights gleaned from some of these efforts contributed to my understanding of Paul’s institutional work. For example, during the coding process I became interested in knowing how long Paul had known the recipients of the letters and where Paul was when he wrote the letters. Answers to these questions were not always readily apparent from the letters alone. But with this information, I hoped to be able to pinpoint the dates of Paul’s letters and thereby determine whether or not his messages varied with the duration of his relationship with the recipients. To determine the relationship durations and Paul’s writing locations, I first recorded and compared context clues in the letters themselves to my chronology of Acts. I examined each letter to see who Paul mentions as coauthoring the letter or as being colocated with him when he wrote it. I then compared this to a personnel timeline I developed from Acts showing the movement of Paul and his many companions through nearly 100 locations over the course of his career. This timeline proved useful to the analysis in many ways. For example, it enabled me to date Paul’s letters to the Thessalonian church. The text of the letters to the church in Thessalonica lists Paul, Silas, and

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Timothy as co-authors (or at least co-senders). Acts has these three men co-located for only a short period of time after they leave Thessalonica, and almost all of this time is spent working in Corinth. I therefore concluded that these letters were written while they were there. Given that historians date Paul’s time in Corinth around AD 51 (Holzner 1944, Jewett 1979, Ramsay 2001), I used this date as an approximate date for his letters to the churches in Thessalonica. In taking this approach I have certainly replicated the work of other more expert biblical scholars, but I nevertheless pursued this method given my desire to attain a deep and uncolored understanding of these texts for purposes of the grounded theory I sought. Finally, if clues in the biblical texts were insufficient in themselves to establish reliable dates and locations, I consulted outside sources such as Brown (1997), Glover (2002), and Lightfoot (1994). In all, the iterative coding process of Paul’s correspondence yielded a very large data set. To integrate as much of this data as possible, I now proceed with the analysis by focusing on the problems that Paul encountered and the responses he offered to them.

Problem categories As shown in Table 1, Paul’s letters can be divided into two categories: letters to churches and letters to his apprentices. My primary but not exclusive focus will be his letters to churches since these span all but the very last of his career. Why did Paul write these letters? The texts of these letters point to a number of varied events prior to Paul’s writing that prompted him to take up his pen, but in general Paul wrote in lieu of or as a prelude to a personal visit to address problems and assess progress with a view to more firmly establishing the new faith in that community. The many problems addressed in the letters pose varying degrees of threat to the survival of the congregations. Paul’s reactions to these problems range from annoyance and confusion to personal insult, bitter disappointment and anger. The major categories of problems to which Paul responded in his letters include challenges to his authority, the influence of teachers whose messages are either pseudonymous or in simple disagreement with his own, persecution, and general immaturity and error. These problem categories thread through many of Paul’s letters and are illustrated in the passages below. Concerning defiant disobedience or challenges to Paul’s authority: This will be my third visit to you. I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. (2 Cor 13:1–3; see also 1 Cor 4:18–19,21)

Concerning apostasy or conflicting/pseudonymous teachings: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are

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throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! (Gal 1: 6–8; see also 2 Cor 11:12–14 and 2 Thes 2:1–3)

Concerning persecution: We sent Timothy . . . to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. (1 Thes 3:2–4)

Concerning factionism or general immaturity and error: My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ” . . . No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. (1 Cor 1:11–12, 11:19) In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not! (1 Cor 11:17, 20–22; see also 1 Cor 5:1–2)

A tailored approach These passages shed light not only on the congregations embroiled in the specified problems, but also on the approaches Paul takes in addressing these congregations. Paul’s tone in the letters varies with the severity of the problems that prompted the letters. Also, the level of complexity of the arguments and challenges he poses to the church varies as a function of the maturity level of the church. As an illustration of this, consider the churches in Thessalonica, Galatia, Corinth, and Rome. As mentioned above, the chronology of Paul’s work from Acts indicates that his letters to the church in Thessalonica were written only a few months after his initial visit to that community. His tone in the letter to this fledgling church was one of fond reminiscence, gentle paternalism, and glowing praise. The text of these letters is also clear that their errors were not perceived by Paul as being of an antagonistic or defiant nature. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. (1 Thes 1:8; see also 1 Thes 1:6–7)

In contrast, the tone in his letters to the churches in Galatia and Corinth – both of which had been established for several years at the time of writing – was much more harsh and censorious: You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by

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observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing–if it really was for nothing? How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you! (Gal 3:1–4, 4:20; see also 1 Cor 6:4–7)

Finally, the letter to the church in Rome – which was not originally established by Paul and which had been in existence for many years (Rom 15:23) at the time of Paul’s writing the letter, around AD 57 – indicates that the church was large, mature, and very knowledgeable of the scriptures. For example, in marked contrast to his other letters, in Romans, Paul greets 29 people by name and indicates that the Church of Rome comprises at least five distinct congregations (Rom 16:1–15). Of their maturity level he comments: “I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another” (Rom 15:14). Regarding their knowledge of the scriptures, Paul’s letter to the church in Rome contains 59 references to the Hebrew Scriptures, or approximately one reference for every 180 words. In contrast, eight of Paul’s other letters have only one or zero references to the Hebrew scriptures, one book has four references, two have ten, and one has seventeen.2 Finally, Paul also uses a high level of rhetorical sophistication in his letter to Rome, not only because of the maturity of the intended audience but also because of the critical significance of the church in the capital city of the Roman Empire and the impact he seemed to hope his letter would have in furthering his institutional work. Over the course of nine chapters of this letter, Paul develops a complex theological argument regarding the integration of Jews and Gentiles into a common faith, asking and answering a series of 10 rhetorical questions to foster understanding and to ward off erroneous interpretations of his arguments.3 Considering the corpus of Paul’s letters to churches as a whole, it seems that Paul varied his approach to the churches depending on the background of the audience, the severity of problems encountered in the congregation, and the overall maturity level of the church addressed in the letter. The two sermons recorded in Acts provide additional evidence of Paul’s adjusting his message depending on the background and problematic tendencies of his audience. In Acts 13:16–41, Paul’s sermon in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch is drawn completely from the history and scriptures of the Hebrews, while his sermon to the gathered Athenian Areopagus in Acts 16 draws from Athenian philosophy and poetry to debunk Greece’s rampant idolatry and thus steer the members of the Areopagus toward his gospel, as the following quotes illustrate: Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 16:22–23)

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“For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.” Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s design and skill. (Acts 16:28–29)

In all, the manner in which Paul varied his approach to his audiences can be best summarized in his own words: To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law . . . so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law . . . so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. (1 Cor 9:20– 22)

Having now analyzed the manner in which Paul approached his various audiences, I now turn to the constitution of Paul’s message itself. Further analysis of Paul’s correspondence helps to demonstrate the centrality of sensemaking in the creation of a new institution.

Paul’s message In his letters, Paul frequently utilizes a host of interpretive micro-processes, particularly sensemaking (Weick 1995, Weick et al. 2005) – the practice of converting emerging circumstances into action by using them to define and interpret the identity of his audience and the meaning of their shared circumstances (Powell and Colyvas 2008). As Weick et al. (2005, p. 410, 412) describe it, an analyst’s focus on sensemaking emphasizes, from the perspective of the institutional actor, the sense “of being thrown into an ongoing, unknowable, unpredictable streaming of experience in search of answers to the question[s] . . . ‘what’s going on here?’ . . . [and] . . . ‘what do I do next?’” This process is a central component in Paul’s institutional work, and is in fact essential to his gospel message. Through these interpretive and normative maneuvers, Paul tries to persuade his audience that recent events (i.e. the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus) consummate and fulfill the Jewish faith, and further, that these events signify that faith in the God of the Jews is no longer available to Jews only, but is in fact available to everyone who chooses to believe Paul’s message. Paul’s initial efforts to translate these events into shared understandings within his churches relate to the what’s going on here? question. Part of Paul’s further challenge was to articulate these ideas into a comprehensible and coherent framework, to contribute further to this framework over time as intervening circumstances dictated, and to explain and motivate the appropriate attitudes and behaviors to accompany this framework. Paul’s efforts to do these objectives relate to the what do I do next? question. He practiced sensemaking to do all of this, employing this method in many different fashions and along a variety of fronts.

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First, an important part of Paul’s effort to answer the what’s going on here? question involves his defining and reframing many symbolic and substantive elements of Judaism to support his understanding of God’s redemptive plan for humanity. Foremost among these was his assertion that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-anticipated savior of the Jews: We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus . . . Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. (Acts 13:32–33,38)

Second, Paul also reframes several ancient and sacred elements of Judaism by interpreting them figuratively rather than literally and by arguing that what he claims they represent symbolically is now realized and fulfilled by his gospel. Such reframed elements include the code of Mosaic Law, the rite of circumcision and the Passover Festival. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. (Gal 3:23–25) Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? . . . a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. (Rom 2:25–26, 29) For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor 5:7–8)

Third, another controversial claim that Paul makes regarding Judaism – one for which he takes great pains to elaborate throughout his writings – is that faith in the God of the Jews is now universally available to everyone who believes his gospel: For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile–the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom 10:12–13)

Paul’s reframing of Judaism represents only one of several occasions of his attempting to develop his own gospel in relation to or in contrast to other belief systems. For example, in his letter to the Colossian church, he argues to show its superiority to Gnosticism (Col 1–2, especially 2:16–19). Similarly, in his first letter to Corinth, he defends his gospel over against Paganism by mocking current aphorisms used to justify the rampant sexual promiscuity for which the city was famous (1 Cor 6:12–13). In addition, Paul occasionally uses this process to defend his own gospel from common misinterpretations, especially those that were maliciously intended (Rom 3:7–8). More generally, Paul often seeks to defend his gospel by defending himself, as both Acts and his correspondence repeatedly attest. A frequent and important component of

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his apologetics is his interpreting and defending the veracity and legitimacy of his own conversion, gospel, and status relative to the apostles who had known Jesus personally. This, too, addresses the question, what’s going on here? I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11–12) As for those [other apostles] who seemed to be important–whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance–those men added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. (Gal 2:6–7; see also 2 Cor 11:5)

Further, when addressing Jewish audiences for whom his claims were particularly scandalous Paul frequently points to his impeccable Hebrew pedigree to show that he is not an imposter or a fraud. circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; . . . as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. (Philpp 3:5–6; see also Rom 11:1) Under Gamaliel4 I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. (Acts 22:3)

We could say that Paul’s efforts described above simply seek to clarify the relationship between the old and the new in light of the revelations he had received. This is only one of many relationships Paul sought to clarify or reconcile through his institutional work. In fact, in terms of the actual content of his correspondence, Paul spends more time explaining and clarifying various relationships than he does anything else. For example, Paul offers commentary on such things as the relationship between the Christian convert and the code of Jewish law, between the Christian and God, between Christians and non-Christians, and between church leaders and church members. Table 2 provides a representative sample of the full range of the many relationships elaborated by Paul along with illustrative passages from Paul’s letters for each of these. For each item, the basic ideal principle of the relationship Paul is advocating is also identified. It is also worth noting the manner by which Paul explains many of these relationships and frames other important ideas in his gospel. His most frequent method is the use of metaphoric illustration, one of the micro-processes identified by Powell and Colyvas (2008). Over 30 different metaphors are used to define and describe the many relationships and concepts elaborated by Paul in his letters, metaphors such as bodies and heads, athletics, marriage, slavery, soldiery, and light/darkness. Table 3 contains a number of these metaphoric passages and the relationships or ideas they were used to explain. Taken together, Tables 2 and 3 more clearly illustrate these facets of the sensemaking process in Paul’s institutional work, and further demonstrate the analytic

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value of his correspondence as a complement to the data extracted from the text of Acts. Table 2: Examples from Paul’s correspondence of his commentary on various relationships in the lives of converts. Relationships

Emphasisa

Illustrations from Paul’s correspondence

Between Jew and Gentile converts to Christianity

Unity

“You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all of you who were baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. :–)

Between believers and non-believers in general

Separation

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” ( Cor :)

Between believers and governing authorities

Submission “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God . . . Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing” (Rom :,–)

Between believers of different convictions on disputable matters

Acceptance

Between believers in good standing and those who are disobedient or disruptive

Dissociation “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” ( Thes :–)

“Accept [each other] without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man . . . eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him” (Rom :–)

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Table 2 (continued) Relationships

Emphasisa

Between household servants and masters

Mutual respect

Illustrations from Paul’s correspondence “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus :–) “ . . . obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ . . . And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him” (Eph :–)

a

In the selected passages only. On some topics Paul modifies his position as he deems appropriate for a given context.

Paul’s guidance concerning Christian conduct Paul’s interpretive and persuasive efforts in general and his use of metaphor in particular afforded him the advantage of being able to more readily rationalize and prescribe certain behavioral and attitudinal obligations for his audiences – the what do I do next? component of sensemaking (Weick et al. 2005). This rationalization is also an important part of his institutional work. Over and over again in his correspondence, Paul argues that a given attitude or behavior follows as a natural consequence of the relational or conceptual frame he elaborates. Consider this extended passage from Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, in which he elaborates the body metaphor, by which he defines and describes right relationships among believers and draws behavioral and attitudinal obligations from it: The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ . . . whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free . . . Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be . . . The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should

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be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Cor 12:12–27)

Table 3: Examples from Paul’s correspondence of his use of metaphor as a sensemaking vehicle. Metaphor

Usage

Illustrations from Paul’s correspondence

Athletics

To argue that faith requires endurance, discipline, and sacrifice

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it do get a crown that will last forever” ( Cor :–)

Soldiery

In general, to describe the relationship and “Endure hardship like a good soldier of Christ responsibility of the believer toward evil Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets and hardship involved in civilian affairs–he wants to please his commanding officer” ( Tim :–)

Vines and branches

To describe the relationship between non-Jew converts and God

“. . . some of the branches have been broken off, and you, through a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root” (Rom :)

Seeds and growth

To describe Paul’s evangelism and the process of maturation in the faith

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field” ( Cor :–)

Veils and blindness

To describe the state of unbelievers

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” ( Cor :) “. . . for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away . . . But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away” ( Cor :,)

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Table 3 (continued) Metaphor

Usage

Illustrations from Paul’s correspondence

Building To describe the work done by apostles like construction Paul

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Christ Jesus. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is” ( Cor :–)

Slavery and bondage

To describe the relationship of unbelievers to sin and the Mosaic law

“But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before the faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed” (Gal :–)

Parents and To describe the relationship between Paul children and his churches, and between God and the Church

“As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children . . . For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God” ( Thes :–,–) “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children” (Eph :)

Paul’s use of metaphor in this passage is meant to influence converts’ perception of their differential abilities and positions so as to prevent jealousy, promote genuine mutual appreciation, and produce unity, peaceful interdependence, and cooperation. In addition to making relationally situated behavioral commands, Paul derives other behavioral obligations from more ontologically based metaphors, as in the following example in which Paul, in the process of advocating sexual purity, comments on the significance of the human body: Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Cor 3:16–17, 6:19–20)

The previous two quotes also demonstrate the important identity-forming aspect of sensemaking (Weick et al. 2005). Setting aside the question of the creation of an institutional

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identity (which will be discussed below), these quotes illustrate the role of sensemaking in the establishment and definition of the individual and community identity of the recipients of Paul’s message, viz., “you are the body of Christ” and “you yourselves are God’s temple.” Further, these quotes exemplify the iterative pattern of interpretation (what’s going on here?) followed by the rational and persuasive outworking of attitudinal and behavioral obligations (what do I do next?) that is repeated over and over in Paul’s correspondence, and comprises much of the centerpiece of his institutional work. In all, the core of Paul’s institutional work may be summarily described as a lifelong quest to employ sensemaking to provide compelling and coherent answers to the two simple questions posed above, for both himself and his followers: what’s going on here? and what do I do next? For the first question, Paul’s efforts consist of the translation and interpretation of recent events and the reframing of existing knowledge in light of them: Jesus as Messiah, Paul as apostle, Judaism symbolically reinterpreted, a universalized faith, relational and conceptual metaphors, etc. For the second, they consist of the prescription and rationalization of obligations, attitudes, and behaviors. Having now described the interpretive and persuasive components of Paul’s institutional work related to sensemaking, I now turn to one final major component of Paul’s institutional work – building a structure – before considering the integrated model of the emergence of the Christian faith.

Making the message stick: Paul’s structure building efforts The previous section emphasized the conceptual elements of Paul’s work and the manner in which he uses sensemaking to make his message intelligible, credible, and actionable to his audiences. What remains is to infer and elaborate the method by which he structurally reinforced and contained his message so that it would endure. It might be useful here to differentiate between first-order and second-order behaviors. First-order behaviors among Paul and his followers would consist of those behaviors arising from the general categories of imperatives given in the course of Paul’s sensemaking, particularly his use of metaphor. This includes the commands to honor one another and to “honor God with your body” taken from the previous two quotes as well as the commands to endure hardship and to persevere described in Table 3. In contrast, secondorder behaviors would consist of reinforcing behaviors or scripts that habituate and embed the new teachings rather than simply instantiate them. In contrast to first-order behaviors, which depend on sensemaking (translation, interpretation, etc.), secondorder behaviors depend more on Paul’s authority and ability to persuade. Paul’s effort to embed and propagate his message through the establishment of second-order behaviors and scripts is a critically important and multifarious facet of his institutional work.

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Paul used a great variety of different tactics to accomplish this, many of which are illustrated in this section. After an initial encounter with a receptive audience, the first method Paul used to embed his teachings is also the most obvious: he wrote them down and sent them to his followers. We know from the body of texts used for this study that Paul used correspondence5 with his churches to clarify, develop and defend his teachings. We also know that he made repeated visits to many of the churches for the same reasons: Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” (Acts 15:36) Now I am ready to visit you for the third time . . . (2 Cor 12:14)

Paul also uses several forms of persuasion to securely embed his more difficult teachings – such as those regarding sexuality, money, or church discipline – in visible patterns of behavior. These include the giving of advice and the making of personal appeals (weaker forms of persuasion), as well as direct commands, tests of obedience, and comparisons among churches (stronger forms of persuasion). Weaker persuasion tactics: And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter . . . (2 Cor 8:11) Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy . . . (1 Cor 7:25) Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. (Philmn 1:8–9)

Stronger persuasion tactics: To the married I give this command . . . A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. (1 Cor 7:10–11) The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. (2 Cor 2:9) But just as you excel in everything . . . see that you also excel in this grace of giving . . . I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. (2 Cor 8:7–8)

Another tactic employed by Paul to embed his message is the use of his authority to discipline and censure wayward churches, as I have already illustrated (see 1 Cor 4:18–19,21 and 2 Cor 13:1–3 above). Yet another is Paul’s mentoring and dispatching of apprentices to help the churches along. For example, Paul’s letter to Colossae shows that this church was begun by Epaphras, one of Paul’s assistants who was sent to Colossae during Paul’s extended stay in nearby Ephesus (Col 1:7). Also, to more firmly establish the faith of new churches Paul and his assistants appointed local leadership once

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some of the converts were sufficiently mature (Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5). And whenever possible Paul or one of his apprentices stayed with a church for an extended period of time to more fully role model the type of living they encouraged for the converts: For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. (2 Thes 2:7–9) Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Cor 4:16–17)

Other tactics used by Paul to this end are based on simple repetition and encouragement. For example, in his second letter to Timothy, Paul directs Timothy to “keep reminding them of these things” (2 Tim 2:14). Further, after offering some comfort to the distraught Thessalonian church, Paul advises its members to “encourage each other with these words” (1 Thes 4:18), and to “encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thes 5:11). Other tactics employed by Paul relate to establishing and reinforcing various social norms and practices within and between the congregations, such as the ritual of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23–26), the sharing of material resources (2 Cor 8:11–15), the exchange of Paul’s letters (Col 4:16), the sending and receiving of emissaries between the congregations (Rom 16:1–2), the reciprocal correction of error (1 Cor. 5:4,12), the private resolution of interpersonal conflict (1 Cor 6:1–5), the selection of local leaders (1 Tim 3), and the maintenance of order in regular worship gatherings (1 Cor 14:26–40). The final evidence of Paul’s structure building work I will consider here is his use of mnemonic devices and doctrinal statements in the form of hymns or creeds, poetical renderings of important concepts, and self-styled “trustworthy sayings.” For example, consider this passage from Paul’s letter to the church at church at Philippi in which he quotes a segment of a creed or hymn containing doctrinal statements about Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. (Philpp 2:6–9 – versification in original)

Also, in a well-known passage in his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul lyrically expounds on the nature of love:

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Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor 13:4–8)

Finally, many times in his letters to Timothy and Titus, his apprentices, he calls special attention to a doctrinal statement by emphasizing its trustworthiness: Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Tim 1:15) But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy . . . This is a trustworthy saying. (Titus 3:4–5,8)

In all, Paul’s various structure-building efforts may be collected under two heads, which represent the horizons toward which this segment of Paul’s institutional work tended. First, he sought to establish, validate, and perpetuate the formal leadership of the church. Second, he tried to guide converts and congregations toward steadfastness and maturity in the faith. These heads are distinct yet not mutually exclusive, but nevertheless offer a concise summary of this facet of Paul’s work. At this point, I have introduced and grounded all of the components in the model of new institution creation in the biblical record of Paul’s institutional work. I next present the fully integrated model, and further elaborate each construct below. Figure 1 contains this model.

A model of new institution creation Precipitating events The process of new institution creation derived from these texts begins with a set of precipitating events. In the case of Paul, foremost among these is his own conversion, which hinged on his own dramatic encounter with Christ (Acts 9) and which concerned the meaning and import of Jesus’ life and teachings. An important corollary to his own conversion is Paul’s perception and understanding of the responsibilities and obligations his conversion implied for him (i.e. his calling). This is underscored frequently in his correspondence: Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Cor 9:16; also Rom 1:14)

This first phase of the model ends with Paul starting his institutional work, a point I mark as beginning in Acts 13:2–3, when Paul heads west from Antioch on his first missionary journey to the Gentiles. It is important at this point to highlight that Paul’s

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work to create a new institution comprises a series of discrete but cumulating institutional acts – interactions and communications with individuals or groups across a variety of contexts and circumstances. Each of these acts is constituted by Paul exercising agency (Emirbayer and Mische 1998) and either pioneering new work or else challenging or extending the domain of work already accomplished – his own or that of others. As the foregoing analysis has shown, for Paul these institutional acts involve much use of sensemaking and structure building – the translation, transposition, and imprinting of Paul’s emerging convictions, revelations, and understandings onto an external audience or structure. I have therefore labeled the first stage of the model internalization – where Paul first receives his revelation and begins to sense what he believes he must do – and the second, externalization6 – where Paul begins his institutional work of translating and transmitting his revelations for others. For Paul, the externalization phase begins with the selection of an audience.

Targeted travels The establishment of many new local churches begins, as we see in Acts, with Paul’s journey to a specific city or town and his selection of a target audience within it, a process for which we can observe in the Acts and Paul’s letters several guiding criteria in operation at several levels of analysis. For example, all of Paul’s chronicled institutional work takes place within the Roman Empire. Also, we have already seen that Paul prefers to work in areas with no prior contact with the Christian gospel, and that upon entering a new area he first presents his message in the Jewish synagogue. This suggests that Paul sometimes selected areas throughout the Empire that possessed, or was in proximity to, Jewish communities. Also, we have shown that Paul’s work exhibits a strategic hub-and-spoke structure, in which he first establishes a base in a sizeable metropolitan area, then develops the church into surrounding towns and villages. Other portions of these texts corroborate and complement the account of audience selection described above. For example, some texts suggest that Paul’s travels and audience selection were at times less premeditated and more opportunistic in nature: his general search for “open doors” (i.e. receptive audiences; see 2 Cor 2:12, 1 Cor 16:8–9) and the general opportunism by which he sought to present his message. Examples of the latter are myriad and include Paul’s conversion of a slave while under house arrest in Rome (Philmn 1:10), his ministry to fellow prisoners and his guards while in prison (Acts 16:25–30), his preaching in an open-air marketplace in Athens (Acts 17:17), and his preaching to a group of women gathered by a river in Philippi (Acts 16:13–14).

Internalization Phase

– Jesus’ life – Paul’s conversion – Paul’s calling

Precipitating Events

Revisit existing churches

External Threats

– Modeling & mentoring – Encouragement – Appoint local leaders – Correspondence – Continued meetings – Persuasion tactics – Use of creeds, hymns – Discipline & censure – Repetition

STRUCTURE BUILDING (Embedding and Transmission)

– Apostasy – Factionism – Defiant disobedience – Immaturity and general error

Internal Threats

Further instruction

– Jesus = Messiah – Reframing of Judaism – Debunk false teachings – Universalize faith – Paul’s self-defense – Defining relationships – Use of metaphors – Behavioral guidelines – Integration of converts

SENSEMAKING (Interpretation and Translation)

Persecution of self or followers False teachers / teachings Discreditation

Externalization Phase: Domain of Institutional Work

– Roman Empire – Virgin territory – Jewish settlements – Hub and spoke – “Open doors” – Opportunism

Audience Selection

Flee

∙ ∙ ∙

and practices (doctrine)

Outcomes / Institutionalization Phase

– Conversions – Maturation – New routines and practices – Self-regulating communities

Micro (Individual/Local) Outcomes

Mutual reinforcement

– Leadership roles and hierarchy – New organizations / territories – Distinct institutional identity – Inter-community network

– Objectification of teachings

Macro (Institutional) Outcomes

The “Acts” of Paul: Micro-processes and new institution creation

Figure 1: An integrated model of new institution creation grounded in biblical texts concerning the life and works of Paul of Tarsus.

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Sensemaking and structure building A second process that accompanies Paul’s travels and audience selection is the formulation and delivery of his message, which I have already shown to be a process of interpretive sensemaking and persuasion that is tailored to the particularities of each locale and audience. In Figure 1, the heavy line frames the activities of Paul’s institutional work that recur and that may vary for different audiences. It also demarks the bipartite, fundamental engine of Paul’s institutional work, the simultaneous and iterative coupling of sensemaking and persuasion with appropriate preservation and transmission structures, both cognitive and relational. As mentioned above, sensemaking refers to the micro-practice by which individuals interpret who they are and how they understand their environment so as to convert and channel new and emerging circumstances into action (Weick 1995, Weick et al. 2005). The foregoing analysis of Paul’s activities and correspondence reveals a clear sensemaking structure. This structure is illustrated in Figure 2, which contains both representative quotations from source data as well as the first- and second-order constructs that are derived from them. As Strauss and Corbin (1998) explain, it is permissible to use an existing theoretical construct such as sensemaking within a grounded, inductive analysis provided the data also clearly demonstrate the emergence of the construct – as they do in Figure 2. Unlike the sensemaking construct, however, the structure building construct in Figure 1 is merely a generic label I created to describe the category of action in Paul’s work that includes many different activities with similar characteristics (e.g. role modeling, mentoring, encouragement, etc.), each of which was mentioned previously. This, too, is a permissible approach to the creation of constructs in grounded, inductive studies (Strauss and Corbin 1998), especially if existing constructs in the literature do not fit the data well. Consistent with the definition above, Paul’s structure building efforts represent a continuation of his sensemaking efforts in that they are focused on action, rather than only explanation or interpretation. Furthermore, since Paul’s efforts involve many discrete acts and take place across many different locations, the model of his institutional work must take into account its iterative structure. Thus, it is important to describe both the horizontal arrows linking the typical progression of the primary constructs in Figure 1, as well as the vertical arrows which represent the various triggers suggested by the data that prompt a return to an earlier point in the process, whether with a new audience or with an existing congregation. Regarding Paul’s normal progression through these constructs, the accounts given in Acts show that after choosing an audience Paul would first employ sensemaking (i.e. he would preach), then, if the audience was receptive, he would begin structure building. However, note that the double arrows between Audience Selection and Sensemaking represent the fact that Paul would sometimes simply choose to move from one location to another to begin a new campaign. For example, this is recorded in Acts 18:1–3, where Paul decided to leave Athens to go to Corinth.

Debunking false teachings

Giving an account of the world

Universalizing / integrating the faith

Defining believers’ relation to God Defining behavioral guidelines / boundaries

Metaphorical statements : “...the whole world is a prisoner of sin...” (Gal 3:23); “...the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see...Christ...” (2 Cor 4:4)

Statements of inclusion : “...there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all...” (Rom 10:12); “...for you are all one in Christ Jesus...” (Gal 3:28)

Statements about believers : “...you are the body of Christ...” (1 Cor 12:27); “...your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you...” (1 Cor 6:19); “...be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1)

Statements about behavioral guidelines : “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.” (Tit 3:10); “Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor 6:20)

Reframing Judaism

Statements about Judaism : “So the [mosaic] law was put in charge to lead us to Christ” (Gal 3:24); “...a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly... by the Spirit, not by the written code” (Rom 2:29)

Statements about other teachings : “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Gal 1:9); “If anyone teaches otherwise...they are conceited and understand nothing” (1 Tim 6:3·4)

Claiming Jesus as Messiah

Statements about Jesus : “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ” (Acts 17:3)

Constructing identity

Interpreting the environment

Sensemaking

The “Acts” of Paul: Micro-processes and new institution creation

Figure 2: The structure of Paul’s sensemaking as part of his work to institutionalize the Christian faith.

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Aside from these movements from one place to another for which no clear prompting or provocation is given in the biblical record, Paul also at times moves and acts in direct response to one or more of several different triggers. One of these triggers is a direct request from a church for Paul’s guidance. For example, Chapters 7 and 8 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians were written in response to a letter he had received from the church in Corinth in which he was asked for his advice about marriage and the consumption of certain types of foods. Another trigger suggested by the data is a church’s willing reception and successful embodiment of some of Paul’s teachings: having enthusiastically embraced Paul’s initial teachings, a church could expect to receive additional doctrinal elaboration and challenges from him. The letter to the church in Philippi and the first Thessalonian letter are examples of this. These first two trigger types are represented in the model by the arrow labeled “further instruction” in Figure 1. On the other hand, problems and threats also served as triggers for either additional instruction and reinforcement or simply escape to a more welcoming audience. The source of these threats and problems was either internal (originating within the church or its individual members) or external (originating from without the church). Such problem triggers frequently served as occasions for Paul’s correspondence, as in the letters to Corinth (sexual sin, factionism, challenges to Paul’s authority) and Galatia (false teachings), which I have discussed previously. These problematic triggers are represented in Figure 1 by the arrows originating from the boxes labeled “internal threats” and “external threats.” To summarize, the externalization phase of Paul’s institutional work is comprised of two types of iterations. The first is between-congregation iterations and describes the process by which Paul continually seeks new audiences to which he can address his message. The second is within-congregation iterations and describes Paul’s working locally to develop maturity with a church with which he already has contact. Each iteration may be considered a discrete institutional act. These acts cumulate over the course of Paul’s career to begin to institutionalize the faith. This point leads to the final stage of the model: institutionalization.

Institutionalization What is the cumulative outcome of Paul’s institutional work? How do his labors lead to the institutionalization of Christianity? We see in this corpus of texts the footprints and foreshadowings of a number of outcomes – both macro-structural and microrelational – that jointly produce and reproduce this institution at the close of Paul’s career. Let us first consider the higher order macro-outcomes. At least five higher order outcomes are visible as a result of Paul’s institutional work. The first of these is the result of the wide circulation of copies of Paul’s correspondence throughout the congregations of the early church, even though each of the individual

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letters was situationally occasioned and addressed to a specific audience. This circulation results in objectification: “the dissociation of patterns [from] particular actors and particular historical circumstances” and the investment of the patterns with a “normative, ‘factual’ quality” that generalizes across a variety of circumstances (Barley and Tolbert 1997, p. 102). This objectification of Paul’s letters clearly signifies that Paul’s teachings are beginning to take on an institutional quality by coalescing into a body of generalized formal doctrine. It is clear that Paul and other church leaders were aware of this process and even encouraged it. In his letter to the Colossians Paul writes, “after this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea” (Col 4:16). Also, Peter, head of the church in Jerusalem and a con temporary of Paul, writes the following in one of his own canonized letters: . . . our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things which are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15–16)

This passage indicates two important facts. First, it suggests that Paul’s letters were already considered authoritative writ during his own lifetime, given that Peter equates them with the Scriptures. Second, it further suggests that Paul’s letters were circulated freely beyond their initial recipients, since Peter and some of Paul’s opponents had already read them. The letter circulation process by which this body of doctrine emerged also contributed to the second higher order outcome: the formation of a network of inter-congregation relationships. This network of relationships was further strengthened by the dispatching of local emissaries to other churches, as in the sending of Phoebe from Cenchrea to Rome (Rom 16:1) and of some of the believers from Macedonia to Corinth (2 Cor 9:3). Also, to this end, Paul’s letters frequently contain updates and news about the happenings in other congregations, as well as encouragements to share material resources between churches (2 Cor 8). These first two outcomes together exemplify the tertius iungens (“the third who joins”) strategic orientation, a microprocess within social networks by which an innovator brokers introductions and fosters relationships among dispersed social groups for their collective benefit (Obstfeld 2005). Another higher order outcome of Paul’s work is a developed leadership hierarchy. While it has already been pointed out that Paul appointed leaders in the local churches, in his letters to Timothy and Titus at the end of his life he formalizes this process by establishing clear criteria by which two specific tiers of local church leadership should be chosen (1 Tim 3 and Titus 1:6–9). In addition, Paul’s letters indicate a further division of labor within the church as well as the ongoing work of training apprentices to carry on the work that he himself has been doing (Eph 4:11–12). As final evidence of the complexity and level of development of the leadership of the early church, Paul’s correspondence indicates that some offices within the hierarchy of church leadership are received by appointment only (e.g. apostle and prophet; see

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1 Cor 12:27), whereas others can be sought by individual aspirants (e.g. overseer, deacon; see 1 Tim 3:1). The fourth and fifth higher order outcomes are related but distinct. As to the fourth, we see that Paul’s labors resulted in the formation of new organizations and further expansion into new territories. His use of apprentices also ensured the continuance of these processes after his death. Regarding the fifth, Paul’s work also resulted in the Christian faith having an institutional identity that is distinct and separate from its parent Judaism as well as from other social, cultural, and political institutions. For example, while the very first Christians in Jerusalem met in the Temple alongside the Jews (Acts 5:12), Paul’s churches met primarily in private homes since they were not permitted to practice Paul’s model of worship in the synagogues. This practice is consistent with recent research showing the important role of establishing relational spaces in promoting micro-level institutional change (Kellogg 2009). Also, the cumulative effect of Paul’s commentary and directives concerning the many relationships of the Christian communities (see Table 2) is the clear demarcation of a new and unique social entity. Finally, and as already mentioned, under Paul’s guidance, these new churches developed their own leadership, creeds, and other modes of worship, and so the whole movement took on its own identity, initially as “the Way” (Acts 19:9,23, 24:22), and later as the ecclesia, or “the church.” This distinctive institutional identity became so pronounced and widespread in the years immediately following Paul’s death that it was officially recognized by the Roman Empire in 96 AD (Heemstra 2010). In addition to these macro, higher order outcomes of Paul’s institutional work, a number of micro or individual and social outcomes also resulted. First, Paul’s labors resulted in many individual converts, as well as the maturation of some these converts. In addition, the dense relational structures of these converts meant that believers were held accountable for their actions, and that local communities were to a degree self-regulated. Paul’s letters to Corinth illustrate this through his directive to have the church expel an errant convert (1 Cor 5:2,13) and later, to forgive and restore him (2 Cor 2:6–8), and this without Paul’s direct oversight. A final point concludes the description of the model: note that – by virtue of the fact that the churches were founded at different times and matured at different rates – these micro- and macro-outcomes emerged in parallel and are at least partially mutually reinforcing, such that the resulting institutional arrangement is robust against threats both internal and external. This possibility is explored in Weick et al. (2005), who suggest that the effective use of sensemaking over time may result in the situating of a newly constructed identity within an ever-evolving narrative that over time grows more comprehensive and resilient to criticism. This mutual reinforcement of micro-level actions and macro-level understandings is evidence that institutionalization has indeed begun – the point at which “historical accretions of past practices and understandings [begin to] set conditions on action” (Barley and Tolbert 1997, p. 99). This reinforcement is represented by the dotted reciprocating arrows between the outcomes boxes. For example, Paul’s body of formal doctrine serves as a guide for

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both current and emerging church leaders and converts, and his apprenticing of new evangelists leads to new converts and thus new congregations. So to Paul both of these outcomes were necessary for the ongoing vitality of the church, as his recorded work demonstrates. In summary, Paul’s institutional work as revealed in these source documents shows the constant negotiation of this tension between the continual push for new converts by expanding into new territories and the need to have the faith develop to maturity in individual believers and local communities. Furthermore, his actions show that the sequence and structure of much of his work unfolded in such a way so as to contribute to both objectives simultaneously.

Discussion and contributions In this paper, I have developed a grounded process model of new institution creation that emphasizes the role of micro-processes. This model shows the emergence of a new institution as an iterative and cumulating process of discrete institutional acts – of targeted audience selection, sensemaking, and structure building tactics – all employed by an institutional actor who serendipitously finds himself in possession of knowledge that he perceives to be of great value. This grounded model of new institution creation extends previous work which has focused on identifying either the contextual conditions for institutional work (Greenwood and Suddaby 2006, Battilana et al. 2009) or the types of social positions and skills institutional actors occupy and employ (Fligstein 1997, Hardy and Maguire 2008). To emphasize the role of micro-processes in new institution creation, I have intentionally set aside macro-level explanations offered by these existing perspectives. For example, existing theories of institutional entrepreneurship would draw attention to the cultural layers, infrastructure, and discontinuities present among the Jews in the Roman Empire at the time (e.g. Messianic hopes, Hellenization, and Roman domination) at that time, and predict that someone who occupied a crosssector social position (e.g. a Jewish Roman citizen who spoke Greek) would endeavor to identify and exploit these discontinuities (Hardy and Maguire 2008, Battilana et al. 2009). But this explanation, even if correct, would not have shown how the process unfolded or what role micro-processes would have played in it. In contrast, by emphasizing micro-processes I have not defined Roman citizenship (for example) as one of many independent variables to statistically predict whether or not institutional work will be undertaken in these conditions; rather, I have demonstrated when and how Paul uses his Roman citizenship within the context of his ongoing institutional work (i.e. to gain leverage with authorities or to avoid physical harm). This approach, while also having greater practical utility, further contributes to our understandings of new institution creation by explicitly factoring in micro-processes and showing how they are “ratcheted up” into a wider institutional order (Powell and Colyvas 2008).

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Several other contributions may be enumerated in light of recent calls issued in a comprehensive literature review of the entrepreneurial aspects of institutional work (Battilana et al. 2009). First, Battilana and colleagues cite as a weakness of the current literature the fact that nearly all studies of institutional entrepreneurship focus almost exclusively on the discursive or rhetorical/ persuasive activity of the institutional actor. Battilana and colleagues call for more studies that consider non-discursive elements, such as the actual behavioral practices involved. The current study naturally includes an analysis of Paul’s discursive work – his persuasive and rhetorical habits as revealed in his correspondence – but it also includes analysis of his practices, as well as of the practices he taught his followers as part of his institutional work. Further, the model presented here perhaps suggests the possibility of a form of symbiosis that exists between Paul’s discursive and non-discursive elements to his institutional entrepreneurship. This is exhibited in the iterative relationship between Paul’s interpretive and structure-building work. Second, and somewhat related to the first, Battilana and colleagues also identify three categories of entrepreneurial institutional work: (1) creating a vision, (2) mobilizing allies, and (3) motivating actors to realize and sustain a vision (Battilana et al. 2009). Of these three, they claim that the third has been studied the least, and call for more work that considers it. The present study contains many elements that address Paul’s efforts to motivate actors (i.e. followers) to realize and sustain his vision, including his succession efforts (mentoring new leaders) and the teaching of new practices. Third, Battilana and colleagues write that very little work has examined how the work of new institution creation varies from one context to another (Battilana et al. 2009). The analysis of Paul’s work in the model above contributes to this gap in many ways. For example, it demonstrates clearly the variation among his practices from region to region and from church to church along several dimensions: age and maturity of the church or individual convert (new or mature), the relative importance of the town or city to his larger institutional aims (e.g. hub or spoke), the ethnicity, region, or intellectual sophistication of the people to whom he was speaking (e.g. Jew, Roman, or Greek), among other things. Furthermore, Paul’s epistles also provide an integrating superordinate logic that accounts for this by-region variation (i.e. “all things to all people,” 1 Cor 9:22). Finally, in their comprehensive literature review, Battilana and colleagues identify two factors that may affect the institutional worker’s agency (i.e. his or her ability or intention to take action): the characteristics of the institutional field and the social position the entrepreneur occupies within that field (Battilana et al. 2009). And while these authors admit that “other [things] might affect actors’ agency” (p. 91), they do not speculate regarding what these things might be. The present study offers one possibility. The model presented in this study emphasizes the precipitating role of the conversion and calling of Paul, which, by his own accounts as well as by the accounts of others (e.g. the author of the book of Acts), was divinely inspired and did not come to him as a result of any deliberative or volitional act of his own. The idea of calling is gaining some ascendancy in the work and leadership literatures (Fry 2003, Beadle 2013), but has rarely

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appeared in the institutional work literature. However, while the operational definitions of calling in the literature typically emphasize the inherent value that is perceived and the intrinsic motivation that is felt about what an entrepreneur is doing (Fry 2003), in this study I emphasize the source of the calling (i.e. God) as one possible resolution to the paradox of embedded agency identified in the institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work literatures (Holm 1995, Seo and Creed 2002, Dorado 2005), rather than simply its psychological or practical consequences. This last point could present a fruitful avenue for future inquiry into the origins and development of new institutions. Existing frameworks explain the process by which institutional actors spot opportunities for action in terms of the actor’s temporal orientation or the structure and composition of the actor’s social network (Dorado 2005). However, these factors are incomplete in that they emphasize efficient antecedent causes to the exclusion of any claims of inspiration or calling. It may well be that inspiration proves more elusive to the analyst than it does to the artist, but scholars wishing to pursue this line of inquiry could investigate other instances in which new institutions emerged as a result of some sort of punctuated revelation or fortuitous discovery on the part of the institutional actor, especially in the context of opposition from the existing institutional field. Some possible examples of this type of institution building include the homeschooling movement, which was initiated by John Holt (Holt and Farenga 2003), the emergence of traditional Irish music as a viable commercial enterprise, much of which was prompted by Seán Ó Riada (Ó Canainn 2003, Almond and DeJordy 2012), and chiropractic medicine, which was first discovered and advocated by D.D. Palmer (Wardwell 1992). Better yet, studies that examined several such cases in a side-by-side, comparative fashion would address another gap in the institutional work literature (Battilana et al. 2009). Another possibility for future work would be to extend the present study to examine the ongoing institutionalization of the Christian faith, especially the historical enigma of how the Christian faith rose from a small movement in the backwaters of the Roman Empire to become in 325 AD – and after a period of brutal persecution – the only religion officially sanctioned by the Empire (Cohen 1998).

Conclusion In this paper, I have offered a grounded model of new institutional creation that emphasizes micro-processes based on the life and works of Paul of Tarsus as chronicled in biblical texts. This model shows the emergence of a new institution in three phases: (1) the initialization/internalization phase, in which unexpected and remarkable events in Paul’s life radically reframed his perception of Judaism, the Christian faith, and even his own life, (2) the externalization phase, in which Paul sought to make his revelation and newfound convictions writ large through the use of sensemaking and

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the creation of transmission structures, and (3) the outcomes/institutionalization phase, in which the macro- and micro-outcomes of Paul’s efforts begin to become mutually reinforcing and self-sustaining as an institution. This model contributes to our knowledge of new institution creation in that it integrates a multiplicity of actions and cognitions into a single coherent process model, and demonstrates the role of micro-processes, especially sensemaking, in this process.

Notes 1 All scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible, and will generally appear throughout offset, indented, and without quotation marks. References to book, chapter, and verse(s) from the Bible will appear in parentheses immediately following each quotation. 2 The New International Version of the Bible inserts a footnote whenever Paul cites a passage from another Biblical book. I merely counted all of these footnotes from the Hebrew scriptures (or Old Testament) and computed totals for each letter. I computed word totals using word processing software and the New International Version of the text of Paul’s letters from www.bibelgateway.org 3 See Rom 3:3–4, 3:5–6, 3:9, 6:1–2, 6:15, 7:7, 7:13, 9:14, 11:1, and 11:11. 4 Gamaliel was a highly respected teacher of the Mosaic Law, and a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme judicial and ecclesiastical council of ancient Jerusalem (Acts 5:34). 5 Note that the italicized terms in this section are included below as part of the integrated model of Paul’s institutional work (Figure 1). 6 Note that the arrow in Figure 1 connecting Precipitating Events to Audience Selection indicates only temporal or causal precedence – not an act or process – whereas the arrows within the Externalization Phase represent iterative, ongoing processes that directly correspond to Paul’s recorded movements and activities.

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Wardwell, W.I., 1992. Chiropractic: history and evolution of a new profession. Boston, MA: Mosby Year Book. Weick, K.E., 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M., and Obstfeld, D., 2005. Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization science, 16 (4), 409–421. Wooten, M.E. and Hoffman, A.J., 2008. Organizational fields: past, present and future. In: R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R. Suddaby and K. Sahlin, eds. Handbook of organizational institutionalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 276–298.

Cécile Rozuel

Calling to the anima mundi: On restoring soul within organizations Abstract: Concerns about the loss of spirit, morale, and morality in modern organizations, apparent in the growing spirituality-at-work literature, suggest that the dominant business paradigm is unbalanced. Grounded in a patriarchal view of the world, it effectively negates the feminine and its intrinsic connection with nature. Alchemists, as C.G. Jung discussed extensively in his works, understood the risk of living in an unbalanced world which neglects the soul of the earth and the soul of people. This paper explores the lost connection with the soul and discusses its ethical implications. In particular, I argue that the anima mundi (the world soul) can restore balance and values in organizations if she is attended to respectfully and with care. This process involves an appreciation of the feminine in its practical and archetypal sense, and some extensive inner work, in the spirit of alchemical imagination, to understand ourselves and our organizations better. Keywords: Jung, archetypes, feminine, soul, masculine order, ethics, spirituality The message of the earth is change and rhythm and season unending. Death, in all senses of the word, is an experience that takes us deeper into life, deeper into mystery and deeper in power. (Folisi 2006)

Introduction The modern Western mind, argues Tarnas (1996), has been shaped by three major but related developments: a transformed perspective on the cosmos led us to revise the existing ontology and, subsequently, epistemology. Through the works of Copernicus, Descartes, Kant, and many others, modern men and women learnt that human beings are not at the center of the cosmos, and do not benefit from favorable treatment by the Creator. They also learnt that wonder and mystery, has little place in a modern world.

Acknowledgments: My thanks go to Lea Holford, Tarja Ketola and Jill Yielder for taking part in the symposium “Jung and the ethical organisation”. The symposium was organized by the Ethics in Business Research Group at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. I also thank the anonymous reviewers and the associate editor for their very helpful comments and suggestions. Source: Cécile Rozuel. Calling to the anima mundi: on restoring soul within organizations, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2014, Vol. 11, No. 2, 123–142, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2013.801320 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-003

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Indeed, says Tarnas, a wondrous and mysterious world did not serve people’s aspiration to be freed from its contingencies. The modern world is the world of the rational mind. The soul, with its whimsical qualities, sits in uncomfortably: The world revealed by modern science has been a world devoid of spiritual purpose, opaque, ruled by chances and necessity, without intrinsic meaning. The human soul has not felt at home in the modern cosmos: the soul can hold dear its poetry and music, its private metaphysics and religion, but these find no certain foundation in the empirical universe. Human beings, confronted with contradictory messages and conflicting needs, are at loss to find fulfillment and happiness. (Tarnas 1996, p. 418)

Our quest for control and power has made us lose both control and power and “we no longer experience the world in its fullness” (Denhardt 1981, p. 36). Tarnas suggests that the obliteration of the soul, that which grants fullness and wholeness to our experiences, is detrimental to individuals and, by extension, to the social institutions that regulate the modern world. Jungian writer Moore concurs: “The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is ‘loss of soul’” (1992, p. ix). The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning and implications of this claim. Doing so, I aim to outline the connection between the soul and the feminine, and examine how inner work on the psyche may explain and solve the problem of the “loss of soul” in the context of modern work organizations. The soul is at the same time symbolic and experiential; it is the highest essence and the core of any being. The soul “lures into life the inertness of matter that does not want to live. She makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived” (Jung 1968a, par. 56). The soul connotes both the organizing principle of the living, what makes entities alive through growth and movement (in this sense, soul is anima, translated as “breath” or “life”), and the principle of thought and spiritual direction (in this sense, soul is more usually associated with animus and translated as “spirit”) (Clément et al. 1994, p. 11). Thus, the soul pervades the body (matter) to animate it, but also displays an immaterial quality which connects matter with the spiritual domain (Woodman 2006). This dual view of the soul, central to alchemical work, was endorsed by Carl Gustav Jung, who defined the soul as both “anima corporalis” and “anima spiritualis”, partly embodied and partly ethereal (Jung 1968b, par. 398). Symbolically, as it appears through myths or alchemical texts, the “anima corporalis” represents the soul as anima, anchored in matter, nature, and of a feminine essence; whereas the “anima spiritualis” represents the soul as animus, reflecting spirit, mind, and a masculine essence.1 Our modern language, however, sometimes uses soul and spirit interchangeably, without appreciating the essential difference between the two. Debate over the renewed interest in spirituality illustrates the confusion: in a religious sense (formally or informally), the thirst for spiritual development involves a connection with the divine; mentions of soul in this context do not usually imply a celebration of matter or life embodied, but refer to the animus-side of the soul that longs for the Father (i.e. God). In this purview, however, the spiritual life is somewhat

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soulless because it aims to ascend to the heavens and leave the singular, individual life behind. Indeed, Moore (1992, p. 262) comments: “Spiritual life does not truly advance by being separated either from the soul or from its intimacy with life. God, as well as man, is fulfilled when God humbles himself to take on human flesh”. Spirit, Moore warns, has to connect with matter and be grounded in life to bring forth true fulfillment. On the other hand, holistic interpretations of spirituality (for example, what Heelas and Woodhead (2005) call the “subjective-life spirituality”) capture both dimensions, that is, they strive for a connection with the divine (the spiritual domain, soul as animus-spirit) all the whilst acknowledging the intrinsic sacredness of matter as soul-bearing (the embodied domain, soul as anima-matter). Jung’s endeavors to bring the unconscious to consciousness, and integrate the dark mud to become a fully-fledged individual self, also recognize the necessity to balance spirit with soul, uniting them through a coniunctio, a marriage of duality. Moore (1992, p. 259) notes that anima and animus can be wed in a divine union, although first “each has to learn to appreciate the other and to be affected by the other – spirit’s lofty aims tempered by the soul’s lowly limitations, soul’s unconsciousness stirred by ideas and imagination”. In simpler terms, spirit tempers soul and soul tempers spirit; besides, soul potentially reconciles spirit and body, transcending the tension between spiritual fundamentalism which neglects or condemns all bodily things, and material fundamentalism which neglects or rejects the values of the spirit and the intellect (Moore 1992, p. 232). A crisis of soul or a loss of soul, in this respect, reveals a major imbalance within individuals and societies whose effects are not only psychological, but also moral and social (Moore 1992). The confusion between soul and spirit in common discourse has also somewhat undermined the place of the feminine in soul-work. This, I believe, is what Tarnas laments and Moore alerts us to. For Jung, the anima-soul is “the archetype of life itself” (1968a, par. 66) that shapes much of our psychological reality. Although the soul is not a feminine construct, its essential qualities are archetypally feminine and that is how men and women symbolically relate to the soul. Woodman, for instance, highlights the feminine dimension of soul-work; she discusses how soul and love can nurture creativity and connect us with “Sophia, a presence that has been associated with the feminine side of God” (2006, p. 35–36). Jung usually refers to the soul as “she”. In the following discussion, I not only wish to address the loss of soul within modern organizations, but also to underline how such a loss has been accompanied by a deep neglect of the feminine noticeable, partly, in the patriarchal inheritance of modernity. I contend that work on the soul benefits from a full recognition of its feminine essence, present in both genders. The feminine understands particularly well the rhythms of Nature and the music of the living. The soul of the world, or anima mundi, an undeniably feminine archetype, knows the secrets of the living. I propose that a long-awaited rehabilitation of the anima mundi would help curb the loss of soul that affects our modern world, wounding individuals and stiffening organizations.

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Soul and the spurned feminine Jung understood very well the role of the soul in individual growth. Through his work on the unconscious, he came to appreciate deeply the function of the anima-soul in the arduous process of becoming an individual. At times, Jung equates soul with psyche (Psyche being another feminine character from the Greek mythology) and denounces the widespread skepticism surrounding depth psychology. The following quote, first written in the 1940s, summarizes to a large extent the current attitude of many modern men and women towards the soul: [There is a] universal depreciation of the soul in the West. Whoever speaks of the reality of the soul or psyche is accused of “psychologism” . . . [W]e must really ask: How do we know so much about the psyche that we can say “only” psychic? For this is how Western man, whose soul is evidently “of little worth”, speaks and thinks. If much were in his soul he would speak of it with reverence. But since he does not do so we can only conclude that there is nothing of value in it. (Jung 1968b, par. 9–10)

The lost connection with the soul has paralleled the lost connection with the feminine in favor of a masculine paradigm. Tarnas (1996, p. 441) states that “[t]he masculinity of the Western mind has been pervasive and fundamental, in both men and women, affecting every aspect of Western thought, determining its most basic conception of the human being and the human role in the world”. Evans (2006, p. 24–25) concurs: “Despite some 40 years of second-wave feminism, contemporary Western culture is still governed by a masculine economy . . . [which] has traditionally left the female without subjectivity”. The feminine remains largely conceived as object to a (masculine) subject, who orders the world praising spirit and neglecting matter. Enormous progress has been achieved by the ego striving for its independence from the original womb, but in return the feminine has been sacrificed. In Tarnas’s words (1996, p. 442): [T]he evolution of the Western mind has been founded on the repression of the feminine – on the repression of undifferentiated unitary consciousness, of the participation mystique with nature: a progressive denial of the anima mundi, of the soul of the world, of the community of being, of the all-pervading, of mystery and ambiguity, of imagination, emotion, instinct, body, nature, woman – of all that which the masculine has projectively identified as “other”.

Of course, the masculine provides us with essential values and skills, such as the ability to organize the world and make sense of what we see, feel, and think. However, the demise of feminine goddesses and the rise of monotheist religions organized around a usually masculine, fatherly figure who can create life by himself, have largely contributed to shaping the negative attitude towards the feminine. In Western Europe, this change started with the advent of Judeo-Christianity, further supported by the Enlightenment and its emphasis on rational science and a mechanistic view of life (see for instance Harpur 2002, p. 53–55, on rationalism and polarization). This is not to say that the Eastern world has been immune to the demise of the feminine

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soul, especially since the industrial model of mass production and mass consumption has transcended geographical boundaries. The discussion is however particularly relevant to “the West” because of the close relationship between modern rationalism, capitalism, and the business culture it has led to (Bibard 2005). As our connection with the soul of living things (matter, Earth, and the Great Mother) slowly loosened, we atrophied ourselves from the very organ that allows us to understand and work with (instead of working on) our environment. As Moore (1992) suggests, recalling the myth of Icarus and many others who have fallen down after flying too close to the sun, there are risks in focusing on the heavens (the dogmatic spiritual domain) whilst subordinating the earth (the womb-tomb of embodied life): we effectively divide the cosmos and ultimately split ourselves. Inevitably, the soul suffers, since the soul strives for wholeness. Then, the soul becomes diseased and we mistakenly assume that the soul is the disease, condemning soulful matter and further dividing cosmos and psyche (Evans 2006). What the soul wants is to remind us we are individual bearers of the anima mundi, the soul of the world. Indeed, our soul is never only ours, but belongs to all that is as well. This is why soul-work is archetypal by nature: it touches upon a collective dimension of beingness. Of course, soulwork stirs the deep, dark mud: what was ordered no longer is, what was clear is now cloudy. In other words, soul-work brings confusion and challenges our set perception of the world. But it also brings forth a shinier luminosity to our experiences, through uniting what was formerly divided (Woodman 2006). What if we fail to recognize the wounded soul? What if we do not rebalance feminine and masculine in the world? For Evans (2006, p. 30): “[M]an hasn’t thought through his exploitation of nature, and therein risks his own death. He has determined his relation to nature by means of appropriation, and symbolically stopped the earth turning, having immobilized it within theory”. Jungian analyst and writer Stein (2008) concurs by exposing the self (human as well as archetypal) as carrier of holistic opposite forces. Jung’s conception of the self, says Stein, encompasses a fundamental, intrinsic law of opposites and compensation that links human psyche with the natural world. When dis- equilibrium occurs, balance must be restored, one way or another, inside and outside. Thus, Stein (2008, p. 318) notes, our exploitation of nature will come at a cost: As a consequence of human disturbance to the evolved ecological systems, for instance, the “self of the world” will restore equilibrium and drive forward the evolutionary telos of nature’s individuation on its own, perhaps even to the extent of destroying, or at least curbing, the disturbing elements (i.e. the human species with its unrestrained Titanic ambitions to rule and control nature for its own benefit).

Adopting a feminist lens, Evans (2006, p. 30) proposes that women “reinscribe themselves, . . . end the complicity with men against nature, and rediscover themselves through an embedded, embodied connection with the non-human, opening up a symbolic to include all sentient beings, and not just those classified as homo sapiens”.

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Although women’s role in society has been undermined for a long time (see for instance Jironet 2011 on leadership), it must be acknowledged that the feminine in men has equally suffered (Gustafson 2003). If women can bring forth change and reconnect with nature, men also have a crucial role to play in rediscovering the vivacity and compassion of the feminine (a key dimension of their anima in Jungian terms) that will give them a deeper understanding of the forces of life. Work on the individual soul is at the same time work on the anima mundi, in the same way as work on the individual psyche reverberates in the collective psyche (Jung 1957, par. 583). Thus, organizational agents who tend to their soul are likely to bring more soul to their workplace as well, since their inner transformation triggers and resonates with collective evolution.

Soul and organizations Whether organizations have a soul or not is a problematic question, especially when debating ethical issues at work (Bell et al. 2012). The idea of an organizational soul, first merely a metaphor, has gained some credibility as a substantive and normative concept thanks to the spirituality-at-work movement (Bell et al. 2012). Duska and Ragatz (2008) argue, following Aristotle, that it is possible to conceive that organizations have a soul to the extent that they have a form (formal cause) and a function or purpose (final cause). Therefore, “a business, like a human being, is a living enterprise driven by its projects and goals, i.e. its purposes. Further, when it loses its purpose or changes its purpose, its very being is changed. [. . .] The corruption we see in business today is the result of such a loss of purpose (soul)” (Duska and Ragatz 2008, p. 152). The appeal of “the organizational soul” lies in its framing of ethical issues as both individual and collective, underlining the co-responsibility of organizational agents and organization-as-entity for the moral values sustained. In any case, the ontological difficulty of determining the existence of organizational souls does not change the fact that the ethical climate and morale levels within an organization are likely to be influenced by the state of the soul of its individual members. As stated in the previous section, individuals are distinct from, but also make up, the collective; therefore, talks about soul with regards to organizations are, to a great extent, talks about soul with regards to individuals that compose organizations. It is important to discuss the soul of individuals in the context of their work organization in so far as the workplace (and the activities relating to it) has “a great deal to do with the condition of the soul” (Moore 1992, p. 177). Workplace organizations witness both suffering and search for meaning, two phenomena that greatly affect the soul (Driver 2007). Stein adds that most of the organizations we belong to (work or otherwise) “do not provide a context for [the] third level of consciousness” that consists in a reconnection with the anima mundi (1992, p. 16). Our modern conception of work, as primarily instrumental to sustain acceptable standards of living, is removed

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from the understanding that work is as much about technique and achievements as it is about art, meaning, and crafting one’s individual life. For Moore, contemporary businesses seek efficiency by mimicking the seemingly successful methods of production of other cultures, when they should instead diagnose a loss of soul and understand that “it may not be enough to copy surface strategies, ignoring the deeper evaluation of feeling and sensibility that gives work grounding in the human heart and not just in the brain” (1992, p. 184). In this respect, argues Moore, a good workplace is one that consciously advocates soul values and a soulful organization is one that finds a balance between ecological and economic concerns. Bureaucratic organizations in which impersonal and instrumental transactions provide symbols of recognition, approval, success, and, ultimately, immortality, stand in opposition to soulful organizations. Instead of giving space to individuality and soul, bureaucracies (and many large organizations) demand conformity and absorb all individual expressions of soul, spirit, and personal moral values (Denhardt 1981). An increasing number of studies and scholarly papers defend the premise, that spirit and soul have a place in human society that is on a par with economic and social needs. Research into spirituality in the workplace (e.g. Mitr- off and Denton 1999, Pauchant 2000, Giacalone and Jurkiewicz 2003, Ashar and Lane-Maher 2004, Zsolnai 2004, Benefiel 2005, Lips-Wiersma and Nilakant 2008 to list only a few) and accounts of practitioners’ experiments (e.g. Mirvis 1997, Kernochan et al. 2007, O’Brien 2008, Henry 2009, Zaidman et al. 2009) have become ever more popular and visible in discussions about ethics, business, management, and leadership. The spirituality-at-work movement somewhat contributes to re-enchanting the world following centuries of disenchantment ensued especially, but not only, from the Copernican revolution (Tarnas 1996). Although the very notion of spirituality calls for caution and spirituality is not always synonymous with soul-work, such a trend possibly asserts a need for meaning, which is not fulfilled by our profitability- and efficiency-minded organizations (Driver 2007).

Manifestations of the wounded soul Several symptoms of the wounded soul were discussed during a 2011 symposium aimed at reflecting upon organizational life through a Jungian lens. The three invited speakers, Lea Holford, Tarja Ketola, and Jill Yielder, shared their experiences, as scholars and/or therapists, on how organizational issues could be tackled more holistically. Each identified a specific problem within the context of business organizations and management practices that illustrates a major split between conscious and unconscious, and contributes to a loss of soul and ethical ideals. In what follows, I will outline what these problems are and how they can be apprehended.

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Ego-development and lack of integration As we live our existence switching from one role to the next, we nurture fragmentation and compartmentalization (Rozuel 2011). Social expectations, perceived duties, projections, and mirroring all affect our sense of identity, of who we should and could be. Self-improvement is mistaken for role-perfection through acquisition of specific skills and competencies. In order to acquire those skills, the person has to rely on certain inner abilities and discard others. For example, tasks that require analytical skills appeal to what Jung called “rational” functions of the psyche (thinking and occasionally feeling) in contrast with the “irrational” functions intuiting and sensing, that do not purport to classify or order per se. Mainstream education that praises specialization encourages, to some extent, such compartmentalized view of human functioning (Chatterji 2011). Jung (1971) argued that each person presents a specific psychological type or attitude which co-ordinates the four main functions of the psyche in specific ways: one function is dominant, one secondary or supportive, whilst the other two are underdeveloped. The rational and irrational functions stand in opposition with one another, respectively and as a whole. Adding the general attitude of the psyche in relation to the outside and inner world (extraverted or introverted), Jung offered a useful tool to understand human behavior and the effects of the repressed unconscious. These psychological types were later expanded upon and reframed as a management tool (the “MBTI”) by Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. We are not a type for life, for we can – and should – develop the functions that are not naturally dominant. Jung, as Ketola (2011) underlined, conceived each function as potential. When we consciously work towards developing one function or another, we tap into additional potential that was always there but had to be found. But this is not enough to live well; we must also integrate all four functions so as to form a harmonious whole. This, and only this, enables us to become responsible leaders in our personal and professional life. Modern organizations by and large emphasize and value the rational thinking function far more than the other functions, thus jeopardizing the process of integration by rewarding narrow behaviors and discarding or sanctioning nonconventional ways of approaching a situation (Ketola 2011). When potential lies untouched, both individuals and the communities they belong to, lose out. The very definition of management or organizational “science” implies a high degree of control over circumstances through planning, forecasting, or strategizing. Yet, individuation (which is the process of psychological integration of unconscious content, such as archetypes, into consciousness) cannot be planned, strategized, or controlled, because the ego does not know what the self really is. If the ego does not let go of its effectively limited control, the self will find it harder to emerge – harder, but not impossible. Are modern, rational organizations ready to confront the shadow, that is, the hidden and repressed? To do so means that they need to allow the dirty, chaotic, shattering work of integration to take place as it should and accept what the

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self unveils. What if change is radical? What if individuals who work in these organizations change in such a way that their individuated-selves no longer believe in the old value system? What if they aspire to something else, something more authentic to their soul? Then, so be it, for that is the essence of life (Jung 1969, Woodman 2006). Organizational agents would be encouraged to live first as individuals and not succumb so wholeheartedly to the sirens of the numbing collective. Individuals may be exposed to suffering and darkness, but they are also more apt at judging ethical issues in a constructive manner. Bell et al. (2012) likewise argue in favor of “sick souls”, that is, a soul that acknowledges the presence and influence of evil to better cope with its effects on health and happiness, in contrast to an approach to soul that denies the impact of pain and evil onto the world. They believe that “sick souls are more insightful; their melancholy concerning the loss of meaning, fear, personal sin, and inequitable social structures provides the basis for strenuous activity through which a more sophisticated ethical sensibility can be achieved” (p. 432).

Schema of archetypal dominance and unbalanced values Fear surrounding soul-work in organizations often finds its roots in power issues. Existing power patterns usually reflect a patriarchal worldview, whilst business, as Yielder (2011) stated, is the realm of “he” (the masculine principle). On the whole, gender equality (of which pay gap is but an illustrative factor) has still not been achieved within and outside organizations (Plantenga and Remery 2006, Jironet 2011). Western societies, and many others, continue to perceive women as the main carrier for the mother archetype, even though this creates tension against women’s aspirations to actualize other parts of their lives (Yielder 2011). Yet, to live archetypally is to live without limitations; new skills and aptitudes can be developed if we learn to work with and integrate archetypes. Archetypes, which originate from the collective unconscious, are universal patterns illustrating given traits or characteristics. They have been captured in myths, stories, or folk tales, but they have shaped our culture and behaviors tremendously (von Franz 1996). The ancient Greeks captured a fair range of such archetypes through the Olympian mythology and many Jungian and non- Jungian scholars still refer to these mythical figures to discuss the ways of the psyche (for instance Robert Johnson or Joseph Campbell). Building upon her own experience as Jungian therapist, Yielder (2011) proposed that the most recurrent archetypes that operate in business organizations are Zeus, Hermes as well as the duality puer aeternis-senex. Being able to identify manifestations of an archetype is most useful because archetypes are, like everything, dual in nature: they display both positive and disruptive qualities that, if expressed unconsciously, can overwhelm ego-consciousness. On the other hand, when consciously integrated, archetypes provide support to enhance skills and knowledge.

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Zeus is much loved in the business realm because he is the ruler, the all- mighty God ruling the sky (symbolizing the external, material world) whilst his brothers rule over the sea and the underworld. Zeus personifies power, which in its positive side stimulates intelligence of control, rational thinking, will power and decisiveness, good insights, aspirational drive, and self-confidence. Zeus-type characters, Yielder (2011) explained, are charismatic and magnetic, so long as their universe reflects who they are. Whilst Zeus’s influence helps build a strong ego, necessary to survive the collective pressure, it also reveals undesirable features. Being so high in the heavens makes it much harder to relate to others in a warm and empathetic manner; on the contrary, it feeds ego-inflation and paranoia that others want to claim the throne for themselves (Yielder 2011). Hermes, on the other hand, is known as a trickster character who brings change and is at ease at crossroads. Famously, the God of commerce and the messenger, he is gifted for eloquence and invention, as well as for deception and theft. Hermes thus captures the idea of limit, both moral and psychological – a trait that many traders of late have failed to develop (Yielder 2011). Indeed, Hermes-type business agents have no real sense of crossing lines, no clear definition of right and wrong because they stand in the “in-between”. Expressions of impulsiveness reveal the puer aeternis, the eternal adolescent living on the edge where everything is possible, no matter the consequences. Such model of psychological development is creatively appealing, but obviously detrimental to a much needed sense of moral responsibility for self and towards others. Thus, the puer aeternis, for all its qualities of hopeful growth, must be balanced by the senex, the wise old man who, with discipline and rational thinking can channel energy to construct and relate in a considerate manner (Yielder 2011). Of course, the old man can swap wisdom for power and become tyrannical, embodying the worst aspects of Zeus, or those of his father Chronos who devoured his own children. Yielder (2011) also stressed that extroverted thinking types are very present in the business world. These types generally display either Hermes or Zeustype qualities, making them effective, innovative, assertive and logical thinkers, but also more apt to discard feeling and otherness (both feminine characteristics). Managers, who successfully climb up the organizational ladder, sacrifice the feminine by subjecting it to a domineering masculine because the organizational structure and culture assume spirit controls nature and mind controls feelings (Yielder 2011). They often do so unconsciously because “we have to” or “these are the rules of the game”, muting their own inner feminine whilst reacting conservatively to the projections of the feminine perceived in others. On the other hand, employees or managers who have consciously engaged with powerful feminine qualities (such as the ability to cope with natural cycles) may not thrive in an environment dominated by colleagues or bosses whose ego-consciousness has identified with the Zeus or Hermes archetype. The examination of Enron’s corporate culture clearly illustrates how such a situation is morally and economically destructive and unsustainable (Gibney 2005). Leaders who unreflectively embrace Zeus or Hermes characteristics are usually dangerous for the organization and society at large

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(see Kets de Vries 2003 for examples). Long term prosperity and sustainability involves the idea of balanced growth. This cannot be attained by following the existing patriarchal model that denatures nature and rationalizes the sacred.

Lost sacredness Our disconnection from the sacred is relatively recent in light of human history (Holford 2011). Up until the Middle Ages, matter and psyche were appreciated as interconnected, especially by alchemists who conceived life as a sacred encounter between feminine (matter) and masculine (spirit) (Tarnas 1996, 2007). However, the mind’s need for order led to the rationalization of the environment and the subjection of matter to spirit. In parallel, the once revered Gods of nature were discarded as irrational beliefs (Holford 2011). To preserve the soul of the world, human beings transferred it into their own subjectivity. This, as Holford (2011) explained, led to inevitable egoinflation. Modern men and women came to believe that since it was not rationally possible to accept the presence of Gods and ethereal spirits, these forces and energies that ancient people perceived in nature and called Gods and spirits actually originated from their own minds or their own psyche. This rationalization illustrates a withdrawal of projections, with a subsequent inflation of consciousness as compensatory effect, whereby modern rational men and women started to believe that they were Gods themselves (e.g. “I think it, so it is real”), and that they possessed the powers attributed to spirits through the single ability to think rationally and scientifically (Jung 1968b, par. 562). This remains a problem of present days: our blind faith in science and technology as a sure way to master (i.e. enslave) the natural environment; our lack of responsibility for the obvious consequences of modern ways of consumption; our race to appropriate resources and destroy those we cannot have; our culture that assesses success in terms of material acquisition and ruthless competition, are all examples of human inflation. To a large extent, modern men and women behave as if they were entitled to control the entire universe without concern for, or accountability to, other living beings. The fading relation with the sacred and the subsequent inflation did not go unnoticed however; it left a void, a longing for something that was but no longer is, yet remains part of life. This longing reflects the need to reconnect with nature, although we are far from being ready to give up a highly materialistic way of life (Holford 2011). What is thus required is a change of worldview and transcendence of opposites (Jung 1958, Holford 2011). As Hillman (1995) suggests, we need to shift away from a paradigm of growth and efficiency towards one valuing service and maintenance. Holford (2011) believes we slowly come to realize that the heartless pursuit of wealth is a disease, citing the “Occupy” movement (see occupywallst.org) and the rise of the “99%” platforms (for instance the99spring.com initiated by workers and trade unions, or wearethe99percent.tumblr.com) as evidence of a growing discontentment. Growth

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and efficiency have a shadow side too. In the human body, exponential growth leads to cancerous cells. Similarly, when growth and efficiency fail to be integrated with more earthly factors, we risk a life-threatening disease affecting not only humanity, but the planet as a whole. Associated with feminine values, service and maintenance have long been devalued as inferior tasks (Holford 2011). Service is too often thought of as servitude. Customer services department are not meant to offer real care and attention; more often than not, the services are scripted, rehearsed, robotic, and designed to prevent bad press for the company. Service here is again service of the masculine by paying lipservice to the feminine. The idea of maintenance, meanwhile, portrays a static world in which hyperactive Hermes would feel pretty unhappy. On the contrary, growth implies that something bigger and better awaits us in the future, so we do not need to content ourselves with what we have now. The present cannot be sacred when all the attention is turned towards the future. This masculine trait, for its merits, fails to value the resources of the present as mother to the resources of the future (Holford 2011). The sacred mystery of creation through destruction, of regeneration and rebirth, carried by the archetypal feminine, has been both rejected and feared (Pinkola Estés 1992). Until we become fully conscious that we live in earth and not on earth, said Holford (2011), we will not come to grips with our actual responsibility towards life. The growing interest in biodynamic farming is one step in the direction of valuing maintenance and integration rather than dominance and specialization. This idea is not unlike the Indian concept of “Lokasangraha” which Chatterji (2011, p. 96) proposes to “reconcile individual growth with sustenance” in a spirit of sustainability. It is essential we understand that everything has a cost. This is not merely financial; the psychological cost of our deep split with nature has been the atrophy of the inner-self and the world-soul.

Reawakening the anima mundi The anima mundi is a concept familiar to alchemists, although the idea of a worldsoul is not new. Ancient Greeks like Plato, the Gnostics, Renaissance craftsmen, and artists, as well as, beyond Western Europe frontiers, the Sufis, all shared an understanding that the world is a universal spiritual living being (Vaughan-Lee 2005). Contrary to the Church’s belief in an unreachable transcendence of the divine, the anima mundi asserts that matter is spirit and spirit is matter. All is in all, as above so below. The anima mundi is that Spark of breath, that gives life to everything, and contains all life that exists and has ever existed. Each living being is carrier of the anima mundi in their soul, and we are connected at a spiritual level with the entire universe: vegetal, animal, and ethereal.

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The anima mundi is dual and complex. Alchemists looked for gold and light in the heart of darkness, thus the world-soul is both darkness and light. It is the light that transforms darkness and it is darkness containing light. “It can be had for the asking and can be found anywhere, even in the most loathsome filth” (Jung 1968b, par. 421). It is the self as Jung described it: a holistic reflection of the divine, present in human psyche but also revealed in all parts of the cosmic order (see Stein’s 2008 thorough discussion of the concept). Jung (1968b, par. 413) commented that as the divine spirit descends into the world, Christians assert: [the spirit] stops at the living body of the Chosen One [i.e. Christ], who is at once very man and very God, whereas in alchemy the descent goes right down into the darkness of inanimate matter whose nether regions, according to the Neopythagoreans, are ruled by evil. Evil and matter together form the Dyad, the duality. This is feminine in nature, an anima mundi, the feminine Physis who longs for the embrace of the One, the Monad, the good and perfect. [. . .] She is “the divine soul imprisoned in the elements”, whom it is the task of alchemy to redeem.

The task of each individual, for alchemists, is therefore to free and redeem the imprisoned feminine because the longing and suffering that occurs in our lives are but a reflection of the longing and suffering experienced by the dejected world-soul (Jung 1968b, par. 414). The psychological task of individuation, of discovery and integration of unconscious contents into ego-consciousness, is extraordinarily painful and scary, but it is an ethical obligation in Jung’s view. If we do not tend to the inner life, if we do not hear the calls to redeem the anima mundi, we not only fail to live fully, but we also ignore the wisdom of natural cycles and jeopardize the intrinsic balance of cosmic forces. As mentioned earlier, we already witness the consequences of such unbalanced attitude by the compensatory effects on the social and natural environment. Although human beings are responsible for their conscious attitudes to a large extent, alchemists do not believe that they are the ones to be saved and redeemed. Jung notes that it is the divine, that needs to be saved from the “darkness of matter . . . [to produce] an ineffable material being . . . which displays the most paradoxical qualities apart from possessing corpus, anima, spiritus, and supernatural powers” (1968b, par. 420). Thus is regenerated the anima mundi, the self, the soul of man and woman. The work is primarily individual with collective implications. The first problem to tackle is ego-inflation. Jung (1968b, par. 563) bluntly declares that: [a]n inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.

On account of our past behavior, and the poor inheritance we will leave future generations in environmental, social, cultural and economic terms, it is hard to deny that humanity has been suffering from “an inflated consciousness”. The inherent values of capitalistic societies are self-interested and self-centered (Swanson 2002, Lordon 2010) and the model proves fallible when it comes to anticipating the environmental, social,

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and moral costs of economic growth. Yet, we have so far failed to implement a more progressive, fairer socioeconomic system than neoliberal capitalism, in spite of the “calamities” it triggers. It would seem that our faith in the market as salutary is unbounded and that we find inconceivable a world that would question the existence of for-profit business organizations. Meanwhile, financial crises succeed one another, caused by the same ruthless and egocentric speculative behaviors (Enron’s corporate culture prior to its collapse shares remarkable similarities to Lehman Brothers’). Further hints of egoinflation can be found in examples of corporate exploitation such as mass layoffs announced in parallel with record profits and bonus plans or intense corporate lobbying in the name of free speech and stakeholder dialog. Ego-inflation is dangerous because it prevents self-reflection; instead of stepping back to assess the situation (rationally, if not morally), the ego is pushed towards excess since the archetypes are left unbounded. Scandals and crises are evidence of archetypal play, when the ego has given up its power to satisfy a fantasy of greatness. The task is certainly daunting. Yet, individual soul-work is significant enough to action change on a more collective level. This is the encouragement we need: organizations and institutions are affected by the inner work of individuals, even if these individuals are a minority. For Vaughan-Lee (2005), “what matters is the level of participation [. . .], we do need to recognize that there is a certain work that needs to be done, and that we can no longer stand on the sidelines and watch our collective dreams spin out of control”. In that purview, grassroots movements that rely on individual will and individual work pave the way for truly profound and redeeming transformations. We can easily discard accusations of dogmatism because individuation is bound to be a singular experience of individual awakening. It cannot be transposed literally from one individual to the next, although the process of self-discovery entails collective patterns and universal images. What we discover inside our soul nonetheless is singular, even if it also is a reflection of the world-soul herself. Forever wary of the “masses [which] are blind brutes”, Jung (1968b, par. 563) reckoned our moral responsibility starts with extensive individual inner work: Of course, what we discover there is nothing that can be held up to the masses – only some hidden thing that we can hold up to ourselves in solitude and in silence. Very few people care to know anything about this; it is so much easier to preach the universal panacea to everybody else than to take it oneself, and, as we all know, things are never so bad when everybody is in the same boat. No doubts can exist in the herd; the bigger the crowd the better the truth – and the greater the catastrophe.

Becoming aware of our deep and essential connection to the anima mundi thus fosters tremendous opportunities for both individuals and their environment as a whole. Undertaking inner work is a hard but unavoidable task of life, which enables us to relate to “the whole of creation and the heart of the world” and further to “unlock the secrets of nature, so that we no longer have to attack and destroy the natural world in order to survive” (Vaughan-Lee 2005). This is a radical change from the paradigm we

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have constructed over centuries of industrialization and modernization, but it is a paradigm rooted in something more earthly, balanced, and wise. It goes far beyond a shift in the balance of powers; rather, it brings an awakening to the nature of life through an understanding of life in nature. Movements such as ecofeminism, whose foundation is “a positive perception of the relationship between woman and nature, in full awareness, and therefore defiance, of having been “othered” [by the masculine patriarchy]” encourage this awakening in women – and men open to it (Evans 2006, p. 31). Awakening the anima mundi requires growth in consciousness and faith in imagination. It is not surprising that Jung’s favorite methods of exploring the unconscious were dreams and active imagination (Jung 1970, Hannah 1981, Chodorow 1997). Both of these practices put us in touch with archetypes since they are not formated by the social expectations that characterize ego-consciousness. In so far, as dreams and the imaginative realm are liminal and reflective of the self as unity of opposites, they directly tap into the potential brought forward by the redemption of the world-soul. Vaughan-Lee (2005) eloquently captures the significance of reconnecting with the feminine embodiment of the divine light: The World Soul is not a fixed or defined substance, but a living substance made out of the hopes, dreams and deepest imaginings of humanity and of all creation. This is the home of creation’s collective memories and the myths of humanity. Here are the archetypes and powers that define our life. Here are hidden places of magical meaning, places where dreams can come into being. We have lived for so long in the stark barrenness of a rational landscape that we have forgotten the potency that lies beneath the surface.

What we are invited to do is to strip ourselves from hubris and ego-inflation, and ensure our intentions are honest. The psyche must be approached carefully and reverently if it is to reveal its wonders. As with every task, preparation is the key. We will likely achieve a mediocre or insufficient understanding of ourselves and we will fail to appreciate the divine power of the world-soul, if we set ego-expectations ahead of the journey. Honest intentions and open-mindedness are essential: “one must keep the eyes of the mind and soul well open, observing and contemplating by means of that inner light which God has lit in nature and in our hearts from the beginning” (Jung 1968b, par. 381). We are asked to open ourselves up to imagination (the “key that opens the door to the secret of the opus” for alchemists, notes Jung 1968b, par. 400) without agenda, except to welcome what will surface. This is a radically different approach from the instrumental take on imagination and creativity that often prevails in organizations. Our need to justify idleness and daydreaming by providing tangible results is the exact opposite of what the world-soul demands. We would be welladvised to stop aiming to produce something and instead trust that something will be produced (beyond our ego-conscious will) that will be valuable. We could also learn again the value of play, though not with a view to encouraging team-work, strengthening organizational commitment, or improving employees’ morale and productivity. Rather, play could be allowed as a way to explore what we

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do and what we are, as well as what we should be doing, and what we can become. Time for play and imagination can hardly be regulated by corporate policies, nor should it be forced upon by leaders. Much of the skepticism surrounding spiritualityat-work initiatives reflect the fear that leaders will impose their beliefs onto their employees without consultation, out of naïve faith, instrumental motives or proselytism (Lips-Wiersma et al. 2009). This is a legitimate concern, even though leadership can be honest and reflective when leaders are attuned to their inner complexes and patterns (e.g. Jaworski 1996, Zsolnai 2004). I nonetheless argue that activities of play and imagination do not pertain to leaders or senior managers alone. Instead, it is essential that each organizational agent reflects upon whether and how they feel the need to engage in playful explorations and imaginative dives, personally and within the context of the organization. Although general advice on the process can be given, the means and end-results are necessarily peculiar to each individual and each organization. What matters is that we, as individuals, allow ourselves to begin the descent towards our soul, our lost feminine, the anima mundi. It is also important that we understand the journey will cost us (Woodman 2006). This means letting go of the structures, institutions, and values that cripple the feminine; this means we may undergo radical transformation both inside our psyche and outside in the natural order. Understandably, those currently holding the most power would resist the most. But this is where we could rely on the positive qualities of Zeus to trust the self and let Hermes guide us in the in-between world, so that we make space for the feminine. Doing so, we learn to integrate what stood in opposition before. Tarnas (1996, p. 444) warns: to achieve [the] reintegration of the repressed feminine, the masculine must undergo a sacrifice, an ego death. . . . This is where the real act of heroism is going to be. . . . And this is the great challenge of our time, the evolutionary imperative for the masculine to see through and overcome its hubris and one-sidededness, to own its unconscious shadow, to choose to enter into a fundamentally new relationship of mutuality with the feminine in all its forms.

Sacrifice is required by the feminine because the feminine is dual in nature, like all things. The practice of ritual sacrifices to honor the Gods at least acknowledges that nothing comes free, and that what is neglected is likely to manifest itself with revenge.

Conclusion As we undertake the inner process of redeeming and reawakening the anima mundi, Vaughan-Lee (2005) says, “we will begin to see that the world and our own selves both are more magical than we know”. Indeed, the anima mundi brings magic and meaning back into our conscious world and we need both to live fully. To find meaning in our life is what Frankl (2006) believes keeps us going and alive in the hardest of times. Drawing from his own traumatic experiences of suffering in concentration camps,

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Frankl dedicated himself to providing tools for others to uncover meaning in life, however hidden, however surprising, however painful the discovery process. In Frankl’s words (2006, p. 76), we must learn that “it [does] not really matter what we expected from life, but rather [what matters is] what life expect[s] from us”. When we allow ourselves to be questioned by life, we give space to imagination and invite the soul to guide our steps. For Denhardt (1981), this process is more often hindered than supported by contemporary organizations and an individual has to develop strong psychological resources to differentiate from the seemingly authoritative and reassuring organizational image. By reawakening the anima mundi, we uncover at once the deepest, darkest, most luminous meaning of life. The search for meaning demands we do not limit ourselves to what ego-consciousness knows, but instead that we embrace the unknown, the other, the unacknowledged. Integration of the feminine and rehabilitation of the anima mundi is an essential quest for meaning in our restless world. The quest does not have to be entirely traumatic. We can and should consciously choose to be infused with the magical essence of the unconscious, so that we participate in our own transformation. Furthermore, since we live in a world of organizations and since most organizations “have not evolved to the point where seeking soulful communication is highly prized” (Auger and Arneberg 1992, p. 50), it is essential to remain conscious of the influence of organizational culture when we undertake inner work (Denhardt 1981). Socialization is beneficial up to a point, but it should not impede the individual’s quest for meaning, lest the anima mundi should return to the shadows and we should face a soulless world.

Note 1 In archetypal terms, feminine does not equate “woman” and masculine does not equate “man”. Archetypes are not genders, but they possess qualities that reflect the mythical or symbolic qualities of women and men in their own ways. When brought together, they form a whole in a complementary fashion. Thus, men and women are inhabited by both masculine and feminine psychological energies, tapping into the same collective unconscious. The gender difference, according to Jung, lies in the biological make-up of masculine and feminine genes: women consciously manifest more feminine traits or genes, whilst men consciously display more masculine traits or genes. However, all that is not consciously expressed belongs to the unconscious. Therefore, women primarily relate to their masculinity via the archetypal animus, whereas men project their femininity in the archetypal anima. Of course, the unconscious is populated by many other archetypes, some more visibly gendered than others. The following discussion of femininity and masculinity is therefore not sociological or cultural, but symbolic and psychological. It should be noted, however, that the latter influences the former.

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Christopher P. Scheitle and Amy Adamczyk

Divine callings: Religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process Abstract: Organizational scholars have not considered the potential power of religion as a sensemaking tool. Religion scholars have wondered whether religious sensemaking is simply a post hoc justification for behavior, or whether it can shape future actions. In this article, we present mixed methods research that gets at the intersection of these issues. In interviews with founders of religious nonprofit organizations, we find that many frame their founding experiences in religious terms, such as believing that God gave them the idea for their organization or attributing certain founding events to divine intervention. We then examine data from a survey of young religious nonprofits and find that reports of personal religious experiences are more common among primary founders compared to other leaders. We also find that those founders reporting certain religious experiences work more hours in the organization, suggesting that sensemaking strategies could have consequences for individuals’ behavior. Keywords: religion, organizations, founding, founders, nonprofits, sensemaking I’ve never started a business before. I’ve never dove into a nonprofit before. At that time my daughter was three, my son was six months. We were leaving all sorts of security behind. Health care, guaranteed income . . . (Interviewed founder of a religious nonprofit organization)

The early days of a fledgling organization are often an exciting but chaotic time in a founder’s life. Deciding to establish a business or nonprofit often equates to a major life transition in which a founder leaves behind one way of life for another. Even the most confident of individuals struggle with the anxiety and risks involved. The uncertainty and unpredictability inherent within the founding experience conflicts with our essential desire for meaning and order. Berger (1967, p. 22, emphasis in original) argued that the “nightmare par excellence” for an individual is to be presented with disorder and senselessness. Fortunately, individuals are quite skilled at constructing narratives and cognitive structures to help make sense of situations that might at first appear chaotic and meaningless. In the case of organizations and their founders, order and meaning is said to be created through a “sensemaking” process (Weick et al. 2005). This sensemaking process

Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [grant number 0960617]. Source: Christopher P. Scheitle and Amy Adamczyk. Divine callings: religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2016, Vol. 13, No. 2, 94–116, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2015.1086668 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-004

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leads founders to emphasize certain moments, put labels on others, and apply interpretations that provide order and meaning to the chaos and uncertainty of creating an organization. For many founders, the sensemaking process leads to the conclusion that they were “meant to do this.” As we will see shortly, some founders even go as far as seeing some divine design in their founding efforts. While sensemaking is often spoken of in terms of rationalizations, there is reason to think that it could also direct founders’ behaviors (Vaisey 2009). After all, organizations often look back to the days leading up to its creation as a source of inspiration. The founding story offers a feeling of legitimacy and purpose for what the organization is doing and how it is doing it (Lounsbury and Glynn 2001). Given this, it is not surprising that these founding stories play a significant role in how organizations present and sell themselves to investors, customers, or donors (Martens et al. 2007). Hence, the results of the sensemaking process could have long-term consequences for the organization. Furthermore, it is possible that the narratives and framework that founders establish might develop long before they actually create a tangible organization. As a result, variations in this pre- and during-founding sensemaking could also have consequences for the organization, including whether a tangible organization is ultimately established. In this article, we examine two questions. First, how is religion used by founders of organizations, specifically religious nonprofit organizations, in the sensemaking process? Second, do differences in the use and forms of religious sensemaking produce variations in founders’ behaviors or organizational outcomes? To examine the first question, we present data from over 50 interviews with founders and leaders of religious nonprofits to illustrate how these individuals frame their founding experiences within religious meaning narratives. To examine the second question, we analyze an original national survey of newly founded religious nonprofits to see whether variation in founders’ usage of religious sensemaking narratives is connected to the founders’ efforts. This analysis shows founders who report certain types of religious sensemaking beliefs and experiences devote more time to their religious nonprofits, which could be tied to the organization’s success. Before turning to our data and findings, we first provide an overview of previous research and theorizing about sensemaking in organizational contexts and discuss how religion could be a potentially unique and powerful resource for sensemaking.

Sensemaking, organizations, and founding A significant amount of research within the organizational literature has examined sensemaking. Sensemaking involves turning situations or activities into meaning that allows individuals within organizations to act based on that meaning (Weick et al. 2005). Sensemaking takes a social constructionist view of situations and involves many of the same symbolic interaction processes described by Cooley ([1902] 1964),

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Mead (1934), and Goffman (1974). It focuses on how people interpret or make sense of interactions or situations and then respond based on their interpretations. Scholars have described the processes embedded in sensemaking as the structuring of the unknown (Waterman 1990), the placing of stimuli into a mental framework (Starbuck and Milliken 1988), and “the reciprocal interaction of information seeking, meaning ascription, and action” (Thomas et al. 1993, p. 240). The early days of a new organization are often a particularly active period of sensemaking, as research has shown that sensemaking is important when an organization is experiencing instability, uncertainty, and change, all of which is likely to occur during the founding process (Weick 1995, Maitlis and Lawrence 2007). Sensemaking helps entrepreneurs develop and maintain motivation, establish legitimacy, and provide direction for the new organization (Delmar and Shane 2004). By putting forth a narrative, founders and leaders recount and retrospectively make sense of their experiences (Weick et al. 2005). Research has found that the stories and narratives founders and leaders tell are particularly useful in helping to legitimate and understand their experiences (Maclean et al. 2011). Aside from its utility in motivating oneself and others, sensemaking may also influence the likelihood that a new organization survives. Hoang and Gimeno (2010) put forth a model of how founder role identity affects successful entrepreneurial activities. They argue that founders’ initial conception of role identity, the feedback they receive during the founding process, and subsequent persistence (all of which are part of the sensemaking process) have an influence on whether or not they are successful in developing a new venture. The narratives that are produced during the sensemaking process can take a variety of forms. Here, we focus on sensemaking that turns to religion to create meaning for the founder and organization. As we argue in the next section, religion could be a uniquely powerful resource for founders looking to make sense of the uncertainty of the founding process.

Religion and sensemaking While the research literature examining sensemaking in both new and old organizations is substantial, we did not find any literature that considers the role of religion as a tool for sensemaking. This might simply be because it is relatively rare for religious organizations to figure prominently in formal organizational research (see Nelson 1993, Miller 2002 for some exceptions). The lack of reference to religion within the organizational sensemaking literature is surprising because, as sociologists of religion have argued, religion might be the most powerful resource for sensemaking that humans have at their disposal. The most eloquent expression of this was offered by Berger (1967, p. 32). He argued that religion has a unique ability to construct systems of meaning and order that do not appear as if they are constructed at all. As he put it, religion places

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the “tenuous realities of the social world” into a transcendent sacred reality that is “by definition beyond the contingencies of human meanings and human activity.” That is, while humans can create purely human systems of meaning through philosophy, law, or other mechanisms, these systems are inherently fragile because they are obviously the product of human creation. Religious meaning systems, even if they originate as the product of human creation, appear to exist beyond human efforts and place those efforts “within a cosmic frame of reference” (1967, p. 35). This is especially the case for religious systems that appeal to a supernatural, all-powerful and all-knowing deity. Organizational founders may frame their efforts as being motivated and legitimated by the innovativeness of their product, or they may refer to the need to provide a better life for themselves or their families. But all of these sensemaking strategies pale in comparison to, say, believing that the voice of God told you that you must create an organization. Religion can be a sensemaking resource for founders of secular or religious organizations. Several well-known for-profit businesses have been founded by individuals who have used religion to frame their entrepreneurial activities. For instance, S. Truett Cathy, the founder of the fast food chain Chick-fil-A, states that “his business philosophy [is] based on biblical principles” (“About Truett” 2013). While many business entrepreneurs undoubtedly utilize their faith as a personal sensemaking resource, this may not become part of their organization’s public image or narrative as to avoid alienating potential customers or employees with explicit expressions of religion. In the case of organizations that are themselves explicitly religious in mission, though, a founder’s personal religious sensemaking can become part of the organization’s own narrative and image. We turn now to describing one such type of explicitly religious organization that will serve as the focus on this research.

Religious nonprofits Our analysis of religious sensemaking takes place in the context of religious nonprofit organizations, where religion could not only serve as a natural sense- making resource for founders but also become a part of the organization’s narrative and identity. Sometimes called a “parachurch” organization (White 1983, Willmer et al. 1998), religious nonprofits have steadily become a more significant component in the religious market and, as a result, a growing destination for spiritual entrepreneurs (Simms 2006). According to Internal Revenue Service (2010), as of December 2010, there were nearly 50,000 registered “religion-related” nonprofits (excluding congregations). As Scheitle (2010) has documented, this population consists of a wide range of organizational missions and activities, ranging from organizations focused on itinerant preaching to others specializing in short-term mission trips to others producing religious publications. While some of these organizations offer what could be described as social services, the sector as a

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whole is overwhelmingly focused on explicitly religious products, programs, and services. Religious nonprofits have been described as “independent, entrepreneurial, [and] innovative” (Sheler 2006, p. 63). Because of the nature of these organizations, we expect religion to provide key content in helping individuals make sense of the organization’s founding. Especially in the early stages of sensemaking, “[phenomena] have to be forcibly carved out of the undifferentiated flux of raw experience and conceptually fixed and labeled so that they can become the common currency for communicational exchanges” (Chia 2000, p. 517). There are likely to be a variety of different processes through which religion may enter the sensemaking process. For example, sensemaking may occur gradually as individuals draw on ideas, experiences, and suggestions from others overtime that lead them to a certain perspective (Weick et al. 2005), which then motivates them to found the organization. Alternatively, some founders may have one specific and deeply profound religious experience that leads them to action. Regardless of the process through which it occurs, sensemaking can affect people’s ability to be successful in their new venture (Hoang and Gimeno 2010). Hence, we expect that organizational leaders who feel that they have been specifically called to action from God should be more motivated to put energy into their business than people who do not have the same profound and direct experience. We examine these elements in the sensemaking process through interviews with and a survey of relatively new religious nonprofit organizations. With our mixed methods design, we take an exploratory approach to integrating the data where the results of our qualitative interviews help inform our quantitative analysis (Greene et al. 1989). We begin by giving an overview of our interview data.

Interview data We conducted 55 semi-structured interviews with founders and leaders of religious nonprofit organizations. These interviews took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, Nashville, TN, Tulsa OK, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Washington, DC, and areas in central and western Pennsylvania between the fall of 2011 and the fall of 2013. Two of these locations (MN and PA) were selected because they were geographically close to the principal investigators and served as convenient places to conduct initial interviews. The other locations were selected because IRS statistics showed them to be particularly dense and vibrant areas for religious nonprofits.1 Particular organizations were targeted for interviews with the intent of interviewing relatively young organizations where the founder was likely to still be present and those that represented a range of activities or missions. These interviews were about an hour in length on average.

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Of the various methodological orientations for conducting qualitative research (Cresswell 2007), we use a modified narrative approach that focused on key themes across interviews. Although the interviews were flexible in content, they were organized around certain key questions (i.e. semi-structured) and examples of these can be found in Appendix 1. The researchers were not members of or participants in the nonprofits being studied (Adler and Adler 1987). Seventy-five percent of the interviewees were male. Sixty-eight percent were founders, while the remaining were non-founder leaders. Sixty-three percent of the interviewed organizations were non-denominational Christian, nine percent were Catholic, 11% identified with specific Protestant traditions, and the remaining 17% were non-Christian or interfaith in identity. Because our interviewees, survey respondents, and the religious nonprofit sector as a whole are predominantly Christian, we focus our results and discussion primarily in the context of this tradition. As will be seen below, these distributions closely mirror the distributions seen in our survey data. It is important to acknowledge that we were speaking to many of these founders months or years after the organization was founded (setting aside the known conceptual and empirical difficulty in establishing exactly when an organization is “founded”). Hence, the narratives offered by founders are likely the result of a long-term process of self-reflection, editing, and analysis (i.e. sensemaking). There is, of course, a wellestablished literature on religious conversion narratives that speak to these same issues (Snow and Machalek 1984). This research has found that converts’ narratives concerning their motivations and understanding for converting often evolve and are not finalized until long after their actual formal conversion.

Results from interviews: Religious sensemaking narratives Before examining the role of religion in our interviewees’ sensemaking processes, it is important to recognize that not all of our interviewees had explicitly religious narratives in explaining how they ended up starting their religious nonprofit organization. Some saw their history and founding as the result of a fairly practical calculation of a need for such an organization or as the result of random events. For example, the founder of a religious radio nonprofit came to the idea for his organization through an unexpected guest appearance on someone else’s radio show where he was asked to answer some questions about his religion: [The station manager] said, I got a problem, can you come and help us out? I didn’t have anything prepared, so I said, yeah, I’ll come out there. I figured [the radio host would] have a lot of questions, so I said, just come out and ask me questions. So we did that, it was a lot of fun. I

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[wondered] what would it cost to have a show like this . . . I could see then there was a need for a show like this, so [the station manager] told us, it wasn’t that much. So we went out and we did one show . . . twenty years ago, [now] we’ve done five hundred shows.

For this founder, his nonprofit was simply the result of circumstance and the recognition of a practical need for such an organization. However, for many founders, their founding narratives were often built around religious experiences and interpretations that provided a justification for their actions and resiliency against the uncertainty and anxiety of the founding experience. As one person told us, “we don’t believe that anything happens by coincidence.” Common religious experiences cited during our interviews included religiously significant dreams, prophecies, and hearing the voice of God. When we spoke with the founder of a Christian nonprofit that offers retreats for families and couples, the leader observed how such an experience represented a turning point. Several years before his organization was created, he and some friends from a Bible study group had been organizing informal retreats for their own families. These retreats grew over time as new friends and family were invited or asked to join. Eventually, they had to start turning people away. I thought, ‘this is great that the retreats have become so popular.’ But one of the guys in the group said, ‘this is not great. It is a sin to turn these families away if they want to participate.’ I said, ‘oh.’ I went on a silent retreat for a few days by myself and I kept hearing God tell me, ‘you are going to do this.’

This experience of hearing God call to him led him to devote himself full-time to creating an organization dedicated to offering as many retreats as possible. While many founders pointed to a specific religious experience as the origin of their organization, they also emphasized that these experiences were followed by a series of events that they viewed as confirming and reinforcing those initial experiences. Sometimes these events involved close friends and family. As the same founder explained: I went home and told my wife, who values security and stability, that I thought God was telling me to leave my job and do this. And she said that she thought we should do it. That surprised me. A few days later I was having lunch at a restaurant with a friend and he asked me, ‘what are you still doing at your job?’ I asked him what I was supposed to be doing, and he said that he thought I was supposed to be doing family ministry. I thought, where was this coming from? We had never spoken about this. But he told me that his wife had been having visions of me doing that and they had been praying for me to do this.

A different founder described a similar experience: I told my wife the idea I had for this organization. She was hesitant, but then she started having these dreams where God was telling her ‘Moses stuttered.’ She had this same dream for three nights in a row. We didn’t know what this meant, so we called our pastor. He told us that Moses

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had a severe speech impediment. We interpreted this as meaning that even though Moses stuttered he was able to lead his people. We viewed this as God telling us that we could do this too.

While founders in the business or secular nonprofit world might not look for religious confirmations, the process of initially bouncing ideas off of friends, family, and other trusted peers is common to all entrepreneurs. Indeed, communication is seen as central to sensemaking and response processes (Weick et al. 2005). The reaction of others is important. Many potential entrepreneurs are discouraged from creating an organization because their confidants do not believe that they have a viable idea (Wood and McKinley 2010). In our study, confirmations came most frequently from personal religious experiences or confirmatory religious experiences of friends and family. However, some founders recalled religious experience confirmations that came from strangers. One founder noted the following experience: This one man that we didn’t even know . . . we were at a conference and he came up to us and said, ‘I need to tell you something from God.’ We thought it was weird, but we said ok . . . All of a sudden he started saying all this stuff . . . he said all these things, including specific things from our childhood . . . we were like, ‘how do you know all this?’ He told us that ‘God is going to raise us up in this’.

The founder of a college campus nonprofit described how his organization originated when he was randomly approached by a college student. I was speaking at a church and he came forward and said, ‘You are going to mentor me . . . I had a dream about you.’ I had never met him before. He said, ‘[in the dream] I was camping with some friends, and you came by and told us to get in a canoe.’

The founder agreed to start leading a bible study with this student and his friends. This initial group would grow into the multi-campus college ministry that formed the basis of this founder’s nonprofit. Another founder, whose organizations produces religious billboards along highways, was struggling with whether to change the name of her organization after she found out that there was already a website with a similar name. The decision became easier once she received what she viewed as religious confirmation. I was at a bible study. None of them knew what I did. I asked for prayer, and this woman comes forward and says, ‘It was because of a billboard that many of my family members were saved.’ I was like, ‘there you go!’ So I just got the confirmation that was what I was supposed to do so I changed everything.

Of course, not all of the founders expressed a distinct and sudden religious experience during the founding process. However, many expressed feeling a force pulling them toward the creation of their organization, even if more subtle and more drawn out than the moments described above. The founder of a missionary organization noted that after his first trip to the country his organization would eventually be created to

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serve, “something strange was going on. When I got back I had less interest in my sales career.” This feeling grew with every mission trip he took until eventually he and his family quit their jobs, sold their possessions, and established a full-time missions-focused nonprofit. Another person we spoke to remarked several times how amazed he was that so many “seemingly coincidental” events led to his organization’s creation. “In retrospect, I see it as God’s will.” So far we have addressed our first research question concerning the ways that religion is used as a sensemaking resource for founders. Additionally, we have seen that in some instances the use of religion occurred gradually over time and in other cases, there were single experiences that founders could point to where they knew they needed to act. Our second research question asks whether variations in the use or types of religious sensemaking could have consequences for the founder or organization. Our interviews provide some evidence that the founders’ religious sensemaking efforts could lead them to be more invested, persistent, and determined even when facing obstacles, which could have practical consequences for the future trajectory of the organization. The interviews took place during a recession, so the most common obstacle or challenge that interviewees spoke about was related to finances. For instance, one founder when asked about financial difficulties the organization was facing told us that: If I were to say, ‘I like cupcakes’ so I go create a cupcake shop and it fails, I don’t think that’s necessarily something God told me to go do because I think He would provide the resources, and even if we struggled we would still survive. What I have learned is to continue doing what you are doing until God tells you differently . . . His last instructions were to do what we are doing now . . .

Another founder, also discussing issues of fundraising, stated that: “When things are tight, it becomes very much a trust factor and you spend a lot of time in prayer . . . it makes your spiritual life stronger.” These statements suggest that religious sensemaking could shape founders’ behavior and decision-making regarding their organization. To examine this question further, we turn to our data from a national survey of relatively new religious nonprofits.

Survey data The target population for our survey was 501(c)(3) public charities that registered with the Internal Revenue Service between March 2003 and March 2004 (N = 3405) and from November 2009 to November 2010 (N = 2218) for a total sample of 5623 organizations. We refer to the former group of nonprofits as the “older cohort” and the latter as the “younger cohort.” We used a two cohort design to satisfy the research goals of the larger project for which these data were generated. That project was focused on understanding the characteristics, motivations, strategies, and outcomes of

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founders in the religious non-profit sector. The study centered on relatively young organizations, defined by when the organization received tax-exempt recognition from the IRS, since the founder was more likely to still be involved with the organization. From this group of relatively young organizations, we selected a slightly younger (the 2009\2010 group) and older cohort (the 2003\2004 group) so that comparisons in development and outcomes could be made. We isolated the two cohorts using Business Master Files, which are the IRS’s databases of nonprofit organizations, and are archived once or twice a year by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute. Each organization is assigned a ruling date noting when it registered with the IRS. They are also given a code from the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities based on their activities and mission. We isolated organizations that were considered religion-related and used the “foundation code” to eliminate congregations, hospitals, and schools because they were outside the scope of the project.2 We then had 5623 organizations that we surveyed. Each identified organizations was mailed a 52-question survey, answerable on paper or online. The survey asked about the organization, the organization’s founding and goals, the founder, and the founder’s background. Responses were collected from approximately May to October 2011, and we had 919 organizations complete the survey. After removing cases with missing data, we had a total sample of 803 organizations. These data are described more in Dollhopf et al. (2015). Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and a summary of the variables and cases included in our analysis.

Results from survey Religious experiences: Founder and non-founder distinctions The survey indicated that the organization’s primary founder (“the one individual who was most responsible for the creation of this nonprofit”) should complete the survey. However, in about a fourth of the responses, the primary founder was unavailable to complete the survey or no longer part of the organization. In these cases, a non-primary founder or someone else was asked to take the survey. We were, therefore, able to identify three types of respondents in relation to their founder status. As shown in Table 2, the largest group of respondents stated that they were the primary founder of the organization. A second group reported that they were one of the founders, but not the primary founder. A third group of respondents reported that they were not a founder at all. Regardless of their status as a founder, we asked respondents a series of questions concerning religious experiences they may have had. These experiences mirror those frequently brought up in our interviews. Table 3 presents the responses to these questions by founder status. As this table shows, there is a consistent pattern that

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primary founders are more likely than both non-primary founders and non-founders to report religious experiences. For instance, 92% of the primary founders report being “felt called by God to do something” compared to 80% of the non-primary founders and 78% of the non-founders. Similarly, 72% of primary founders report having “had a religious conversion experience,” compared to 53% of non-primary founders and 55% of non-founders. These differences are statistically significant in all cases expect two, having “heard the voice of God” and changing “profoundly as the result of a religious experience.” Table 1: Descriptive statistics of variables included in the analysis.a Variable name

Mean Std dev.

Min. Max. Description

Religious experience factorsb “Visions”

.

.



 Sum of three variables, see Table 

“Called”

.

.



 Sum of three variables, see Table 

Not a founder (ref.)

.

.





Founder, not primary founder

.

.





Primary founder

.

.





.

.



 Avg. hours/month during ;  = less than ;  = –;  = –;  = –;  = –;  = – to  = over  hours

.

.



 Female = ; Male = 

.

.



  = Less than high school; = High school degree;  = Some college;  = Associate’s degree;  = Bachelor’s degree;  = Some graduate training;  = Master’s degree; and  = Law degree, medical degree or doctorate

. .



Founder status

Founder characteristics Hours worked (N = )c

Male (N = ) Education at time of founding (N = )

Age at time of founding (N = ) Religious characteristics

 Measured in years

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Table 1 (continued) Variable name

Mean Std dev.

Min. Max. Description

Personal religious preference Protestant (ref.) Catholic

. .

. .

 

 Not Protestant = ; Protestant =   Not Catholic = ; Catholic = 

Non-Christian\Other

.

.



 Not Non-Christian = ; Non-Christian = 

Identifies as Mainline

.

.



 Doesn’t identify as Mainline = ; Identifies as Mainline = 

Identifies as Pentecostal

.

.



 Doesn’t identify as = ; Identifies as Pentecostal = 

Identifies as Evangelical

.

.



 Doesn’t identify as = ; Identifies as Evangelical = 

Social & humanitarian services

.

.



Missionary & church planting

.

.



Preaching, counseling, religious education

.

.



Issue advocacy and organizational support

.

.



 Respondents were instructed to select their primary activity from a list of  potential activities. Respondents were asked to identify  all of the organization’s activities and also the one that best represents the organization’s  primary endeavor. We conducted a factor analysis to identify these six groups and then categorized each organization based on their  response to the “best represents” question.

Media production

.

.





Networking & fellowship

.

.





Founding cohort

.

.



  = ;  = 

Personal religious identity \ies

Nonprofit’s primary activity sector

a

Notes: Unless otherwise noted, N = 803, which includes founders and non-founders. b Table 2 lists the specific variables, which range from 0 to 1, included in each factor. c In our analysis of number of hours worked, we include demographic predictors (age, education, gender) that were only asked about primary founders. Hence, this analysis and these variables are limited to the primary founder respondents.

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Table 2: Frequency of religious experiences by founder status. Please indicated whether or not you have ever had any of the following experiencesa

χ

Primary founders of religious nonprofits (%)b

Non-primary founders of religious nonprofits (%)c

Non- founders of religious nonprofits (%)d

I felt called by God to do something







. (df = ) p = .

I witnessed or experienced a miraculous healing







. (df = ) p = .

I personally had a vision of a religious figure







. (df = ) p = .

I heard the voice of God speaking to me







. (df = ) p = .

I had a dream of religious significance







. (df = ) p = .

I had a religious conversion Experience







. (df = ) p = .

I changed profoundly as the result of a religious experience







. (df = ) p = .

Notes: aOverall N = 803; percent checking each experience. b N = 584 (72.7%). c N = 101 (12.6%). d N = 118 (14.7%).

Table 3: Factor loadings of religious experiences and inspirations on two underlying concepts (principal component factor analysis with orthogonal varimax rotation).a Factor name

Experience

Factor loadings

Visions

I heard the voice of God speaking to me I personally had a vision of a religious figure I had a dream of religious significance

. . .

−. . .

Calling

I felt called by God to do something I had a religious conversion experience I changed profoundly as the result of a religious experience I witnessed or experienced a miraculous healing

. . . .

. . . .

Notes: aN = 803; The two factors explain 56% of variance (“calling” represents 30% and “visions” represents 26%). The eigenvalue for the “calling” factor is 2.77 and 1.17 for the “visions” factor.

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Since these religious experiences could have occurred at any time during the respondent’s life, we cannot be entirely sure that the experiences are tied to the founding process, either as a post hoc interpretation or as inspiration and motivation. However, the differences between primary founders and the other two types of leaders suggest that being the person who founds the organization puts pressure on the primary founder to make sense of that effort. And given that these are religious nonprofits, it would make sense that religious experiences would play a major role in the primary founder’s sensemaking efforts. The differences between the primary founder and other leaders of nonprofits harken back to Weber’s prophet versus priest distinction (Weber 1922). Not only do prophets introduce new systems of beliefs, they also claim that they, not some existing religious tradition or institution, are the authority that individuals should follow. Because the prophet is forging new ground, he or she is under more pressure to make sense of the world both for themselves and their potential followers. Priests do not need to create new narratives or structures for their situation because they are operating within an existing framework of meaning and order. The prophet–priest distinction parallels the founder– manager distinction in the organizational literature. While managers might do some sensemaking on a smaller and more personal level, they are primarily maintaining and transmitting the narratives and meaning structure created by the founder.

Experience types Next, we were interested in whether or not these religious experiences are part of the same underlying sensemaking process, or are distinct clusters of experiences relating to different sensemaking strategies. To address this issue, we performed a principal component factor analysis, which is shown in Table 3. The data show that two distinct sets of experiences can be identified that cumulatively explained 56% of the total variance in the items. The first factor, which we call “visions,” includes hearing the voice of God, having a vision of a religious figure, and having a dream of religious significance. The second factor, which we refer to as “calling,” includes feeling called by God, having a religious conversion experience, and changing profoundly as the result of a religious experience. Having witnessed a miraculous healing did not load on either factor, so we do not include it in the remaining analyses. Based on the factor analysis, we created two scales comprised of the sum of experiences within each factor. The reliability score for the visions scale is .59 and .69 for the calling scale. How does founder status predict scores on these scales while controlling for other respondent and organizational characteristics? This is the next question we turn to in Table 4. This table shows the score of our respondents on the two religious experience scales by their status as a founder. We include a measure of the respondent’s religious affiliation and identities. The religious affiliation measures come from

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a question asking the respondent “What is your current religious preference?” This was followed up with a question asking “Do you currently identify with a specific denomination or tradition” within that religious preference. The respondents were overwhelmingly Protestant (85%) with half of those identifying as “just Christian” (52%) on the second question regarding a specific denomination, suggesting that religious identities are likely to be more meaningful than religious affiliations. The religious identities questions provided a series of 11 terms (“seeker,” “evangelical,” “ecumenical,” “Pentecostal,” etc.) and asked which the respondent identifies with. Respondents could choose multiple identities (or none of the identities). We focus on three of the identities: Mainline, Pentecostal, and Evangelical. The Mainline and Evangelical identities are often seen as the two subcategories within Protestantism (Steensland et al. 2000), while the Pentecostal identity is likely to be important for assessing religious experiences. The “mainline” term is usually associated with more liberal-moderate Protestant denominations or traditions. The other two are associated with more conservative Protestant denominations and traditions, although there are some unique characteristics that separate Pentecostalism from evangelicalism, namely a focus on spiritual experiences and gifts like speaking in tongues. We also include indicators for the major activity grouping or mission of the religious nonprofit and the founding cohort of the organization. Table 4: OLS regression of respondent’s score on two religious experiences and inspirations scales by founder status, religious characteristics, and organizational characteristics.a Religious experience scales Visions Founder status Not a founder (ref.) Founder, but not primary founder Primary founder Religious characteristics Personal religious preference Protestant (ref.) Catholic Non-Christian Personal religious identity\ies Identifies as Mainline Identifies as Pentecostal Identifies as Evangelical Nonprofit’s primary activity sector Social & humanitarian services (ref.) Missionary & church planting Preaching, counseling, religious education

− . .✶

Called − −. .✶

− −. −.

− −. −.✶✶

−. .✶✶ −.

−. .✶✶ .✶✶

– . .

– .✶ .

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Table 4 (continued) Religious experience scales Visions Issue advocacy and organizational support Media production Networking & fellowship Founding cohort  (ref.)  R

Called

−. . .

−. . .

– . .

– −. .

Notes: aN = 803; Standardized coefficients. p < .05. ✶✶ p < .01. ✶

The results of the analysis confirm what was suggested in Table 2. Specifically, primary founders are more likely to report having had a vision and being called. Those identifying as Pentecostal are more likely to report both types of religious experiences, but especially having had a vision. Those identifying as evangelical are more likely to report being called. Mainline identity has no effect on either experience outcome. Non-Christian respondents are less likely to report being called, but do not differ from Protestants in their likelihood of having had a vision. Catholics do not differ from Protestants in their reports of the experience outcomes. Finally, respondents from the missionary and preaching sectors were more likely to report having been called than those involved with social and humanity services.

Religious sensemaking and founder effort The analysis of our survey of religious nonprofits has so far demonstrated that reports of religious experiences, such as having visions of God or feeling called by God, are more prevalent among primary founders compared to other respondents. As we discussed in regards to our interview data, this pattern is likely the product of the greater sensemaking needs of a primary founder who is struggling through the uncertainty and instability of establishing a new organization. Indeed, subscribing to the idea that one’s efforts are in response to God’s command would provide some psychological support. But there is no evidence yet that this sensemaking has any implications beyond a post hoc rationalization. What type of effect might we expect these religious interpretations to have? If founders feel like they are being commanded by God to create an organization, they may work harder than others whose efforts are not commanded by God. Research has recently spotlighted the central role of how hard the leaders of small

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nonprofit organizations work in accounting for organizational outcomes (McCarthy and Wolfson 1996, Dorius and McCarthy 2011, Baggetta et al. 2013). That work suggests that the more embedded in and committed to the goals of the organization a leader is, the greater the effort, typically indicated by the reported average number of hours worked a week by the organizational leader. Table 5: OLS regression of primary founder’s number of hours worked by religious experiences and inspirations.a Number of hours worked per month Religious experience scales “Visions” “Called” Founder characteristics Male Education Age Religious characteristics Personal religious preference Protestant (ref.) Catholic Non-Christian Personal religious identity\ies Identifies as Mainline Identifies as Pentecostal Identifies as Evangelical

. .✶ . −. .

− −. −. −. −. .

Nonprofit’s primary activity sector Social & humanitarian services (ref.) Missionary & church planting Preaching, counseling, religious education Issue advocacy and organizational support Media production Networking & fellowship

−.✶ −.✶

Founding cohort  (ref.)  R

– −. .

– −. −. −.

Notes: aN = 584 (excludes non-primary founders); Standardized coefficients. ✶ p < .05. ✶✶ p < .01.

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Our survey contains a measure of the average number of hours worked per month for the organization. In predicting the number of hours worked, we want to include measures such as the founder’s age, education, and gender, which could affect this outcome. Unfortunately, the survey did not ask for this information for respondents who were not primary founders (those who said they were not primary founders were asked to provide this information about the primary founder). Because of this, we limit this analysis to the primary founders only. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 5. The central finding is that primary founders who were more likely to feel “called” reported working more hours per month in their organization. On the other hand, the religious “visions” scale does not have a significant relationship with the number of hours worked. It may be that having had a vision is more useful as a post hoc explanation, while experiencing a call is more motivating. The only significant control variables are the organization’s primary activity sector. Relative to social and humanitarian services, primary founders of organizations in media production and networking and fellowship work fewer hours per month. The networking sector contains many organizations that can fulfill most of their activities through websites and newsletters, with the possibility of an occasional conference, so it is understandable why these may be less labor-intensive relative to social services and humanitarian relief. The media production sector contains organizations that are producing and\or distributing everything from television broadcasts to bible study guides to religious music and websites. Some of these activities can be very labor-intensive, but new technologies have made it easy for many religious nonprofits to produce and distribute media faster and with fewer resources.

Discussion and conclusion The vast majority of research on sensemaking has been done on secular for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Within this literature, sensemaking is typically seen as occurring at the organizational level. A handful of studies (Delmar and Shane 2004, Hoang and Gimeno 2010) have examined the roles of identity and sensemaking for entrepreneurs and founders of new organizations. The current research extends this previous work to examine how founders of religious nonprofit organizations make sense of the founding process when ideas were new, success was uncertain and there was likely a lot of stress and discomfort. While some nonreligious organizations may rely on a religious narrative to make sense of their founding, such narratives are standards among religious organizations. With religious nonprofits, the inspiration or justification for founding the organization is likely tied to the product (i.e. religious billboards, Christian couples’ retreat) the organization hopes to produce. Indeed, there may be no clearer directive than being told by God that you should start a religious nonprofit. When the product is so

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closely tied to the vision of the organization, we can more easily see similarities and differences in sensemaking experiences, and how they may be related to behaviors (i.e. working more hours). Our study presents the processes and outcomes involved with sensemaking for religious nonprofit organizations. For some of our interviewees, sensemaking occurred gradually as they drew on different ideas, experiences, and suggestions from a variety of people to develop the view that they were meant to start a religious nonprofit. This gradual and collaborative process of sensemaking is consistent with other research finding that sensemaking tends to be organized through communication with others (Weick et al. 2005). Conversely, some respondents had a single profound religious experience than lead them to action; albeit the interpretation of the profound event often seemed to be discussed and understood in conversation with others. Regardless of the process through which they realized their goals, our study shows that the sensemaking process was linked to outcomes; whereby the more people felt called to act the more energy they put into the organization. There are some important contributions that our findings make to the study of organizations and the sociology of religion. Our interviews and analysis of survey data showed that certain types of inspiration are differentially associated with one’s role in the organization. We found that primary founders of religious nonprofits have quantitatively different religious experiences than other people in the organization. Specifically, primary founders are more likely than others to have experienced both a religion-related vision and calling. This difference maps onto Weber’s (1922) distinction between prophet and priest. Because the prophet is forging new ground, he or she is likely to have a different sensemaking experience than someone who did not launch the venture. This distinction may be important for understanding differences between founders and other people involved with nonreligious organizations. Researchers (Pratt 2000, Pye 2005, Maclean et al. 2011) have found that in secular organizations, managers, leaders, and other people who are not founders may also engage in sensemaking and sensegiving. Likewise, there is good reason to think that people who work for religious nonprofits and are not the founder, may use religion to justify their involvement and commitment to the organization. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that the strength of the sensemaking process that founders undergo may be profoundly different, more meaningful and possibly more encompassing than the experiences of other people at the organization. In addition to examining differences between founders and other employees, we also investigated how different sensemaking experiences are associated with a founder’s behavior, which we assessed with the amount of time devoted to the working on the nonprofit. We discovered that founders who were more likely to report having been called by their religion worked longer hours. To our knowledge, this is the first study to directly test the relationship between sensemaking experiences and founders’ behaviors, which could increase the likelihood of the organization’s future growth and vitality.

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There are, of course, limitations and potential problems with our analysis and interpretation. As we have acknowledged above, most of our interview data was produced after the peak founding period. Given this, there is no way to know whether the narratives we heard from our respondents are the same narratives they would have given us months or years before the interview. There is a good reason to believe they would not have been the same (Snow and Machalek 1984). As with many intense and uncertain experiences, people reinterpret and reframe as time passes. However, the variation in reported religious experiences by the respondent’s role in the organization provides some evidence that, whether the narratives came before, during, or after the founding process, such narratives are key to the founder’s process of understanding the past and possibly the future. It is also worth acknowledging that, although our analysis showed distinct differences between the primary founders, nonprimary founders, and non-founders, the participation of individuals in the latter two categories was more contingent on the primary founder being unavailable. Since we did not systematically survey all of the employees of the organization, we cannot be sure whether these respondents were entirely representative. Despite being part of a quickly growing and influential sector (Scheitle 2010), this is one of the first studies to quantitatively or qualitatively examine religious nonprofits. One reason why there has been a lack of research on them is because the data have not been available. Now that we have some systematic and qualitative information on these organizations, one important step would be to assess sensemaking processes as founders are beginning their endeavors. We could do this by developing a longitudinal study where we interview and survey founders as they are filing for their tax status as a nonprofit, or even before, as our research shows that the sensemaking process may occur long before the organization is formally established. Additionally, to assess some of the generalizability of our findings, it would be incredibly useful to directly compare the sensemaking experiences of religious nonprofits, secular nonprofits, and for-profit organizations. This study is one of the first to investigate sensemaking in religious nonprofit organizations. Over the past decade, these organizations have experienced a great deal of growth and have become an increasingly interesting and important type of organization from the voluntary and religion sector (Scheitle 2010). They share a lot of the same characteristics as secular nonprofits and to some extent for-profit businesses. At the same time, religion plays a role in both the founding of these organizations and the products produced. This combination of factors leads to a valuable case study that provides insight into the power of religious sensemaking for shaping founders’ behaviors, and possibly the success of religious organizations.

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Appendix 1: Examples of questions asked in interviews: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

“Could you tell me a little about [organization] and what it does? “Can you tell me about the timeline of [organization’s] creation?” “Where did you get the idea for [organization]?” “What made you decide to take the step to actually pursue the idea for [organization]?” “What sort of help, if any, did you receive in creating [organization] from family, friends, your congregation, businesses, local government, or other organizations?” “What were the biggest challenges or obstacles you faced in creating [organization]?” “What sort of relationships do you have with other religious or secular organizations?” “Where do you see this organization being in five or ten years?”

Notes 1 It is possible that religious sensemaking is even more prominent in such “hotbeds” as individuals and organizations are inspired by or integrate themes they see in other individuals or organizations in the community. However, our other two locations for interviews also reflected the same themes we discuss here even though they are not “hotbeds” of religious nonprofit activity. 2 Congregations are not legally required to register with the IRS, although many do for a variety of reasons.

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Part II: Workplace religion research informing mainstream management areas

Marie-Catherine Paquier

Buying monastic products, gift or purchase? Abstract: Focusing on the act of purchasing retail monastic products, this article applies a cause-related marketing (CRM) approach within a Management, Spirituality, and Religion (MSR) framework. When they purchase monastic products, are individuals simply buyers or do they, by means of their actions, support a religious cause by combining a gesture of purchasing with a gesture of gift-giving? We conducted qualitative interviews with individuals making purchases at religious and secular points of sale in France, and subjected the data acquired to textual analysis. Four classes of meaning emerged. It transpires that gift and purchase are intertwined and systematically associated with a hedonistic sentiment combining pleasure, trust, and love. The soft expression of religiosity illustrates the phenomenon of spirituality taking refuge in the private sphere. Our results enrich the inter-disciplinartity of MSR research, confirm the findings outlined in CRM literature, and provide monasteries with a better understanding of their customers. Keywords: gift-giving, cause-related marketing, purchasing act, monastic products, religious branding, secularization

Introduction Havens of peace and contemplation, Christian monasteries sell the fruit of their labor in order to ensure their survival. In so doing, they come into contact with consumer society. In this article, we focus on the point of view of the purchasers of monastic products at the moment of purchase. What do they feel? Are they merely effecting a banal market transaction? Are they carrying out an act of gift-giving disguised as a purchasing act? Are they expressing their religiosity? Applying elements from consumer research and cause-related marketing (CRM; Varadarajan and Menon 1988), our research is inscribed in the Management, Spirituality, and Religion (MSR) approach (Yip 2011, Aadland and Skjorshammer 2012). Analyzing the impact of the religious origin of retail products on the meaning of the act of purchase, our approach

Acknowledgements: The author sincerely thanks Professors Altman, Badot, Rinallo, and Morin-Delerm for their advice and their encouragement, as well as enormous gratitude to the reviewers for their precious, positive and pedagogical remarks. Thanks also to Ms Lyne, who widely contributed to the fluidity of this article. Finally, the data would never have been able to be collected without the assistance of Brothers Colomban, Marc-Henri, and Mr. and Mrs. Génin. A warm thanks to them all. Source: Marie-Catherine Paquier. Buying monastic products, gift or purchase? Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 3, 257–286, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2015.1012738 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-005

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reflects the concerns of MSR, while at the same time strengthening their interdisciplinary links (Perry et al. 2003, Giacalone 2010, Giacalone 2012). The management of religious organizations, principally studied from the perspective of the influence of secularization on their place in society (Aadland and Skjorshammer 2012), is the object of marketing research in the field of Church Branding; we attempt to understand how various religions segment their markets and adapt their spiritual offer to each of those segments (Moore 1994, Stark and Iannaccone 1994, Roof 1999, Twitchell 2004, Einstein 2011, Casidy 2013). Focusing on the point of view of the consumer of religious products or services, researchers have studied religious tourism, concentrating on the typologies, motivations, and behaviors of tourists on pilgrimages and visiting religious sites (Finney et al. 2009, Haq and Jackson 2009, Kresic et al. 2013). Meanwhile, research in CRM is principally concerned with determining the predispositions of purchasers of charity products to supporting specific causes linked to particular products (Strahilevitz and Myers 1998, Gutpa and Pirsch 2006). In this article, we focus specifically on purchasing and gift-giving encapsulated in the gesture of buying a charity product. We do not know of any research that attempts to analyze the feelings of the individual purchaser gift giver at the moment of the act of purchase, nor of any research on the marketing approaches used by French Christian contemplative monasteries. Indeed, it would be of interest to cross the MSR and CRM research approaches with a view to studying a field that has not yet been investigated, that of the purchase of retail products manufactured by contemplative monks who use those products to generate the revenue necessary for the survival of their monasteries. From a MSR perspective, we hope to shed light on the influence of the religious origin of products on the meaning given to their purchase; at the same time, it is our intention to contribute to CRM by examining the offer of monastic products designed to provide monasteries with financial support. Lastly, we suggest that our results could be used to help monasteries improve their understanding of the role of purchaser–donors and subsequently adapt their offers. The article is divided into five sections. Firstly, we anchor our work in the theory of the gift, focusing on the relationship between gift and market as seen by marketing researchers. This approach enables us to define the objectives of our research. We then present an analysis of the monastic world, outlining its historical and contemporary contexts, and examining the marketing approach applied by French monasteries against the background of the secularization of society, before describing the methodology employed to collect and analyze data. Lastly, we present our results and conclude with a discussion of the contributions and limits of our work.

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The gift theory, from anthropology to consumer research The question of the role of gift-giving in the act of purchasing monastic products places our research in the theoretical framework of the gift. We use the founding anthropological approach embedded in this concept to focus on the links between the gift and the market. Lastly, we present a brief overview of consumer research literature applying the theory of the gift, in order to pinpoint the CRM in which we are situating the discussion.

Gift in society A total social fact with various forms of reciprocity According to Mauss (1925), the gift is “obligatorily and voluntarily given and obligatorily and voluntarily returned.” It is characterized by the inextricable paradox of the constrained freedom of returning an apparently free gift and contains as much altruism, freedom, and disinterest as it does violence, obligation, and interest (Godelier 1996). Expected or not, obligatory or not, immediate or not, reciprocity can take a number of material or immaterial forms, primary amongst which is the bond created between the giver and the receiver (Salhins 1976, Marcoux 2009). Beyond their function of creating bonds, gifts and reciprocity take different forms. Both can be material – for example, money, goods, or even an organ – or immaterial, for example, the pleasure of giving, recognition, gratitude and grace (Weber, 2007). The gift and the market In pre-modern and modern societies, the gift and solidarity were part of the personal sphere of the family, the neighborhood, and the Church (Giesler 2006), caught between the state and the market, between the sphere of calculated interest and that of obedience to the law (Le Gall-Ely 2013). In postmodern societies, the gift and the market, and the gift and the state reciprocally impregnate one another: market and state call upon the gift to compensate for their shortcomings in terms of solidarity, redistribution, and trust (Godbout and Caillé 1992). Theorists of economic sociology have long studied relations between economic and personal spheres. The phenomenon of embeddedness (Polanyi 1944) demonstrates that the existing economy, a site of interests and exchange, is embedded in institutional frameworks that make redistribution possible, and in personal relations that allow for reciprocity (Godbout and Caillé 1992). Seemingly opposed to market relations, the gift generates bonds within the network of personal relations, which is itself embedded in economic networks (Granovetter 2000). Market relations, formalized by the act of purchasing, coexist with non-market

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relations that sometimes take the form of gift giving: the logic of the gift is, in short, compatible with that of the market (Polanyi 1944). Market transactions are often one-off actions inscribed in permanent social relations, “the flow of goods installs or acts as a guarantor of social relations” (Salhins 1976, p. 238). The borders between the gift and consumption become less distinct (Cova and Remy 2007): the market can be used for giving and the gift can be given as part of an economic transaction. Complementing this socioeconomic viewpoint, researchers in marketing and consumer behavior have applied a microeconomic perspective by focusing on the coexistence of purchasing and gift giving in the behaviors of economic agents.

Gift and market relations, between avoidance and impregnation Marketing and the ambiguity of the gift Following in the wake of Mauss, Sherry (1983) analyzes, in his founding article, the behavior of the gift-giver in an anthropological perspective. Sherry’s article suggests a wide variety of research possibilities concerning the kind of tensions caused at the microeconomic level by reciprocities induced by the gift, addressed by consumer culture theorists. These tensions include the “dark side of the gift” (Sherry et al. 1993) and the state of dependence induced by the gift (Giesler 2006). Today, three modes of consumption challenge existing thought in the field of consumer behavior: commodity exchange based on merchant relations, gift-giving based on reciprocity exchange, and sharing, a non exchange-based relation (Belk 2010, 2011). We are focused on the two dominant modes based on exchange (market relations and gift) and analyze their relations: are the gift and market relations compatible or are they impossible to reconcile in the same gesture? It seems that, very often, the one is the avoidance of the other, or the one impregnates the other. In this case of impregnation, the third and less dominant mode of consumption, sharing, is emerging. Avoidance The market and its inevitable interest-based calculations provoke resistance (Penaloza and Price 1993, Banikema and Roux 2012) or even rejection (Kozinets and Handelman 2004). Consumers seek to escape from the market (Arnould 2007), either on a one-off basis (Kozinets 2002) or, more permanently, via alternative behaviors (Hanson 1980, Pepper et al. 2009, Belk 2010). While acknowledging its ambiguous aspects, consumer culture theorists see the gift and, more recently, sharing, as positive alternatives to commercial transactions (Marcoux 2009, Belk 2010). In the other sense, in order to avoid the “dark side of the gift” (Sherry et al. 1993) and the ambiguities that it generates in relations between the recipient and the

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donor, consumers may choose to resort to market relations in order to reassert their independence by escaping the gift sphere (Marcoux 2009). The gift can thus also generate behaviors of resistance expressed in recourse to calculating market-based logics (Urbain et al. 2012). The avoidance movement goes both ways, translating the vision of rejection of one of the two spheres into an escape into the other sphere. But a substantial amount of research demonstrates that the two categories are only very rarely mutually exclusive, and then only in cases limited in time and space (Kozinets 2002). The inverse movement does exist – this one positive – which expresses the attraction of one of the spheres for the other, and provokes a mutual impregnation. Mutual impregnation The impregnation1 is due either to the invasion of the gift sphere by market relations or to the invasion of the trade sphere by the gift. The sphere of the gift has long since been invaded by the market. More precisely, the market invited itself into the sphere of the gift, notably for gifts made to family and friends on traditional, sometimes religious occasions, which have, over the course of time, become commercial (Belk 1990, Wallendorf and Arnould 1991, Babin et al. 2007, Bartunek and Do 2011). Even in the most agapic situations, such as amorous relationships (Belk and Coon 1993), the market is present in terms of the type of object given as a gift and the way in which it is acquired (Le Gall-Ely 2013). It is possible to maintain that, of the three components of a gift-giving situation – the object given, because it can be purchased; situational factors, when the cultural context of giving is impregnated with market culture; and the donor and the receiver, one of whom can buy the gift, while the other, the receiver, can sell the gift – at least one is associated with the market (Sherry 1983). The problem of reciprocity, whether it is generalized, balanced, or negative (Marcoux 2009), is systematically evoked in the field of consumer research. It is perceived as a source of tension that can be accentuated by the emergence of market relations in the gift-giving situation (Giesler 2006, Marcoux 2009): it is impossible to avoid the “dark side of the gift” (Sherry et al. 1993). However, in another sense, the gift invades the market through two modes. The first one is re-enchanting consumption by means of its innate ideals of free products and services, solidarity, and sharing (Kozinets 2002, Maffesoli 2007, Belk 2010, 2011). In this case, sharing allows somebody to use something owned by someone else, without any calculability, without any reciprocity, and without any ritual. Joint possessions are shared through a communal act, which “creates feelings of solidarity and bonding” (Belk 2010, p. 717). Thus, collaborative consumption enables consumers who have purchased a product to share its use with both people they know and with strangers (Albinsson and Perera 2012). The second one is CRM, focused on the purchase of objects associated with a charitable cause. We are interested in this area, since it is

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possible to consider monastic products as charity products: the profits that they generate are directed back into the monasteries.

Current research in CRM CRM, when the buyer is also a donor CRM studies examples of impregnation of the gift by the market (Varadarajan and Menon 1988, Berglind and Nakata 2005). Thanks to a single act, individuals are at once purchasers and donors, simultaneously buying a product and giving money to a charitable cause. Research in this area has conceptualized the field of CRM (Gutpa and Pirsch 2006), and has been focused on two themes, that of charity organizations associated with products and brands, and that of brands associated with causes (Grounds 2005, Newman and Shen 2012). Associating a product with a charitable monetary gift enables the cause being supported to materially express its gratitude vis-à-vis the donor in the form of tangible reciprocity (Bennett and Gabriel 2000), while at the same time, associating a brand with a charitable operation significantly boosts revenue streams and improves brand image (Strahilevitz and Myers 1998, Strahilevitz 1999). In regard to consumers, in their founding article, Strahilevitz and Myers (1998) compare purchasing behaviors in terms of whether products associated with specific causes are hedonic or utilitarian. The authors conclude that an act of charity is more effective when the product associated with the cause is hedonic. More broadly, the reactions of consumers are analyzed with the aid of the concept of the “fit” between the cause supported and the company, brand, or type of product associated with it (Hamling and Wilson 2004). We can ask if, in the situation of buying monastic products, the purchaser of these pleasant products is receiving a tangible hedonic reciprocity for his disguised gift, and feeling a coherent fit between the cause and his or her act of buying this kind of product. The purchaser–donor, an area of research to be explored in a religious context Inscribed in complement of current research, our approach focuses on the meeting between two stakeholders in CRM, namely the buyer and the seller (Gutpa and Pirsch 2006). We pinpoint the precise moment of the purchase and seek to analyze what happens when individuals make a purchase based on market codes; while, at the same time, giving their money to a cause. In such circumstances, is the individual a purchaser or a donor? Is he or she more one than the other? This research question, which echoes the sometimes complex problematic between gift and market, will be studied in the very particular, as yet unexplored, context of the purchase of monastic products. In effect, research into consumerism in a religious context has essentially

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focused on pilgrimages in which religious tourists are transformed into consumers (Finney et al. 2009). Analyses of the purchase of tourist services and objects of devotion have been made for Jewish pilgrims (Kosansky 2002), as well as for Christian pilgrims (Kresic et al. 2013), and Muslim pilgrims (Haq and Jackson 2009, Mouhafim 2013). But none of this research addresses the precise situation of the purchase of a product made by religious people from the CRM perspective as a configuration in which the roles of purchaser and donor are mixed.

Research goals The objective of this study is to ascertain whether or not, in purchasing monastic products, consumers are also making a gift. While economists have long insisted on a watertight separation between market and non-market spheres, we know that, due to phenomena of embeddedness, the acts of purchasing and gift-giving can be linked (Polanyi 1944, Granovetter 2000). Furthermore, the multiplicity of existing forms of reciprocity, the close historical relationship between monasteries and charity, the fact that religious communities are obliged to sell goods and services, and the desire of consumers for products that give meaning to their activities converge in a legitimate questioning of the relationship between consumerism, generosity, and religion. Inscribed in the general field of MSR research concerning the management of religious organizations and faith-based institutions, and, more precisely, the marketing approaches that they apply, our research contributes to consumer research and CRM literature on religious causes. From an empirical point of view, our research focuses on the context of the purchase of Catholic monastic products in France, a field as yet unexplored in marketing studies. The results obtained should help monastic communities to better understand the meaning that consumers give to the act of purchasing food and cosmetic products. What is the role of the gift in the purchasing act? Are products merely epiphenomena supporting the central charitable act, of which they manifest one of the forms of reciprocity? Or are they, on the contrary, the principal element around which the market transaction is articulated? Answers to these questions shpuld help monasteries better adapt their offer, both in terms of products and the messages by which they are accompanied. Our research focuses on the specific context of French monasteries. To understand the evolution of the French monastic economy, it is necessary to take a look at the history of these institutions and at their role in an increasingly secular society.

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Contemplative monasteries and the regular clergy involved in society The development of monasteries in the Middle Ages Christian monasticism first developed in the fourth and fifth centuries in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Europe (Berlioz 1994). In the fifth century, the Italian monk, Benedict of Nursia (Benedetto da Norcia), declared Patron Saint of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964, proposed a monastic discipline based on the rule of silence, obedience to the master, humility, poverty, charity, and a life of prayer, reading, and manual work (de Nursia 6th century). This rule, imposed in 817 on the monasteries in the West, gave birth to the Benedictine Order, of which the abbey at Cluny, founded in 909, is the most powerful symbol. Around 150 years later, in 1068, the Cistercian Reform, comparable in scope to the Lutheran Reform (Berlioz 1994), marked a desire to return to the “true apostolic life.” The Cistercian Reform can be explained in terms of a reaction against the gradual enrichment of Benedictine monasteries, for some of which the accumulation of wealth had become a goal in itself, rather than a means whereby to glorify the Creator (Clerc 1998). It is this reaffirmation of the role of manual work that made possible the development of important economic activities, considered today to be at the origin of the European economy. Contemplative monasteries and the origins of the European economy Playing a religious, social, economic, political, artistic, and cultural role, the monastic orders represented a “total phenomenon” in the medieval West (Berlioz 1994). At its apogee, the Benedictine abbey at Cluny possessed 1000 priories and 50 houses, while monasteries were the leading landowners in Europe. The lands attached to monastic domains were primarily acquired by gift and as security against loans made to the nobility (Nizet 2003). Organized and frugal, the Cistercians owned thousands of hectares, from Cîteaux Abbey, near Dijon, to Hungary (Stark 2007). Cistercian monks, young, educated men without either wives or children, were considered genuine innovators (Pouillon 1964). Applying the Ora et Labora rule imposing a balance between prayer and manual work, they invented numerous agricultural, hydraulic, and industrial processes (Collin 2004), and developed a number of territories (Righetti TostiCroce, 2004), the forges at Clairvaux, the tile granges at Cîteaux, the works at Châalis, the sawmill at Remiremont, and the vineyard at Clos Vougeot are all examples of the extraordinarily active inventiveness of Cistercian monks.

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Monasteries and the gift The religious roots of the gift Christian morality is based on three virtues: faith, hope, and charity. “The indispensable duty of the Christian” (Giraud 2007), charity is the heritage of the unconditional love given by God in the sacrifice of His Son for humanity, an unconditional love than Man bestows upon his kind to confirm his love for God: “just as I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13: 34–35). Charity thus expresses compassion, especially for the poor, for indigents, even for enemies, and is made manifest in deeds, attitudes and intentions. But, unlike Judaism, with the Tsedaqah, and Islam, with the Zakat, Christianity has not rendered charity obligatory; every person is free in their charitable actions and gifts in that the decision about whether or not they will enter the Kingdom of Heaven will be taken on Judgment Day. More precisely, Catholics see in the act of love and charity a positive value, a human effort to obtain God’s grace (Ammari and Özcaglar-Toulouse 2011), and include the notion of spiritual reciprocity on the part of God, expected by generous men: “Give and it will be given to you in good measure . . .” (Luke 6:38). This is the counter-gift in exchange for God’s love of humanity (Caillé et al. 2001). But this angelic vision of Christian charity does not take into account the scandal of the sale of indulgences that led to the Protestant schism. Based on the doctrine of the “Treasure of the Church,” this trade enabled believers to exchange devotions against a reduction in the time they would have to spend in Purgatory. Applied since the third century, the practice was institutionalized in the twelfth century, and spread significantly in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.2 Gradually monetized, the practice gave rise to a lucrative trade, denounced by Luther in 1517, an event that was one of the triggers of the Protestant Reform (Sibué 2011). This trade in indulgences, organized, controlled, and delegated by the Vatican, was practiced by the non-monastic secular clergy, which regarded it as a reliable means of encouraging the faithful to observe the sacraments and carry out acts of piety, while, at the same time, providing an important source of revenue. The image of the contemporary Church still suffers from these abuses (o.p., Frère 2010). Meanwhile, throughout the Middle Ages, the regular, monastic clergy carried out a similar form of trade with the nobility, without officially becoming involved in the trade of indulgences (Bertrand 2004). The wealthy paid a “price of passage” for the salvation of the souls of their ancestors. This form of pro anima gift gradually established itself, thereby respectively consolidating the financial and spiritual powers of the nobility and the monastic communities (Lauwers 1997).

The pro anima gift Amongst the many different kinds of gifts made to monasteries in the Middle Ages, there are numerous traces of the pro anima gift in the archives recording gifts in abbeys (Magnani 2002). Ritualized, presented in public, and recorded in writing, pro anima gifts had

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the effect of inserting the Church into the system of production, thereby legitimating its role in society. “Gifts of earthly goods in exchange for spiritual goods delivered by means of the liturgical service conducted by monks”, they incarnated the idea of giving to monasteries in order to receive, reciprocally, the grace of God. A genuine system for transforming earthly goods into spiritual goods linking men to God, the pro anima gift involved actors from various categories: the wealthy donor, monks, the poor, God, and the saints (Figure 1). Viewed from a global perspective, the pro anima gift can be seen as a system of multiple alliances between monks and lay people, the poor and the saints, men and God, and the living and the dead (Magnani 2008). The disciplined character of geographically isolated monastic communities, their reputation for frugality and simplicity both in terms of the liturgy and of their way of life, their close ties with the local community, and their contribution to agricultural, industrial, and commercial development have probably, throughout history, added certain luster to the image of the regular clergy. A sort of “sect within the Church” (Hill cited by Jonveaux 2011), the contemplative monastic world has become an element of cultural and architectural heritage structuring French society. Although the regular clergy practiced a system based on the exchange monastic communities, who are of terrestrial goods for the salvation of the soul (pro anima gifts), it avoided the scandals associated with the trafficking of indulgencies, a practice attributed to the secular clergy. This positive image of monastic life is mirrored by the contemporary development of religious heritage tourism across the globe (Noppen and Morisset 2003), particularly in France, as is witnessed by the growing attraction of retreats and seminars organized by over 300 monastic communities in the country (Christophe 2014).

God and the Saints

3: Reciprocity of celestial goods (grace, salvation)

2: Intercession

2: Accumulation of earthly goods

The Monks 4: Pro anima gift of material goods

2: Alms 2: Material reciprocity

The Rich Figure 1: The pro anima gift.

The Poor

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The distribution of monastic products in contemporary France French Catholic monasteries and abbeys played a major economic role in the Middle Ages. Today, their presence in society is, like their faded political power, more discrete (Collombet 2010). However, these sacred places apply the profane methods of commerce and marketing. In 2014, of the 220 Catholic contemplative communities in France,3 143 have a shop selling monastic products or books, 103 have a showcase website, and 13 have a commercial website. By means of their products and services, monasteries isolated from the secular world come into contact with the world of consumption.

An improbable meeting between two different worlds Most of the products sold are manufactured by or under the supervision of monks and nuns during periods dedicated to work as defined in the monastic Ora et Labora scheme deriving from the rule of Saint Benedict (de Nursia 6th century). The sale of products or services is a vital source of revenue for subject to two kinds of pressure. On the one hand, gifts and inheritances are becoming increasingly rare, while, on the other, costs are increasing as members of communities and the buildings they live in and use get older. In addition, money has to be found to ensure that manufacturing facilities meet legal norms (Jonveaux 2011). In order to survive, monasteries must achieve a delicate balance between the inevitable professionalization of their manufacturing and sales procedures, and the absolute priority given to the rhythm of monastic life (prayer, silence, and detachment from material things). In terms of monastic products and services, the most highly developed sector is, without question, hospitality and accommodation, followed, in descending order, by food products, cosmetics, textiles, books, and music, and, lastly, various services. Our research focuses on monastic products sold in the consumer products sector. Thus, our definition of monastic products is limited to food products, cosmetics, and textiles manufactured by or under the supervision of monks and nuns in active monasteries and abbeys observing the rule of Saint Benedict, a source of precise management guidelines (Grün 2012, Roberts 2012). As we shall see, these monastic products are conscientiously marketed. At the same time, a growing trend towards a quest for meaning has been observed in consumer behaviors. Doubtless accentuated by a calling into question of the dominant economic model, this quest for meaning is summed up in behaviors characterized by an emphasis on social bonds (Muncy and Vittel 1992). Behaviors reflecting this preoccupation include the quest for authenticity (Gilmore and Pine 2007), frugality (Shaw and Newholm 2002), commitment (Dubuisson-Quellier 2009), solidarity (Bergadaà 2011), gift-giving (Bajde 2009, Belk 2011), and spirituality (Buchholz 2003, McKee 2003, Skougaard 2006, Camus and Poulain 2008, Rinallo et al. 2012, Biglin 2012). Consuming monastic products, materially useful and spiritually connoted, is perhaps one of the ways in which individuals express their quest for meaning.

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The monastic marketing mix Generally speaking, abbeys and monasteries have developed ranges of up-to date products (food and cosmetics) accompanied by a coherent marketing mix. Monastic products are available in product ranges of various sizes (Table 1). Products are handcrafted and made from natural materials. Only 8–10% of them are certified as organic (for example, the products of the Abbeys of SeptFons and Rieunette). In order to authenticate and protect monastic provenance, 220 French abbeys and monasteries have come together to create the “Monastic” logo. The logo features on all products that respect the three following conditions: products must be made at the monastery, by or under the supervision of monks and nuns, and have been the object of a “substantial degree of artisanship.” This definition makes it possible to hire nonreligious staff to work for the monks and nuns, and to purchase semi-finished products or raw materials to be assembled at the monastery. Table 1: Monastic food and cosmetics ranges. Food products

Cosmetics

Alcohol (beers, wines, liqueurs)

Creams

Honey, jams

Balms, lotions

Confectionery (sweets, fruit pastes, chocolates)

Soaps, shampoos, shower products

Biscuits

Eau de toilette

Condiments (oil, vinegar, mustard) Essential oils Cheese Cheese Charcuterie Food complements

In general, prices, aligned with organic and fair trade products, are higher than those of comparable products sold in the retail sector. Prices are similar to those in selective distribution channels, such as delicatessen products in the food sector or cosmetic products sold in perfumeries and pharmacies. There are currently a number of different types of monastic points of sale in France. Abbeys and monasteries provide the basis of a multi-channel distribution network with a number of forms and characteristics: sales in stores/remote sales/home sales; local/national coverage; religious/non-religious points of sale. The religion-based approach corresponds to a commercial model developed by religious communities, while the non-religious approach is taken by entrepreneurs who have isolated a development opportunity in the sector (Table 2). This variety of distribution channels – some

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of them introduced very recently – bears witness to the vitality of this market, both from the point of view of the monasteries themselves, on the lookout for outlets compatible with their monastic life, and from that of distributors conscious of a growing demand for quality handmade products imbued with meaning. Lastly, communication, which is discrete, is characterized by the use of relatively innovative relational and communitarian tools; mass advertising is eschewed (Paquier and Morin-Delerm 2012). This discrete communication on the part of the monasteries, a veritable echo of their world of silence, is characterized by the soft but determined voice of cloistered communities in secular society. Table 2: Religious and non-religious, physical and virtual distributors of monastic products. Religious

Non-religious

Physical

 abbey shops  Artisanat Monastique outlets

Comptoir des Abbayes Delicatessens Wine stores Retail outlets Souvenir shops

Virtual

Boutiques de Théophile Commercial abbey websites Artisanat Monastique website

Eole-Agape VPC Boutique Saint Benoît Dans les Jardins des Monastères

The trend towards secularization The trend towards secularization in Western European societies can be explained in reference to three elements of modernity: rationality, empowerment of the individual, and differentiation of institutions (Stark and Iannaccone 1994). Three factors have led to the emancipation of the temporal order from the religious sphere (Hervieu-Léger 1999), to a decline in religious practices, and to a displacement of religion toward the private sphere (Casanova 1994). In France, the 1905 law on the separation between Church and State gave birth to the secular society, the rules of which are not governed by religion and in which religious practice is a private affair. The spiritual reality of the early twenty-first century is characterized by globalization, ultra-individualism, freedom of choice, a desire for personal fulfillment, a quest for meaning, the reign of authenticity, and nomadism. People’s relation to religion is evolving towards an attitude of “believing without belonging” (Bréchon 2000), an attitude corresponding to an individualization of practices: “this tendency may be interpreted as an expression of the fact that secularization means a reduction in organized religion, while privatized and individualized spirituality proliferates” (Aadland and Skjorshammer 2012). Furthermore, the Church has responded to this

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trend by enriching its “range” of services with Bible discussion groups, and meetings of families and young people that, statistically, attract more people than Sunday mass. Meanwhile, monastic products probably play a role in the spiritual panoply of individuals, who, by buying these kinds of items, manifest a material interest in the religious world. But, as demonstrated by Stark and Bainbridge (1985), secularization does not mean the death of religion. Indeed, secularization has been accompanied by a contrary movement of spiritual and religious intensification: the revival movement of traditional religious organizations, and the religious innovation movement in new spiritual and religious traditions (Stark and Bainbridge 1985). Confronted with uncertainties about the future, pressures to change, and the disillusions of individualism, a need for belief and for points of reference emerges. In an era characterized by major crises and deep anxieties, religious and spiritual currents help to “re-enchant the world” by entering the private sphere of individuals (Lenoir 2003). Since the 1970s, adepts in search of authentic experiences and spirituality have turned to psychoesoteric and psycho-corporal practices. The border between spiritual quests and the market sector is becoming increasingly porous: spirituality and consumption have become intertwined, on the one hand, by the commercialization of the spiritual offer (Obadia 2013), and, on the other, by the response of brands to the spiritual quest of consumers (Buchholz 2003, McKee 2003, Skougaard 2006, Camus and Poulain 2008, Rinallo et al. 2012, Biglin 2012). Thanks to their economic activities and their application of commercial methods – their links with distributors, clients, and lay employees – deriving from the profane world, monks are in touch with the modern world. They take a place in the trends toward secularization. In summary, theoretical and contextual “chunks” can be linked (Perry et al. 2003). In a context of secularization which provokes a more intense spiritual quest, contemplative monasteries, with their market offer of food and cosmetic products, are building a relationship with consumer society. But what about the buyers of such products? Are they simply making a purchase in a sphere that they consider to be entirely commercial, or do they become a homo donator by combining their act of purchasing with a dimension linked to the gift? If this is the case, what motivates the gift? Is it a pro anima gift or a gift of solidarity? While the material reciprocity of the purchase/gift in the form of a monastic product is explicit, what of the potential implicit reciprocity anticipated by the purchaser/donor: God’s grace, intercession, recognition of an act of solidarity, or the simple, personal satisfaction of consuming an authentic product produced in an artisanal way?

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Methods Data collection Places where data were collected In France, monastic products are distributed by a multi-channel network of distributors composed of religious and non-religious stores and commercial websites. Our exchanges with actors in this market (commercial managers in abbeys, the head office of the Monastic association, the presidents of Boutiques de Théophile and Artisanat Monastique, managers of Comptoirs des Abbayes, the director of the French Monasteries Foundation) make up for the lack of availability of precise figures on business generated. It seems that the most effective distribution channels are the 143 abbey stores, followed by non-religious delicatessen-type brands like Comptoir des Abbayes, and religious brands like Boutiques de Théophile and Artisanat Monastique. Data were collected by means of interviews conducted with consumers using three types of distributors: the shop at the Cistercian Abbey of Aiguebelle, the nonreligious shop Comptoir des Abbayes, and the Boutiques de Théophile religious commercial website (Table 3). At Aiguebelle and Comptoir des Abbayes, interviews were carried out face-to-face as consumers were leaving the stores. Meanwhile, consumers using the Boutiques de Théophile website were interviewed either face-to-face or by telephone after they had surfed the site and made one or more purchases. Interviewing individuals in our sample immediately after they made their purchases, we used a semi-directive approach posing three non-directive, non-suggestive questions about the characteristics interviewees associate with monastic products, in general, about the characteristics they attribute to their purchasing act, and about the meaning that they give to the act of purchasing monastic products. In order not to influence our informants, we were careful to avoid explicitly formulating the concept of giving. Table 3: The three distributors from which data were collected.

Type

Aiguebelle

Boutiques de Théophile

Comptoir des Abbayes

Abbey shop: religious/ physical

Commercial website: religious/ virtual

City outlet: non-religious/ physical

Internet, site in French

Paris, France

Location Drôme, France

Data collected Between 120 and 160 min of interviews were recorded for each of the three distributors. Six interviews were carried out with shoppers at Aiguebelle, 16 with shoppers at

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Boutiques de Theophile, and 31 with shoppers at Comptoir des Abbayes. Although the profiles of the interviewees varied, Catholics – practicing or otherwise – and people aged between 30 and 65 were overrepresented which, according to managers, reflects the normal profiles of individuals using this kind of outlet.

Processing the data Based on 53 semi-directive interviews, the oral contents of our transcribed corpus runs for 6 h and 20 min. The manifest content of the interviews was analyzed using a hypothetical-deductive approach. An effort was made to describe the shopping experience, or, in other words, to “describe what people are talking about” (Fallery and Rodhain 2007), by analyzing the oral linguistic content of the interviews from the lexical and textual points of view using Alceste® software, which produces a statistical analysis of textual data and divides those data into various semantic classifications. This statistical approach has been completed by a deeper interpretation of significant verbatim.

Findings After the data were processed using Alceste® software, four stable classes emerged (Figure 2). The shopping experiences of the 53 individuals interviewed in three different points of sale were divided into four non-exclusive categories (an individual can have several different types of experience), depending on how many times they were mentioned (%), and in which order, indicating the decreasing specificity of the vocabulary employed (from 1 to 4). The words in each class are presented in decreasing order of correlation with the category of experience. The words at the top of the column are those that have the strongest link with the class in question; they are the most significant words of this class.

Class 1: A pleasurable act This class, which stands out the most from the rest of the corpus, accounts for the largest percentage of the interviews analyzed (47%). Its content expresses a clear and dominant facet of the meaning given to the purchase of monastic products, regardless of the points of sale frequented. It seems that, above all, the individuals interviewed derive pleasure from buying monastic products. An analysis of most frequently uttered significant words, co-occurrences, and verbatim indicates that this feeling of pleasure is linked to the fact of purchasing products for other people and helping the

Specificity Of the class

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0

Classe 3

100

Size of the class in % of the corpus

Classe 1

Classe 2

Présence Phi✶ Présence Phi

Présence Phi

Présence Phi

Price 0, 72 Natural 0, 44 Justify 0, 38 Quality 0, 37 High 0, 36 Expensive 0, 36 Normal 0, 36 A priori 0, 35 Trust 0, 34 Love 0, 34 Product 0, 30 Good 0, 29 Different 0, 27 Original 0, 26 Authentic 0, 26 Know how 0, 26 Traditional 0, 24 Industrial 0, 23 Délicatesse 0, 23 Good 0, 23 Look 0, 21

To buy Pleasure Write Check Abbey Gift Purchase Money Give Moment Help Go Cash reg. Ask Bond Live Economy Prefer Place Thing Need

Spiritual 0, 41 Fairtrade 0, 37 0, 35 Act 0, 35 Oil Participate 0, 32 Pleasant 0, 30 Dimension 0, 29 0, 27 Trade Essential 0, 27 0, 26 Way Solidarity 0, 24 0, 21 World 0, 21 Shop Support 0, 21 Marketing 0, 21 Simplicity 0, 19 Correspon 0, 19 0, 17 Help 0, 16 Site 0, 15 Nice Gesture 0, 15

Class 3 An act of trust 29% of the corpus

Classe 4

50

Region 0, 40 Terroir 0, 37 Local 0, 30 Packaging 0, 30 Nature 0, 27 Know 0, 27 Producer 0, 27 Find 0, 23 Healthy 0, 21 Religious 0, 21 Imagine 0, 21 Supermark 0, 21 Ethical 0, 19 Feel 0, 19 Certain 0, 19 Use 0, 19 Respect 0, 19 Rare 0, 15 Term 0, 15 Correct 0, 15

0, 33 0, 30 0, 29 0, 25 0, 23 0, 23 0, 23 0, 22 0, 19 0, 18 0, 17 0, 17 0, 17 0, 17 0, 16 0, 16 0, 16 0, 15 0, 14 0, 14 0, 14

Class 1 A pleasurable act 47% of the corpus

Class 4 An ethical act anchored In the local region 12% of the corpus

Class 2 A spiritual act of solidarity 12% of the corpus

Figure 2: The four classes obtained according to a descending classification.

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abbeys. This feeling of pleasure is multidimensional and enables individuals to create social bonds with those to whom they offer the products and with the communities that they are helping (Table 4). Table 4: Significant quotes from Class 1 and the sources of pleasure expressed by interviewees. Interviewee

Verbatim

Sources of pleasure

Man, –, Practicing Catholic

A lot goes to the monasteries from the sale; it’s a kind of gift, and that’s pleasurable thing

Giving money to monasteries

Man, –, non- practicing Catholic

It’s a special purchase from somewhere that needs money, so I think my purchase will help them, and that makes me happy, even if the product is the most important thing for me

Giving money to monasteries Buying a good product for himself

Man, –, atheist

It’ll make people happy, the impact of my purchase is positive, with the gift I’m going to give to the person I’m thinking

Giving gifts to close friends and family

Woman, –, practicing Catholic

We have bought gifts to make others happy, but we have also bought gifts for ourselves

Giving a gift to close friends and family Buying a good product for herself

Woman, –, practicing Catholic

I’m giving something to the abbey, but it isn’t like writing out a check; the product is the cherry on the cake; the pleasure of beautiful products as gifts or for oneself

Giving money to monasteries Giving a gift to close friends and family Buying a good product for herself

Man, –, non- practicing Catholic

It’s a purchase for me; I give myself a little treat by buying these cakes which are like my grandmother’s, and knowing that it’s from a community I know is something that also give me pleasure

Buying a good product for himself giving money to monasteries

Pleasure is thus the emotion most frequently associated with the act of purchasing monastic products. This emotion derives from two sources linked to the act of giving: offering good products as a gift and giving money to the religious communities. In the light of what is maintained in the literature, this pleasure can be assimilated to a form of non-material reciprocity of the act of giving (Weber 2007). This first classification provides a perfect illustration of the phenomenon of the embeddedness of the market in the sphere of personal relations (Polanyi 1944, Granovetter 2000). More precisely, it clearly confirms Strahilevitz and Myers’ (1998) affect-based complementary concept, which shows how emotions stimulated by hedonic products are often accompanied by feelings inspired by gifts made to charitable causes. In CRM, hedonic products are more

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readily associated with altruist causes than are utilitarian products. Here, hedonic pleasure and an ablative approach to support and gift-giving are closely linked, providing a demonstration of how a single act of purchasing can at once be “selforiented” and “other-oriented” (Holbrook 1999, Bajde 2006). This observation, which validates the relevance of hedonic pleasure, as a source of value, but which contradicts Holbrook’s dichotomic approach, contributes to the debate about sources of value for consumers (Aurier et al. 2004, Rivière and Mencarelli 2012). Two opposing positions (self-orientation and other-orientation) can be represented in a single item.

Class 2: A spiritual act of solidarity Representing 12% of the corpus analyzed, this second class presents the purchase of monastic products as a voluntary act combining solidarity and spirituality. An attentive analysis of the words used by interviewees reveals the preponderance of the topics “fair-trade” and “solidarity.” In effect, more terms from the lexical field of solidarity (help, fair, participating, togetherness, support) are used than from the lexical field of spirituality. Purchasing monastic products is, above all, an act of support carried out in an agreeable store, a way of helping and becoming involved. It is an active approach to providing support, with that support motivated by a sense of spirituality or by a desire to show solidarity for an alternative economic sector (Table 5). Spirituality is less directly verbalized than solidarity, but an analysis of the interviews reveals that the monastic “cause” – the act of providing support for the religious communities – is of decisive importance. In this context, it is interesting to underline that what is expressed first and foremost is a desire to offer support, as if the spiritual dimension was still implicit. Implicit spiritual solidarity is clearly associated with the act of purchasing monastic products. The notion of the gift, inherent in the solidarity displayed in the act of providing financial support, is thus also present in this class of the corpus, but this time not in the form of pleasure. It is a gift that provides meaning for individuals searching for solidarity (Bergadaà 2011) and spirituality (Skougaard 2006, Rinallo et al. 2012) through their consumer acts. Here again, it can be considered that individuals are motivated simultaneously by an ablative approach based on solidarity and a hedonic approach based on the satisfaction derived from a coherent fit between ideals and acts. Our results suggest that people who purchase monastic products have a positive feeling for the fit, the coherence between the cause that they support and the type of products available (Hamling and Wilson 2004). In this instance, the cause is primarily equitable and, to a lesser degree, spiritual. This soft expression of spirituality should be considered in the light of the profound secularization of French society, the consequence of which is the interiorization of religious Convictions (Casanova 1994, Addland and Skjorshammer 2012). Oriented towards Others as well as towards the self, consumers provide support and receive, reciprocally, the satisfaction of helping, while, at the same time, giving meaning to their act.

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Table 5: Significant quotes from Class 2. Interviewee

Verbatim

Woman, –, practicing Catholic

The decisive motivation for my purchase is an indirect involvement in supporting the communities. It’s as involving as fair trade, and there’s also a spiritual dimension

Man, –, practicing Catholic

It’s a particular kind of purchase, to encourage monastic production, there’s a participatory approach, helping a healthy cause, perpetuating a tradition. It’s buying as a form of encouragement

Man, –, non- practicing Catholic

There’s a spiritual dimension, you get the impression you’re involved, that you’re helping them survive

Man, –, practicing Catholic

It is a voluntary act carried out in support of a cause in which I believe

Woman, –, nonpracticing Catholic

It’s similar to buying fair trade products, there’s an aspect of solidarity, it helps them, and there’s also a kind of spiritual aspect

Woman, –, nonpracticing Catholic

These products are an alternative to major brands, I compare them to fair trade products, with an added religious dimension

Class 3: An act of trust This class accounts for 29% of the corpus analyzed. The words most frequently used by interviewees (high prices, natural, justify, quality, and trust) reveal that they accept the high prices of monastic products, justified by the natural and original character of those products. In addition, the fact that they are handmade and produced in monasteries, strongly suggests that the work was carried out with love. Trust in monastic products is based on the idea that they are made to high standards. Interviewees expressed the view that monastic products were to be associated with organic, rather than industrial products. These characteristics imply that interviewees will agree to pay more for a product, the price of which they regard as justified. A thorough analysis of the interviews reveals that, behind the easily verbalized presumption of quality, there is a high degree of esteem for the monks and nuns described as “good people” with “a love of work well done” (Table 6). This third class in the corpus can be read on a number of different levels. A first level of analysis clearly shows that consumers are willing to pay more for products regarded as being of high quality, original, handmade, and trustworthy. These terms echo studies carried out on the notion of a fair price, especially in the fair trade sector (Robert-Demontrond 2008), as well as research into trust in marketing (Morgan and Hunt 1994). A second level of analysis, less specific due to the variety of terms employed by the interviewees, shows that this trust is accorded specifically because of the monastic provenance of the products in question, and that this provenance provokes a sentiment

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of esteem and recognition. In this context, referring directly to the notion of spirituality, buyers of monastic products consider contemplative monks and nuns to be “good people” and thank them for the love that they spread by buying their products at high prices. The trust accorded to these products is, in the final analysis, the result of the trust placed in the men and women behind them. It is, in this context, a gift given by consumers in two senses: a gift of money (agreeing to pay a higher price) and a gift of trust. Here again, the act is characterized by reciprocity and duality. Table 6: Significant quotes from Class 3. Interviewee

Verbatim

Man, –, practicing Catholic

The price is high, but that’s ok, it’s justified, the product is handmade, artisanal, all things being even you know where it comes from

Woman, –, nonpracticing Catholic

I know that the products are well made, basically I trust them

Man, +, practicing Catholic

They are quality products, a little more expensive, but it’s normal, they’re handmade by monks, it’s marvelous, there’s something special happening because they work lovingly

Man, –, atheist

The products are artisanal, homemade, at least that’s what we’re told; we have a very positive view of them, we can put our trust in them, there are no middlemen and the monks take a serious approach to their work

Man, –, practicing Catholic

These products are almost made-to-measure, they are made with love, and they carry the Monastic label, so the price is justified

Class 4: An ethical act anchored in the local region The fourth and last class, which accounts for 12% of the corpus analyzed, expresses the association made by interviewees between the purchase of monastic products and the terroir. The allusion is to the region and the local producers who provide it with a concrete, geographically anchored identity. This identification of monastic products with a particular region gives consumers the impression that they are in some way close to those producers, and provides the products purchased with a healthy ethical connotation. An analysis of the interviews illustrates the importance of this regional aspect of monastic products; it is as if the way in which they were produced had not changed since the Middle Ages (Table 7). Values associated with tradition and the conservation of local expertise confer a timeless character on the products. Furthermore, the fact that they are by no means industrial in character, combined with their religious origin, provides the act of purchasing with an ethical, authentic dimension.

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Table 7: Significant quotes from Class 4. Interviewee

Verbatim

Woman, –, atheist

A little like regional, terroir products from producers of regional specialties, for example, the lavender water you find in the Drôme

Man, –, nonpracticing Catholic

These are products with spiritual and ethical value, products comparable to terroir products, to local products from a specific region

Woman, –, atheist

Products from the earth, terroir products are used by monks, of course they’re good products, our vision of monks is that they respect the earth

Woman, –, practicing Catholic

It’s anchored in a specific region, it’s my belief that they’re made in the region, in the abbey, and even if they are not labeled as organic, they’re made with a respect for nature, with a certain tradition

Unlike the first three classes, the fourth does not make any reference to giftgiving. Here, products have a regional identity and an ethical value for those who purchase them. Like organic and fair trade products, monastic products respond to current trends about how to consume more ethically, in respecting both Man and Nature. The idea of creating bonds is very important here as well, since we know that buying locally creates social bonds, as does supporting fair trade (Merle and Piotrowski 2012).

Synthesis, limitations, and contributions Our research question focuses on the part played by the notion of the gift in the purchase of monastic products. When envisaged from a Maussian perspective, the analysis of data gathered in interviews with buyers exiting three different types of point of sale, highlights the central and multiform role of the notion of the gift and of the reciprocities associated with it. Gifts in the form of money, products, committed support, and trust; reciprocity in the omnipresent form of the social bond and love, but also of products with a variety of associated values, and, lastly, of the feeling of pleasure, of meaning given to the purchase, of solidarity, of spirituality, and of a form of empathy with regional traditions (Table 8). By characterizing the meaning given by the interviewees in our sample to their purchases of monastic products, we have been able to demonstrate in this microeconomic system, the pronounced degree of embeddedness of gift-giving in the market (Polanyi 1944). This result confirms the ideas expressed in the cause-related marketing literature and illustrates the strength of the secularist trend in French society. In effect, following Strahilevitz and Myers (1998), by defining monastic retail products as charity products, we observe that the purchasing act, systematically accompanied by an act of giving (a gift of money, trust, and objects to others), is a source of hedonic sentiments. Pleasure, solidarity, trust, ethics, love, and identification with a certain patrimony are

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felt at the emotional, rather than the utilitarian, level. Like other studies (Bajde 2006, Rivière and Mencarelli 2012), these results contradict the dichotomic character of value sources based on the criterion of Holbrook’s “turned to the self/turned to others” duality (Holbrook 1999). Individuals can, through the simple act of purchasing an object, display two orientations at the same time: while buying a product, they also perform an act of gift-giving that involves various forms of gifts, as well as material and immaterial reciprocities. The act involves, above all, purchasing a product, combined with a variety of forms of gift-giving ranging from implicit aid to committed support, underpinned by trust and solidarity. These forms of gift-giving give rise to material and immaterial reciprocities, and involve a wide variety of actors, with points of sale playing the intermediary role of recipient third parties (Figure 3). These multiple forms of material and immaterial, direct and indirect reciprocity are not marked with any explicit verbal trace of a spiritual quest. If, during the Middle Ages, most gifts made to monasteries were pro anima gifts – material goods to be transformed into celestial ones – today, it seems that the act of purchasing monastic products is no longer informed by transcendental concerns. There are two main differences in the regard to the pro anima gifts of the Middle Ages. Firstly, the balance of power has probably shifted: if, in the Middle Ages, the grace of the wealthy depended on monasteries, today, the financial security of French monasteries depends on customers; lay people have more power, thus, the sustainability of monasteries depends on their purchasing acts and gifts. Secondly, if God was “present” in the Middle Ages pro anima gift through the reciprocal exchange of spiritual goods, today the immaterial reciprocity inherent in the gift is not necessarily religious: God was not mentioned by the interviewees, their interior feelings are more broad-ranging and more secular than in the Middle Ages. Table 8: Multiple forms of gift-giving and reciprocity in the act of purchasing monastic products. Class

Forms of gift

Reciprocity in the form Direct material of a social bond reciprocity

Indirect immaterial reciprocity

An act of pleasure

Money for the communities Monastic product presented as a gift to other people

General bonds Ablative bonds

Quality product

Pleasure of helping Pleasure of giving

A spiritual act of solidarity

Financial commitment

Bond of solidarity Spiritual bond

Equitable and, in the end, spiritual product

Meaning of the act of purchase: solidarity, spirituality

An act of trust

Trust granted

Bond of trust

Product made with love

Gratuity of trust

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Table 8 (continued) Class

Forms of gift

Reciprocity in the form Direct material of a social bond reciprocity

Indirect immaterial reciprocity

An ethical act anchored in the local region

Purchase of the product

Regional bond Social bond

Evocation of the local region

Ethical regional product

In order to complete our research, it would be worthwhile attempting to isolate trends in the sale and purchase of monastic products depending, firstly, on the points of sale frequented by consumers (physical, virtual, religious, and non-religious), and secondly, in terms of the characteristics of the interviewees (age, religion, and religious practices). This study is based on qualitative data deriving from samples that are neither statistically representative nor comparable with one another. Our research could, therefore, be followed up with a quantitative investigation of representative samples. It would thus be possible to elaborate typologies of purchaser–donors, depending on where they buy their products and on their personal characteristics. From a managerial point of view, these initial results could be used to help French contemplative monasteries to understand their customers better. The varied palette of

Monastic Communities Purchase Quality, fairtrade, spiritual, ethical, territorial Products

Pleasure of Helping Pleasure of Giving Feeling of Solidarity

Money Giving

Selling Points

Financial Security Trust Giving

Love

Purchase Other People

Feeling of Spirituality Buyers

Gift Giving

Connection to Heritage Reciprocity

Giving

Purchase

Figure 3: The various forms of gift-giving and reciprocity in the act of buying monastic products.

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hedonic sentiments felt in the act of purchasing monastic products is a subject that should be taken into account by those responsible for developing monastic products marketing strategies. Such sentiments should be integrated into new product ranges, merchandizing choices, and advertising campaigns. Far from the guilt-inducing approach of the Medieval Church, they perpetuate the positive image of monasteries and demonstrate that the spiritual quest of secularized society is compatible with the consumption of hedonic religious products.

In conclusion, a word about sharing We have observed the act of buying monastic products through the lens of the place of gift-giving in market relations. The results show that both are combined: the act of paying is, such as “giving money, financial security and trust”, and the reciprocity of this money movement is both tangible by receiving “quality, fair-trade, spiritual, ethical, territorial products” and intangible by receiving “love” (Table 8). These results are obtained from a corpus composed by interviews of clients in three types of shops: a true monastic shop in an abbey (Aiguebelle), a merchant website organized as a marketplace by 14 abbeys (Boutiques de Théophile), and a lay specialized shop in the center of Paris (Comptoir des Abbayes). By compiling the interviews into one corpus, the results reveal the common denominator of these three types of shops: globally, the notion of tangible and intangible reciprocity is pregnant during all the process of buying monastic products, whatever the type of shop. It seems that, regarding the type of shop, the idea of “sharing” could be mobilized to deeper understand the type of interaction between buyers and monks and nuns, especially in the shops which are situated in the abbeys. By using the definition given by Belk (2010), enriched by his distinction between “sharing in” and “sharing out”, we can say that the monastic shop situated in an abbey is closer to ther idea of a moment of sharing. Indeed, during the act of buying monastic products, buyers, on the one hand, and monks and nuns, on the other, are making “the act and process of distributing what is” theirs (money or products) “to others for their use and/or the act and process of receiving or taking something from others for” their “use” (Belk 2010, p. 717). In this case, monks or nuns are at home, they welcome visitors “as Jesus”4 (de Nursia, 6th century) in their life based on prayer, work, lectio divina, and silence, always practiced in community: their monastic life is a sharing life! By welcoming people in their shops, monks and nuns are “sharing in” with them their extended self, which is materialized by the products they have handmade together during the rhythm indicated by the rule of Saint Benedict. The physical presence of monks or nuns in the shop allows a true “communal act” of sharing tangible and intangible goods: monks and nuns are “sharing in” because they are “regarding ownership as common, such that the others are included within the aggregate extended self”, whereas clients are “sharing out” by “giving to others outside the

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boundaries separating self and other, and” are “closer to gift giving and commodity exchange” (Belk 2010, p. 725). Finally, the “joint possessions” are the intangible things mentioned in the results and shown in Figure 3: trust, love, feelings of solidarity and spirituality, pleasure of helping and giving, connection to heritage. These intangible “joint possessions” are shared by two parallel processes materialized by tangible things: money shared out by buyers, and monastic products shared in by monks and nuns. The best way to confirm this potential interpretation about sharing is to complete the current research with deep interviews of the offers themselves, the monks, and the nuns: How are they interpreting their own act of making and selling monastic products? Are they simply selling products to earn money? Are they giving back some tangible and intangible reciprocity like buyers feel in this current work? Or are they sharing their spiritual life by distributing their extended self through the products they made in community under the monastic rhythm devoted to the work as a prayer?

Notes 1 We are aware of the gender bias of the term “impregnation” (Bristor and Fischer 1993). We could have replaced it by infusion, imbrication, under weaving or imbue, which are more neutral. But we think that a natural balance is operating with the term “sharing”, whose typical prototype is the feminine metaphor of “mothering and the pooling and allocation resources within the family” (Belk 2010, p. 717). 2 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm. 3 We mentioned earlier the very important historic role of the Benedictine and Cistercian orders in Europe. Their economic and agricultural role is explained by the masculine nature of these communities, which dominated during the Middle Ages. Less cloistered than the feminine communities, the medieval masculine Benedictine communities, followed by the Cistercians, were very active in their territories. Today, feminine communities are in the majority and have somewhat softened the rules of the cloister. In 2014, in France, we have approximately 220 contemplative communities tending to manufacture monastic products: Annonciades (4), Bénédictines female (43), Bénédictines male (35), Carmelites (43), Carthusians (4), Cistercians female (18), Cistercians male (15), St Clare nuns (38), and Visitation sisters (16). We do not mention here the begging orders, such as the Dominicans or Franciscans, non-contemplative orders that live outside of the cloister and are engaged in secular life through work in education, social work, and health care. 4 All guests arriving at the monastery should be welcomed at Christ Himself’ (Rule of Saint Benedict, chap. 53).

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K. Arianna Molloy, Bryan J. Dik, Don E. Davis and Ryan D. Duffy

Work calling and humility: Framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation Abstract: The purpose of this article is to explore how work communication can lead to a sense of calling that engenders negative outcomes (i.e., job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation), as well how the virtue of humility may buffer these effects. First, we seek to clarify interdisciplinary work highlighting the role communication plays in the development of the dark side of a calling. Second, we consider the complexity of humility as an organizational value. Third, we suggest humility functions as a mitigating frame against job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation for those who per- ceive of their work as a calling and for those with whom they work (as leaders, followers, or peers). We propose that at the heart of a healthy work calling is a robust integration of humility, and conclude by outlining promising directions to better understand the discursive implications of humility and work calling outcomes. Keywords: Work calling, humility, organizational communication, workaholism, job idolization In the last fifteen years, vocational psychology, management, organizational behavior, and organizational communication scholars have generated a substantial amount of research aimed at better understanding the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of approaching work as a calling (e.g., Duffy and Dik 2013; Wrzesniewski 2012). A consensus definition of “calling” in the work role has proven elusive (more on that shortly), however most scholars conceptualize the construct as an approach to work characterized by a sense of purpose prompted by internal, external, and/or transcendent sources, combining passion and skill in pursuit of personally fulfilling, spiritually uplifting, and/or prosocial ends (Dik and Shimizu 2019; Molloy and Foust 2015). Research demonstrates that, relative to other ways of orienting to their work, those who experience a calling have the highest sense of motivation, resilience, and overall wellbeing (e.g., Duffy and Dik 2013; Duffy, Reid, and Dik 2010; Gazica & Spector, 2016; Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997). However, they are also more likely to add responsibilities and work overtime without extra pay or acknowledgment (Berkelaar and Buzzanell 2015; Bunderson and Thompson 2009; Dik and Duffy 2012). These behaviors are typically considered virtues by most employers, but there can be

Funding: This work was supported by the Templeton Religion Trust [Research Fellowship for one semester]. Source: K. Arianna Molloy, Bryan J. Dik, Don E. Davis and Ryan D. Duffy. Work calling and humility: framing for job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2019, Vol. 16, No. 5, 428–444, https://doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2019.1657489 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-006

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serious trade-offs for employees with a sense of calling. Specifically, they may also have a harder time knowing where to draw the line between what they can do, and what they should do in the scope of their work. Because of a focus on their work’s value, importance, spiritual significance, and redemptive potential, individuals with a sense of calling may be especially vulnerable to a rationalized, unhealthy overinvestment in their work. A sense of calling may even become toxic when work moves from being an expression of one’s identity to its defining feature. This “identity distortion” often surfaces as a kind of job idolization and/or workaholism (Dik and Duffy 2012). Although scholars have begun to investigate this idea (e.g., Duffy et al. 2016), the beneficial associations between calling and both work-related and general well-being (e.g., Duffy and Dik 2013; Molloy and Foust 2016) suggest that there is a fine line between a calling as a facilitator verses disruptor of well- being. Little is currently known about the conditions in which a sense of calling leads to deleterious effects rather than personal growth and well-being. The purpose of this article is to explore how the virtue of humility may buffer the relation between communication and negative workplace outcomes associated with having a sense of calling (job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation). Being humble means having a healthy sense of self and others because of a general commitment and concern for the greater good. With that understanding, we propose that when people use humility as a communicative frame1 – a perceptual compass to recognize, evaluate, and address when work as a calling crosses over from help to hindrance – then this can help mitigate some of the excesses of having a sense of calling. Within this proposal, we advance three primary goals. First, we aim to add needed clarity to previously proposed linkages between a sense of calling with work and “dark side” vulnerabilities it can enable, highlighting the discursive implications. Second, we aim to more clearly articulate humility’s hypothesized role as a protective factor that wards against these potentially negative outcomes. Finally, we provide a conceptual map of humility as a frame that may mitigate job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation for those who perceive of their work as a calling (and for those they work for, and alongside). Framing refers to the way individuals legitimate certain choices or actions by altering how they communicate with themselves and/or others. For those who experience a strong sense of work calling, framing may provide a way of setting healthy boundaries between work and other aspects of life. For example, a physician with a calling for whom more and more hours are constantly requested may frame her boundaries when saying “no” as essential both in ensuring she obtains the rest she needs to perform at a high level, and to model a healthy lifestyle that includes suufficient balance. (Both rest and balance, in this case, are aspects of a lifegiving approach to work that a sense of calling promotes in theory, if not always in practice.) To frame a sense of calling in a healthier way, people may rely on specific words, phrases, colloquialisms, and even visual images to substantiate assumptions about socially accepted behavior. In this way, individuals with a work calling can

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seek to protect themselves from excesses of dynamics, such as workaholism or job idolization, through framing their work differently.

Work as a calling Scholars investigating work as a calling have defined the construct in divergent and some- times conflicting ways. For example, Bunderson and Thompson (2009) differentiated between modern and neoclassical definitions of calling. Modern approaches describe a calling as a secularized concept emphasizing self-actualization, personal fulfillment, passion, and internally-derived motives (e.g., Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas 2012). In contrast, neoclassical definitions preserve the historic notion that a calling is motivated by a prosocial value for using one’s gifts to advance the greater good, often stemming from destiny or an external caller (e.g., God, salient social needs, a family legacy; Dik & Dik, 2009). The transcendent summons element of calling, in particular, is rooted in religious and spiritual understandings of the construct (e.g., Hardy 1990). Other conceptualizations balance these two approaches by focusing on meaning and purpose – the theme that represents the most common area of overlap between modern and neoclassical approaches. Park (2012), for example, applied her meaningmaking model to the calling construct, noting that people are motivated to express their global meaning frameworks within their daily work, ideally forging an alignment between life meaning and work meaning. Because all of these conceptualizations of calling focus on nonfinancial rewards of work, this area of scholarship is highly relevant for research on spirituality in management (Word 2012). Most of these definitions derive from conceptual papers, but scholars have also directly investigated how research participants define calling using qualitative methods. Based on interviews, observations, and artifact analysis among participants who self-identified as sensing a work calling, four defining characteristics have consistently emerged: (a) an overarching sense of meaningfulness; (b) some type of caller or guiding force; (c) the integration of passion, skill- set, or fit; (d) and a positive contribution to society specifically through work (e.g., Hagmair and Abele 2012; Hunter, Dik, and Banning 2009; Molloy and Foust 2016; Zhang et al. 2015a). For purposes of this paper, we define calling as a work orientation that consists of these four characteristics, and assume that discerning and living a calling is a sense-making, constitutive, dynamic process (Molloy and Foust 2016). From a spiritual perspective, the impact of a sense of calling cannot be reduced to scores on psychological scales alone. Yet from a psychological perspective, quantitative research on perceptions of work as a calling is essential, and has consistently demonstrated that calling is, under most circumstances, linked to a range of beneficial outcomes, both in terms of career development progress and also general well-being (e.g., Duffy and Autin 2013). These patterns of results have also replicated cross-nationally

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(e.g., Domene 2012; Dumulescu, Opre, and Ramona 2015; Praskova, Hood, and Creed 2014; Zhang et al. 2015b). Research also has demonstrated the relationship between perceiving a calling and positive outcomes is fully mediated by people’s sense that they are currently living out their calling (e.g., Duffy and Autin 2013; Duffy et al. 2016 Duffy, Bott, Allan, Torrey, & Dik, 2012). It is likely that job involvement (one’s degree of personal identification with the job) and work engagement are also key factors that link spirituality to intrinsic motivation via a sense of calling (Word 2012). Despite the evidence linking calling with favorable outcomes, in recent years, scholars have begun to identify conditions in which a sense of calling can have deleterious effects (Berkelaar and Buzzanell 2015; Berg, Grant, and Johnson 2010; Dempsey and Sanders 2010; Dik and Duffy 2012; Duffy, Douglass, & Autin, 2015; Gazica and Spector 2015). For example, aspiring musicians with a calling are vulnerable to developing a kind of “career tunnel vision,” disregarding sound career advice if it threatens their perception of calling to their craft (Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas 2012, 2012; Dobrow and Heller 2015). Furthermore, a sense of calling often compels people to work more hours. In excess, this drive to work hard can lead to workaholism, burnout, and feeling like one has to make tremendous personal sacrifices to meet basic requirements of one’s work (Bunderson and Thompson 2009; Clinton, Conway, and Sturges 2017; Creed et al. 2014; Duffy et al., 2012; Keller, Schabram and Maitlis 2016; Keller et al. 2016; Levoy 1997; Vinje and Mittelmark 2007). We see evidence of workaholism in figures like Lee Iacocca. While known for his significant impact in the automobile industry, Iaccoca also famously claimed he “flunked retirement” due to a unquenchable desire to keep working, despite the negative consequences it had on his health and personal relationships (Taylor 1996). A sense of calling is not uniquely problematic, of course; it pales in comparison to vulnerabilities introduced by, for example, a compulsive drive for success (Ng, Sorenson, and Feldman 2007; Zeijen, Peeters, and Hakanen 2018). However, in these studies noted above, participants with callings described having to make unpleasant sacrifices to stay in their work. Some also expressed concern that their employers may exploit them given their strong level of commitment to their jobs. Our point is that a sense of calling, while ordinarily extremely positive, can in some circum- stances paradoxically prove deleterious to workers. In the most extreme cases, employees with a calling may come to idolize their jobs, which involves giving ultimate priority to work over other life responsibilities and relationships (Dik and Duffy 2012). Callings are fundamentally about helping others or purposely contributing to the common good. Yet this can become toxic when people with callings perceive a kind of spiritual sanctioning of their work. With these factors as a backdrop, it is easy to see how an unhealthy rationalization of overwork can occur. As part of their Work as a Calling Theory (WCT), Duffy, Dik, Douglass, England and Velez (2018) explore the conditions in which living a calling can lead to negative outcomes. Their model proposes that particular personality factors (high neuroticism, perfectionism, and need for achievement; low agreeableness, conscientiousness, and self-esteem) as well as psychological climate factor (working in environments

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that promote workaholism, burnout, and exploitation) moderate the link between calling and negative outcomes. However, little is known about protective factors that may help to mitigate or reverse potentially deleterious effects of living a calling. In the next section, we explore humility as work value that may buffer negative effects.

Situating humility as a work value Although some lay people associate humility with humiliation (Weidman, Cheng, and Tracy 2018), psychological definitions have tended to situate humility as a relational virtue that involves prioritizing the needs of a collective or relationship rather than making decisions that prioritize selfish ambition. Intrapersonally, it involves having an accurate view of self – not too lofty or too self-deprecating. Interpersonally, it involves an orientation toward the betterment of others, expressed through restraining offensive behaviors (e.g., not bragging, over-claiming resources, or stubbornly engaging in dis- agreements) that might indicate superiority and rather engaging in communication intended to promote the well-being and benefit of others (for a review of definitions, see Worthington, Davis, & Hook, 2017). Humility involves not just an intrapsychic attitude and modest self-presentation, but it also includes persistent choices to demonstrate an integrity between thought (accurate view of self), motivation (other-oriented rather than selfish), and behavior (regulation of behavior in alignment with cultural norms for modesty/humility within a situation). Even when they have the ability to exploit others (Ashton, Lee, & DeVries, 2014), humble individuals choose to restrain egoistic motives and cultivate motivations to benefit others, including valued relationships or broader social roles or commitments. Finally humility is especially evident and important in contexts in which people have the potential to prefer their own interests to those of others or the collective. A line of research by Owens and colleagues has focused on the behavioral expression of humility within a leadership context. Based on qualitative interviews with 155 leaders, Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell (2013) suggested that leaders in the workplace have a penchant for modeling how to grow. They modeled growth through three important behavioral expressions of humility: (a) admitting mistakes and limitations, (b) demonstrating teachability (e.g., an eagerness to learn and nondefensive receipt of constructive feedback), and (c) recognizing and acknowledging the strengths of others (Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell 2013). A measure based on this theorizing is one of the more widely used ways to study humility in the workplace (Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell 2013). Although humble behaviors tend to be associated with benefits (Rego et al. 2019; Worthington, Davis & Hook, 2017) – humility – like any virtue (e.g., Kvanvig 2016) – at the wrong time or out of proportion may come with a dark side. For example, sometimes behaviors such as deferring or sharing praise may harm not just oneself but the group. Someone who regularly defers praise to others might usually experience benefits, yet

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may occasionally suffer in certain contexts or situations, such as when a pay increase or promotion follows that deferred praise, depriving the deferrer of a legitimately earned reward. Or systems may have humility norms that expect greater humility from (and give less credit for being humble) some people than others (e.g., gender socialization). This paper wrestles with these kinds of tensions specifically as they are manifest in three aspects of humility that pertain to calling and work/life balance.

Humility and the social oil hypothesis An idea that has organized some of the initial research on humility in the workplace has been the social oil hypothesis. This hypothesis states that humility is important for reducing the relational deterioration that happens in situations involving the potential for conflict, such as competition for scarce resources or the existence of power differentials. For example, within the workplace, employees are sometimes selected based on competitive traits (e.g., perfectionism) that may come with inter- personal consequences. Humility helps to decrease the occurrence of offenses through the promotion of relationship-oriented behaviors (e.g., teachability, admit- ting mistakes, acknowledging the contributions of others). When offenses occur, humility helps to promote the repair of relationships (for a review, see, Van Tongeren, Davis, Hook, & Witvliet, in press). First, humility involves a balancing (or persistent search for alignment) of the needs of self and other. According to the social bond hypothesis (Davis et al. 2013), humility judgments (i.e., the degree to which the target person is viewed as humble) regulate social bonds (and commitment is the psychological experience of a social bond). When people communicate arrogantly, people tend to decrease their commitment to the relationship, because the behavior indicates risk that the person will tend to act selfishly as a relational partner. We propose that in a work context, when the target person has a strong sense of calling, this ought to generally lead the person to be seen humble, because it gives other people a narrative to view their behaviors as oriented toward prosocial goals that will benefit larger society. The relation between the target person’s sense of calling and being seen as humble only follows if others view the target person’s goal (object of calling) to be a worthy cause. For example, someone advocating for social justice in the workplace may run into interpersonal problems in a work team if the relevant policy issues are viewed as negatively and unfairly influencing future decisions regarding the allocation of resources (Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009). Given that value differences can lead to judgments of arrogance, for people to consistently be seen as humble by their peers, they will have to demonstrate a certain level of communication competence. Humility is not complete unselfidshness. To consistently portray other-orientedness across relationships over time, people must become highly skilled at monitoring their own interests and the interests of others and then negotiating a balance between the interests of self and

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others. Humility requires an integration of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skill. It transforms how people see their relation- ships as well as how they are seen by others. It redirects one’s vision and focus. In the context of work, this matters a great deal. The second way that humility promotes balance is in its ability to assist individuals in recognizing the difference between one’s work and the broader purpose that work serves. Some individuals may frame this as distinguishing between the calling and the “caller,” however the latter is understood (Molloy and Foust 2016). Given that humility involves an accurate understanding of the self, it ought to help people notice signals that they are getting burned out. Humility also helps people see their contribution in appropriate perspective (e.g., viewing themselves as contributor rather than being solely responsible for team success). This perspective elicits accountability and promotes delegation and collaboration rather than fueling a self-focused taking on of disproportionate responsibility. Third, organizational research has also begun to identify humility as promoting balance between interpersonal relationships at work and work goals, emphasizing the prosocial nature of work calling. For example, researchers who study organizational leaders have become increasingly interested in the potential benefits of humility (Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell 2013). This interest builds on theorizing that humility, expressed in social interactions, can cultivate more supportive work climates and more effective teams. In this way, humility has significant socio-organizational implications as well. Recent theorizing suggests that humility helps balance the confidence required to function effectively as a leader (Dickson 2011). Also, many leaders are promoted based on prior excellence in performance. However, humility may help buffer some of the negative wake caused by qualities that help the leader achieve at such a high level (e.g., competitiveness, perfectionism). This idea has been called the social oil hypothesis (Davis et al. 2018; Owens, Wallace, and Waldman 2015). Likewise, humility may help protect those in power, from making brash and prideful decisions that undermine trust and lead to inappropriate risks. Because they can, sometimes leaders rely too heavily on their own perspective, but humility helps leaders appreciate the benefits of group processes to help facilitate wisdom and discernment in decisions. Humble leaders demonstrate a willingness to learn from others and appreciate the contributions of others (Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell 2013). Humility also promotes attitudes of viewing oneself as part of a larger context and not overestimating one’s role or contribution. In keeping with this theme of humility as a relational virtue that fosters healthy work relationships, what might this look like in the way workers (whether they are leaders, followers, or peers) communicate and negotiate ideas with others? Research affirms that humility contributes to positive interpersonal interactions that resulting in a healthy work climate (Davis, Worthington, and Hook 2010; Owens, Johnson, and Mitchell 2013; Tangney 2000). Scholars have yet to examine how humility intersects with a sense of calling, although such connections are promising (Dik et al. 2017). In particular, humility may function as a key discursive influence on the manner in

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which a calling is expressed – including its propensity to lead to positive as opposed to negative out- comes, otherwise known as the dark side.

Humility and calling’s dark side The dark side of a particular virtue refers to aspects that are ideologically framed as good, but can produce significantly negative outcomes (Cupach and Spitzberg 1994). Indeed, virtues often function in tandem, and one virtue at the wrong time, or without appropriate balance with another virtue, can be no virtue at all. Thus, for constructs such as calling, it is important to consider some of the boundary conditions – the contexts in which calling may shift from being good to damaging and toxic. Research has begun to examine the dark side of calling, focusing primarily on unfulfilled callings and the exploitation or commodification of workers who experience a calling. First, while it is easy to romanticize calling, those who long for it but do not long for it but do not experience it are most likely to be dissatisfied in work and life. With respect to unfulfilled callings, Berg, Grant, and Johnson (2010) investigated unanswered callings, in which people felt drawn to a pursue a particular career, expect to intrinsically enjoy it and find it meaningful, and identify it as a central aspect of their identity, but yet do not experience it formally within their current work lives. They found that unanswered callings could be organized into two categories: missed callings and additional callings. More recently, Gazica and Spector (2015) compared well-being indicators among workers who experience unanswered callings to those with no sense of calling at all. They found that the latter experienced better outcomes. Specifically, those who experienced a work calling but were unable to enact that experience, compared with those with no calling at all, reported significantly lower job and life satisfaction, significantly more anxiety and depression, and poorer physical health. Second, for some who do experience a work calling, the risk of exploitation appears to increase significantly. In their study of zookeepers who feel called to their work, Bunderson and Thompson (2009) noted that calling can complicate one’s work identity, particularly when the sense of duty to the call becomes an all-consuming sense of responsibility that does not leave room for rest. Participants who experienced a calling reported having a difficult time placing boundaries around work due to concerns about feeling like a “moral failure” and “a negligent abandonment of those who have need of one’s gifts, talents, and efforts” (p. 41). This held true on two levels: (a) the personal work identity and the (b) collective impact of the work. Both of these produce an easy opportunity for exploitation, and indeed, some zookeepers expressed that the trade-offs can be severe. “I would not tell them [how committed I am],” reported one participant, “because they can get a strong hold on you that way. If management knows you love your job, they’ll try to do things to undercut your pay and stuff like that” (p. 43). Thus, having a sense of calling can, in some circumstances,

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make people vulnerable to intrapersonal (e.g., unrelenting drive or perfectionism toward work) or interpersonal exploitation (e.g., being asked to do more for less because one is being “paid in meaning”). Similarly, sometimes organizations may commodify calling and seek to harness its potential for increasing profitability while simultaneously striking a bad deal with employees in terms of compensation and other benefits (i.e., an exploitive relationship). For example, Goodier and Eisenberg (2006) examined the way organizational leaders intentionally shift an entire company culture through the intentional use of spiritual language and intrinsic meaningfulness at work. They suggest that although organizational leaders may make this kind of change to alleviate employee dissatisfaction and increase motivation, this move also uses an emphasis on meaningful work as a means of control, gaining deeper compliance from the workers to go beyond what was expected of them without an increase of pay or any other extrinsic reward. When calling becomes commodified in organizational settings, those in power can use the members’ calling as part of the service or product an organization offers. Just as physical labor was once commodified in the factory line, work calling is commodified when it is used to compel workers to go beyond what is expected of them without any concern for compensation (McGuire 2010). Part of the danger of a commodified calling, of those in power using (even unconsciously) their worker’ sense of calling as a product, is that it also turns calling into a form of exploitive discourse. As such, it becomes a socially constructed outcome of expressing calling. In other words, as workers express feeling called to their work, those in power can appeal to people’s sense of calling in order ask people to work harder, longer, and without any compensation supposedly the calling demands such ultimate sacrifice. By expressing a calling, workers in these types of organizations leave themselves vulnerable to exploitation. We propose that humility can function as a social oil to mitigate the negative potential of having a sense of calling, which ought to thereby amplify the positive benefits of having a calling. Prior work on the social oil hypothesis has focused primarily on protection from intrapsychic exploitation (balancing internal drive or perfectionism). However, we want to extend this line of thought to also consider how those in power may sometimes attempt to leverage opportunities for belonging, pur- pose, and meaning in order to exert control and increase leverage for negotiating with organizational members. We suggest that humility can help protect people from such exploitation (formally, it ought to buffer the potential for a calling leading to negative outcomes in some people). Recall that humility involves having an accurate view of self and keeping one’s accomplishments in appropriate perspective. To set limits on a leader attempting to appeal to one’s sense of calling, the worker has to have the internal resolve to handle potential rejection or missed opportunities within a context that rewards unhealthy work behaviors. People with low humility – based in part on insecurity and attempt to bolster self-esteem with importance through achievement in the work domain – may have difficulty setting such limits. Alternately, people who think too highly of

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them- selves may have to obsess over achievement in order to prop up their lofty views of themselves. In either case, people who base their identity and self-esteem on their performance at work, may find themselves overinvested and, in certain circumstances, exploited for their lack of balance. An alternate perspective is that humility could amplify the relation between having a calling and being exploited at work. Relative to more collectivistic cultures, Western cultures such as the United States tend to engage in more self-promotion and bravado in social interactions (Cheney et al. 2010; Clair et al. 2008). Too much humility may come across as weakness or submissiveness, and people may fear that it would harm their career prospects. Or, perhaps having too much humility may prevent people from speaking out when they feel like they are being asked to do too much (e.g., Bunderson and Thompson 2009). So, we have two reasonable assumptions about how humility might influence the link between calling and negative work outcomes (e.g., burnout, work idolization). Prior studies do give us some direction on where we might examine personal qualities or social situations in which calling may make people vulnerable of being exploited for their calling (Berkelaar and Buzzanell 2015; McGuire 2010; Molloy and Foust 2016). Regarding individual differences, high neuroticism or low agreeableness and conscientiousness can put people at risk because of increases in workplace stress and strain (e.g., Aziz and Tronzo 2011; Bakker et al. 2006). Perfectionism also puts people at risk as they apply unrealistic standards to themselves, which make it very difficult to have a sense of living up to one’s calling (Burke, Davis, and Flett 2008; Clark, Lelchook, and Taylor 2010). Having high need for achievement and a low opinion of oneself (or those with higher self-esteem in the work domain than in other life domains) may accrue risk (Ng, Sorenson, and Feldman 2007). Regarding social moderators, the psychological climate (or an individual’s perception of workplace attitudes and norms) may put the “called” at risk of exploitation. Specifically, some psychological climates may promote or reward workaholism or an unhealthy over-emphasis on the importance of work (idolization), or may view intrinsically motivated employees as workers who could be overleveraged to accomplish difficult or unpleasant tasks. The ethical ethos of an organization is also central. Organizations perceived as ethical experience numerous benefits (e.g., higher employee retention, more positive coworker and supervisory relationships, fewer dispute resolution concerns, increased productivity; McDaniel 2004), whereas ethically dubious organizations create problems indirectly through harming morale, and directly through the types of exploitative practices described in this section (Keyes 2011). Finally, we might also think of various factors that increase cohesion on work teams – such as companies (e.g., Google) that seek to promote a strong sense of belonging, offer high pay, and have highly selective hiring processes. Under these circumstances, people may have a difficult time admitting that they are developing an unsustainable pattern of life. Having addressed work calling, humility, and the dark side, we turn now to our third and main goal – providing a conceptual map for humility as a generative frame for work calling.

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Humility as a mitigating frame in job idolization, workaholism, and exploitation Given that humility may help protect people from potential exploitation or commodification as a result of having a sense of calling, in this final section, we apply a theory on framing (Favero and Heath 2012; Fairhurst and Sarr 1996; Smith et al. 2006) To describe how communication – intrapersonally and/or interpersonally – can give people greater resources to set limits on work demands. We also consider the raced, gendered, and classed nature of the socially constructed acceptance of humility within organizational settings.

Framing and work calling communication Drawing on a strong scholarly tradition on meaning in the workplace (e.g., Nietzsche, Burke, Goffman, Foucalt, Tannen, and Weick), Fairhurst and Sarr (1996) developed theory on how leaders use framing language to regulate relationships within an organization. Based on ten years of research at a multinational firm, this theorizing examined how the leaders’ worldview shaped their everyday communication with employees (Fairhurst and Sarr 1996). They focused especially on managers who were able to thrive in spite of feeling powerless because of stressful work environments. These managers used framing to reduce the toxicity of the work environment, both for themselves and for others. For example, successful managers applied framing in their communication skills, such as “active listening, dialogue, giving and receiving feedback, problem solving discussion, conflict resolution, and public speaking” (Fairhurst 2005, 166). Fairhurst also found that these managers were able to make framing less abstract by breaking it into three components (language, thought, and forethought). Managers who were mindful of their actual language choices, how they categorized or labeled certain tasks or relational dynamics, and how these language choices impacted those around them, felt greater success in their leadership practice. Those who took time to apply metacognition (thinking about their thinking process) were better able to explain the process to others, resulting in a more satisfying exchange. Finally, those who strategically applied forethought (or priming) experienced more satisfying responses to spontaneous, unplanned workplace communication. We propose that framing theory emphasizes the agency of the person who feels called. By applying the concept of framing to perceptions of work calling and humility, individuals who take time to think through how they are talking about their calling and/ or how others are assigning meaning to their calling may recognize when they may be heading down a dark path. People make sense of their experiences and roles at work through framing communication (Jorgenson 2000). Those engaged in a potentially toxic work environment can use framing strategies to protect themselves

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and set appropriate limits. Based on our extension of the social oil hypothesis, we suggest that people higher in humility will show a greater ability to engage framing strategies effectively when they encounter potentially toxic work environments. Namely, humility helps people frame their work based on an accurate sense of their strengths and weaknesses. They can therefore place a high value on life-long learning and listening to (and valuing) the perspectives of others. They can intuit when a person is attempting to take advantage of their own commitment to work and they can withstand potential conflict within that relationship through drawing on other sources of strength, including inner resolve and social support from other relationships. In this way, humility helps provide people with greater leverage to withstand negotiations (i.e., over allocation of personal effort and resources) in the workplace. As a frame, humility in one’s calling involves anchoring the sense of call within the virtue of humility. For example, humility as a frame for work calling offers both the drive and motivation of a deeply held conviction, an awareness of skill and connection to passion, with the insight of how this particular work positively contributes to society and an awareness of the need to learn more. In this way, a sense of calling is partnered with humility in a manner that serves to guide one’s actions and ways of thinking. Here, Fairhurst and Sarr (1996) method of interpretive framing proves particularly useful as it focuses on the role communication plays in the way people organize their sense of identity, credibility, and goals. Framing highlights the reflexive practice of managing meaning, which is both an intellectual and practical activity (Berg, Dutton, and Wrzesniewski 2013; Fairhurst 2005). Framing allows for differing understandings of the message in a way that helps individuals move forward in their organizational goals. In this way, humility helps buffer work calling’s tendency to be all-consuming by ushering in the self-awareness that there is room to grow, that other individuals can be experts, and spaces of power are to be shared. What would it look like to enact this kind of humility in a work calling? This may differ depending on one’s position of power in the workplace. Is the enactment of framing predicated on the level of power an organizational member has – whether it is legitimate, expert, or even social power? If someone with less organizational power seeks to apply framing but is constantly thwarted by others, how much impact does the framing actually have on meaning making and organizational goals? Certainly aspects like power play a major role in the direction of future studies within this area.

Future directions for humility as a preventative framework in work calling Although organizational research has taken the lead in investigating an understanding of humility in the workplace, the current paper specifically examines an unexplored area, that is, the role of humility as a factor that may help prevent negative outcomes of approaching work as a calling. In this final section, we offer some

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implications that stem from this discussion, wrestle with some of the challenges, and point toward promising directions for future research. First, the current article articulates some ways that humility might offer a kind of framing for those who feel called in the workplace. Berkelaar and Buzzanell (2015) suggest that future studies about work calling should focus on how “different characteristics of calling can shape outcomes,” pointing to the role of agency (p. 172). They encourage more studies on the role of discourses of work calling. The current essay offers a look at agency through the role of humility. We suggest that this framing provides a means of mindfulness and accountability that protects the worker from moving toward an unhealthy expression of a calling (e.g., workaholism, job idolization, and exploitation). Humility as a mitigating frame helps keep those who feel called mindful of what they are good at and what they need to keep learning. As a core virtue of a work calling, humility anchors an individual’s identity to the pro-social dynamic of the calling rather than allowing for the inflation of ego (e.g., job idolization) and/or move from passion to addiction (e.g., workaholism). Second, we suggest future studies examine the role of humility and work calling to better understand the sense-making process that (re)enforces the positive contributions of humility in work calling perceptions, as well as the micro and meso discourses (Alvesson and Karreman 2000) that may reveal particular moments when work calling becomes untethered from humility and drifts toward the dark side. Paying attention to the levels of discourse and particular talk that arise among organizational members and between leaders and subordinates could lead to a greater understanding of practices that promote as well as harm those who feel called. This would also involve taking into account the multiple perspectives that exist among those with a work calling and the varying emphases placed on humility. What practices do individuals put in place to honor the role of humility? What constraints do they face with humility as a key virtue? Third, critical scholars interested in work calling and humility should seek out areas in which the perception and enactment of humility is constrained by the age, gender, race, and class of the individuals. In other words, what role does organizational power have, as it relates to the socially acceptable display of humility? How do individuals who are already marginalized communicate humility in their work calling without risking further constraints? Must one prove to be a leader before humility is an admirable trait? How might organizational members who are already experiencing the constraints of organizational norms due to their own difference, communicate humility in such a way that is deemed as an asset rather than a liability? These questions have the potential to branch off in several generative areas related to work calling and humility. Finally, we recognize that our analysis operates from a predominantly Western approach. Future studies should also focus on the cultural contexts of work calling. Within the last decade, research on calling has begun to emerge within diverse national contexts (e.g., Domene 2012; Dumulescu, Opre, and Ramona 2015; Praskova, Hood, and Creed 2014; Lips-Wiersma and Wright 2012; Van Zyl, Deacon, and Rothmann 2010; Zhang et al. 2015b).

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Remarkably, the differences cross-culturally so far seem subtle; the similarities are more striking. This may reflect a homogenizing effect from an increasingly global economy, an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that inclines people across cultures toward meaningmaking, or both. Nevertheless, far more cross- cultural research on calling is needed, and communication is likely a prime area of focus in which differences are likely. As multicultural management (where leaders know how to recognize the strengths within the different cultures of their workers, and to utilize those strengths for the good of the company) becomes more of a priority (Eisenberg, Goodall, and Trethewey 2014), knowing how individuals make sense of calling from different cultural viewpoints would be essential. As we seek to clarify definitions of humility, it follows that we should open up space for the voices of actual participants to be heard. How do participants discursively enact this virtue? In sum, we argue that at the heart of a healthy work calling is a robust integration of humility. This current paper highlights the importance of integrating interdisciplinary perspectives and working toward building a more comprehensive picture of work calling, humility, and the dark side. As scholars are consolidating definitions and quantitative approaches to measuring humility, interdisciplinary collaboration on qualitative questions offers much promise – questions such as: How is humility (re) produced in discourse? What impact does a discourse of humility have on a person’s approach to work? We know that work calling and humility are at play, and there is great potential in further exploring the implications of this relationship, for both theory and practice. In so doing, by being open to learning from one another, we enact the very virtue of humility we seek to study.

Note 1 “Framing is “a way to manage meaning”’ (Fairhurst and Sarr 1996, 21) that enables one to construct and understand reality both for one’s self and for others. Typical frames define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies (Entman, 1993). Frames are found in text and “”are manifested by the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and sentences, that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments’ (Entman, 1993, p. 52). For example, Meisenbach (2004) explored how higher education fundraisers use frames to discursively construct various meanings of work and negotiate positive occupational identities” (Smith et al. 2006, 30). For full the article on discursive framing, see: Smith et al. (2006). Framing the work of art: Spirituality and career discourse in the nonprofit arts sector. Communication Studies, 57, 25–46. doi: 10.1080/10510970500481672.

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Mari Yang and Louis. W. Fry

The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout Abstract: Healthcare workers are especially at risk for burnout because of increased efficiency demands, reduced operations budgets, expedited turnaround times, and the consequences associated with patient errors. They also experience a number of negative personal and organizational outcomes from burnout, such as psychological distress, poor health, negative work attitudes, work conflict, absenteeism, turnover, job dissatisfaction, and medical errors, all of which have the potential to negatively affect the quality of healthcare. However, to date no empirical studies examined the influence of spiritual leadership on burnout in medical laboratories, whose workers are especially at risk for burnout. This study explores the extent to which spiritual leadership reduces burnout among medical laboratory personnel while positively influencing organizational commitment, work unit productivity, and employee life satisfaction. Results revealed spiritual leadership exhibited both direct and mediating effects on study outcomes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. Keywords: Medical laboratory, spiritual leadership, burnout, healthcare, leaders Interest in the study of burnout continues to increase since its initial investigation in the 1970s. Freudenberger (1974) first described burnout as the deterioration process experienced by professionals in human service organizations. Burnout occurs when individuals feel they have insufficient resources such as limited time, energy, and support to address the daily demands of the workplace (Thomas and Lankau 2009). Other research defines burnout as a psychological disorder that occurs in individuals who work with other people and experience physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Kanste 2008; Khamisa, Peltzer, and Oldenburg 2013; Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter 1996; Maslach, Leiter, and Jackson 2012; Thomas and Lankau 2009). Thus, recognizing the factors that evoke burnout is important for deepening our understanding of its predictors and consequences, especially for the workplace. Predictors of burnout include role conflict, role stress, lack of role clarity, excessive workload, increased work pressure, and minimal supervisory support (Bobbio, Bellan, and Manganelli 2012). Certain personality traits might also incline or predispose certain people to highly stressful jobs and therefore are, by their nature, burnout prone (Armon, Shirom, and Melamed 2012). Other predictors of burnout as Source: Mari Yang and Louis. W. Fry. The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2018, Vol. 15, No. 4, 305–324, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14766086.2018.1482562 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-007

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reported by healthcare workers, which is the focus of this study, include gender, age, marital status, years of experience, type of psychological pathology, treatment method, and job-related factors consisting of staff-to-patient ratios (Ballenger-Browning et al. 2011). Although studies in this area are limited, there is some evidence that leadership may play an important role in mitigating the negative effects of burnout in healthcare. The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent spiritual leadership positively influences organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and reduces burnout in a particularly stressful healthcare work environment – the medical laboratory. First, we review the extant research on burnout in healthcare in general and the medical laboratory in particular. Second, we detail the limited research on the impact of leadership on burnout in healthcare environments, noting that no spiritual leadership studies on burnout have been conducted on medical laboratories. Then we review spiritual leadership theory and offer hypotheses for testing the extent to which the spiritual leadership model reduces burnout while positively influencing organizational commitment, productivity, and life satisfaction. Next, we test our hypotheses using a sample of 235 medical laboratory workers. Finally, we offer suggestions for future leadership theory, research, and practice in healthcare settings. This research contributes to our understanding of spiritual leadership in healthcare organizations in several ways. First, as a seminal spiritual leadership study conducted in medical laboratories, we extend the domain of spiritual leadership research into this critical milieu so essential to the patient care process. Second, the results of this study establish heightened interest for further investigation of the role spiritual leadership can play in reducing burnout. Third, our finding that membership overwhelmed the influence of calling on burnout. This provides evidence that a caring supportive culture fosters a sense of belonging, understanding, and appreciation, which is essential for alleviating burnout among healthcare workers. Finally, this is the first study to find direct relationships between spiritual leadership and outcome variables which further emphasizes its importance in predicting vital individual and organizational outcomes.

Burnout in healthcare Unique to healthcare is a work environment that consists of elevated stress and responsibilities that can lead to burnout. We consciously chose burnout instead of stress as the key outcome variable for our study because it is seen as the result of emotional, physical, and physical exhaustion that results from having to cope with stressful demands on an ongoing basis (Colquitt, LePine, and Wesson 2017). Burnout has been shown to be related to psychological and physical distress that affects the quality of patient care (Cimiotti et al. 2012; Romani and Ashkar 2014). Negative effects of job-related burnout in healthcare workers include increased staff turnover,

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absentee- ism, job dissatisfaction, and poor health (Broome et al. 2009). One study identified 25% of physicians and other healthcare workers as burnt out (Mateen and Dorji 2009). A meta-analysis of 65 studies of medical doctors revealed that emotional exhaustion was positively correlated with incivility, violence, low quality, negative work attitudes, work-life conflict, and poor mental health (Lee et al. 2013). Other negative outcomes of burnout in healthcare include absenteeism, poor work performance, reduced quality of healthcare delivery, and higher organizational costs (Wright 2011). Bria, Baban, and Dumitrascu (2012) reviewed 53 empirical studies on burnout that uncovered linkages between workload to both burnout and medical errors. In another study, Khamisa, Peltzer, and Oldenburg (2013) reviewed 70 empirical studies investigating burnout in nursing from 1990 to 2012. They concluded that work-related stress was positively related to burnout and negatively related to job satisfaction.

Leadership and burnout in healthcare There is evidence that leadership may serve to attenuate the negative effects of burnout in healthcare environments, as consistency between leadership values and practices are important for motivating followers to create a positive work climate (Gilley, Gilley, and McMillan 2009; Gilmartin and D’Aunno 2007). Especially significant is the need to examine the impact of leadership on reducing healthcare worker burnout as a necessary step toward rebuilding employee well-being and work-life balance. A review of empirical studies on leadership and burnout in healthcare revealed that transformational leadership, supportive leadership, active management-by-exception leadership, and authentic leadership have explored the most widely accepted dimensions of burnout – emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. All of these leadership approaches negatively influenced follower emotional exhaustion (Green et al., 2014; Kanste 2008; Kanste, Kyngas, and Nikkila 2007; Tourangeau, Cranley, Spence-Laschinger, & Pachis, 2010). Supportive leadership, active management-by-exception, and transformational leadership positively influenced personal accomplishment (Kanste 2008; Kanste, Kyngas, and Nikkila 2007; Tourangeau et al. 2010). Additionally, management -by-expectation and laissez faire leadership are seen as undesirable leadership approaches as they positively influenced emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, while negatively impacting personal accomplishment (Kanste 2008; Kanste, Kyngas, and Nikkila 2007).

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Burnout in medical laboratories It is estimated that the annual economic cost of medical errors approached $282 billion, with laboratory errors identified as a significant causal factor (Hammerling, 2012). The medical laboratory is an essential, intricate operation comprised of a team of multi- disciplinary professionals tasked with providing accurate and timely tests results (Cortelyou-Ward, Ramirez, and Rotarius 2011). Guided by the physician order, a team of specialists processes a patient’s sample based on strict guidelines. The results obtained from these tests then drive the course for patient treatment. Laboratory services are vital in 65–70% of patient diagnoses, yet their work goes essentially unnoticed until an adverse event arises (Beastall 2013). Medical laboratory personnel are especially at risk for burnout because of increased efficiency demands, minimum operations budget, expedited turnaround times, and the consequences associated with patient errors (Muirhead et al. 2010). Research conducted on medical laboratory personnel further supports the finding that burnout is a condition that may negatively affect the patient care process. Narainsamy and Westhuizen (2013) surveyed 202 medical laboratory staff in from two prominent private laboratories in South Africa. Results provided support for a four-factor model of burnout (exhaustion and cynicism), engagement (vigor and dedication), occupational stress (job demands and lack of job resources) and job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction). In addition, burnout and occupational stress had a strongly negative relationship to work-related well-being. Drawing from a sample of 445 medical personnel, including laboratory technicians, nurses, and healthcare managers, Kaillaith, Gillespie, and Bluedor (2000) studied three factors of burnout including depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment. Results revealed a positive correlation between emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, turnover intentions, and job search. In particular, the inability to monitor labora- tory errors may contribute to burnout in medical laboratory staff (Smith, Raab, Fernald, Kamed, Lebib, Grzybicki, & West, 2013). To date, no empirical studies have been conducted that examine the influence of leadership on burnout in medical laboratories. This is unfortunate as laboratory leaders are an integral component of healthcare because they facilitate patient safety, improve patient outcomes, and integrate cost-effective operations (Beastall 2013). It seems obvious that effective leadership may work to reduce follower experiences of burnout within the medical laboratory while inept leadership may lead to higher staff burnout as well as negatively affect performance and the quality of patient care (Giltinane 2013). Thus, exploring leadership models that specifically focus on employee well-being would add to our understanding of the influences and effects of burnout in medical laboratories.

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Spiritual leadership theory The incorporation of such organizational and personnel outcomes is a holistic approach unique to spiritual leadership theory. The spiritual leadership model has seen extensive testing and support in a variety of organizations and cultures, including having a positive influence on organizational commitment, job satisfaction, altruism, conscientiousness, self-career management, sales growth, job involvement, identification, retention, organizational citizenship behavior, attachment, loyalty, and work unit productivity and being negatively related to interrole conflict, frustration, earning manipulation, and instrumental commitment (Fry 2003, 2005, 2008; Fry et al. 2017; Hunsaker 2016). Spiritual leadership theory was intentionally developed and focused at the spiritual level so that it can be applied in both religious and non-religious-based organizations (Fry 2003). In spiritual leadership theory, “spirituality” is considered the animating life principle or life- breath that provides the deepest dimension of human experience: the intangible reality at the center of one’s personality. It is the universal force that drives the need for self- transcendence and the attendant feeling of interconnectedness with all things in the universe and can reside or manifest in groups and organizations (Kriger and Seng 2005). From this perspective, a religion is concerned with a theological system of beliefs, ritual prayers, rites and ceremonies, and related formalized practices. Spirituality is concerned with those qualities of the human spirit-such as love and compassion, patience tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of wholeness and harmony, which brings happiness to both self and others (Fry 2003). The purpose of spiritual leadership is to create vision and value congruence across the individual, empowered team, and organization to foster higher levels of employee well-being, commitment, and productivity. Spiritual leadership is sourced through an inner life or spiritual practice that generates hope/faith in a vision of serving others through a culture based on altruistic values to satisfy universal spiritual needs for calling and membership (see Figure 1). According to Fry and Nisieiwcz (2013), for organizations to implement spiritual leader- ship, they must (1) Co-create a vision wherein both leaders and followers experience a sense of calling that their life has meaning and makes a difference (2) Put into effect an organizational culture based on the values of altruistic love whereby leaders and followers have a sense of membership, feel understood, and appreciated, and have genuine care, concern and appreciation for both self and others, and (3) Support employees’ inner life, spiritual, or mindful practices to help them be more self-aware and conscious moment-to- moment and draw strength from, their humanistic, spiritual or religious beliefs, be that a Nondual Being, Higher Power, God, or philosophical/ethical teachings. Spiritual leadership may therefore be beneficial to healthcare in general and the medical laboratory workforce in particular by positively influencing spiritual wellbeing since calling is seen as central to creating a sense of purpose and personal

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Organization Commitment

H3a Calling / Meaning

Inner Life

H3b

H2 H1

H3a Productivity

Spiritual Leadership

H3b H2 H3a Membership

Life Satisfaction

H3b

H3a

H3a

Burnout Figure 1: Model of spiritual leadership.

fulfillment and membership or a sense of belonging fosters team collaboration, both of which are essential and at the core of effective healthcare delivery.

Hypotheses development Having set the context for this research, we now offer hypotheses for each of the major components of the spiritual leadership model and their relationships (Figure 1). We refer interested readers to Fry (2003, 2008), Fry and Nisiewicz (2013), and Fry et al. (2017) for more elaborate discussions of these constructs.

Inner life The connection between leadership and spirituality is the inner voice as the source of wisdom when making difficult personal and business decisions. Inner life is the source or basis for spiritual leadership of groups and organizations. Organizational cultures that support their worker’s inner life have employees who are more likely to develop their own personal spiritual leadership through personal spiritual practice that can range from spending time in nature, prayer, meditation, reading inspirational literature,

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yoga, observing religious traditions, or writing in a journal (Fry and Nisiewicz, 2013). A work context that supports these practices is important for creating hope/faith in a vision of serving key stakeholders that takes place in the context of a caring or loving community. H1: Inner life practice positively predicts spiritual leadership.

Spiritual leadership Spiritual leadership intrinsically motivates workers through hope/faith in a transcendent vision of service to key stakeholders and the values of altruistic love. Hope/faith is a strong conviction that what is desired and anticipated will come to pass (Fry and Nisieiwcz 2013). Vision defines the organization’s fundamental aspiration, its reason for existence, and establishes a standard of excellence for exceeding the expectations of key stakeholders. Altruistic love is defined by Fry (2003, 705) as “a sense of wholeness, harmony, and well-being produced through care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others.”

Spiritual leadership as a higher-order construct We consider spiritual leadership to be a process that emerges through hope/faith in a vision of serving others through altruistic love. Altruistic love creates the belief and trust necessary for hope/faith. Hope/faith adds belief, conviction, trust, and action for performance of the work to achieve the vision. The mechanisms of this complex system in producing spiritual leadership, however, cannot be adequately deconstructed, lending toward a higher-order construct that underlies its three dimensions. Beyond the theoretical associations, prior research showed that the three core dimensions are highly correlated (Fry, Vitucci, and Cedillo 2005). This suggests that a higher-order factor could be extracted from the correlations among the three dimensions, and that this common factor could be an important positive predictor of important individual and organizational outcomes. Subsequent research by Chen and Li (2013), Fry et al. (2017), and Hunsaker (2016) has supported this assertion,

Spiritual well-being Calling and membership are universal human needs essential for spiritual well-being regardless of gender, race, demographic group, or culture (Fry & Nisiewicz, 2013). Through hope/faith in a vision of service to key stakeholders, workers develop a sense

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of calling through which they feel a sense of purpose and that their life has meaning and makes a difference. By receiving altruistic love through the care and concern for themselves and others, employees experience membership and have a sense of belonging and community in which they feel understood and appreciated.

Calling The term calling has long been used as one of the defining characteristics of a professional who, by definition, have ethics centered on selfless service to clients/customers. Professionals feel an obligation to maintain quality standards within the profession, are dedicated to their work, and have a strong commitment to their careers. It is by providing service to others that professional healthcare workers gain a sense of calling which provides purpose, meaning, and the feeling they are making a difference in the lives of others.

Membership Membership is a sense of belonging and community that is realized through a social network and located in a specific place and time (Fry 2003). It is a universal spiritual need we all have to move beyond the isolation of one’s selfish interests and have a sense of belonging or community within which one is understood, appreciated, and accepted for who they are just as they are. This sense of membership plays a crucial role in increasing resilience, happiness, and well-being. It also provides the context for our communications in terms of to whom we talk, the language we use and, to a great extent, determines what thoughts we think. Healthy interpersonal and social functioning correlates with positive human health and psychological well-being, whereas disconnection leads to despair and despondency This suggests the following hypothesis: H2: Spiritual leadership positively predicts calling and membership.

The mediating role of spiritual well-being We further hypothesize that the positive influence of spiritual leadership on spiritual well-being through calling and membership produces positive individual and organizational outcomes such as employee life satisfaction, organizational commitment and productivity while negatively influencing or reducing burnout. This positive increase in outcomes through spiritual leadership’s influence on calling and member- ship is

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based in an emergent process whereby employees with a sense of calling and membership will become more attached, loyal, and committed to the organization through satisfaction of these spiritual needs (Fry 2003). Moreover, employees who experience calling and membership and are committed to the organization’s success will expend the extra effort and cooperation necessary to continuously improve productivity and other key performance metrics, feel more fulfilled by having a sense of purpose and belonging, and perceive their lives as richer and of higher quality (Fry 2003, 2005; Fry & Slocum 2008). They will also have higher levels of life satisfaction and experience less burnout because of a heightened sense of membership and emotional support from both their co-workers and the organization’s culture based in the values of altruistic love. Our theorizing and these prior results lead to our final hypotheses: H3a: Calling will fully mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout. H3b: Membership will fully mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout.

Method Sample Invitations to participate in this study were offered to personnel currently employed in a medical laboratory in the United States through professional sites and listserves. A snowball sampling approach that allowed participants to forward the invitation email to other members practicing in the field participants was used. A total of 293 individuals participated in the survey of which 61 responses were incomplete, providing a total sample size of 235. The participants for this study were working in medical laboratories across the United States. 49 respondents were male and 186 were female.

Measures Inner life The measure for inner life was adapted for this study from Fry and Nisieiwcz (2013). Sample items for inner life include “I maintain and inner life or reflective practice (e.g. spending time in nature, prayer, meditation, reading inspirational literature,

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yoga, observing religious traditions, writing in a journal)” and “I know my thoughts play a key role in creating my experience of life” (alpha = .70).

Spiritual leadership and spiritual well-being The measures for spiritual leadership and spiritual well-being (calling and membership) were adapted for this study from Fry and Nisieiwcz (2013).

Spiritual leadership Sample items for spiritual leadership include “The leaders in my organization walk the walk as well as talk the talk”; “The leaders in my organization are honest and without false pride”; “My organization’s vision is clear and compelling to me”; and “I demonstrate faith in my organization by doing everything I can to help us succeed” (alpha = .91).

Calling Sample calling items are “The work I do makes a difference in people’s lives” and “The work I do is meaningful to me” (alpha = .81).

Membership Sample items for membership are “I feel my organization appreciates me and my work” and “I feel highly regarded by my leaders” (alpha = .92).

Burnout Measurement of Burnout (alpha .88) was measured using 20 items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human Services Scale (Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter 1996). Sample items include “I feel burned out by my work” and “I worry that this job is hardening me emotionally.”

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Life satisfaction Measurement of life satisfaction (alpha .84) was based on the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al. 1985). Sample items include “I am satisfied with my life” and “In most ways my life is ideal.”

Organizational commitment Organizational commitment was measured using five items adapted from the measure of affective organizational commitment developed by Allen and Meyer (1990). Sample items include “I really feel as if my organization’s problems are my own” and “I talk up my organization to my friends as a great place to work for” (alpha = .86).

Productivity Productivity was measured using the unit productivity scale (alpha .87) developed by Nyhan’s (2000). Sample items include, “My work group is very productive” and “In my department, work quality is a high priority for all workers.”

Results The AMOS 22.0 SEM SPSS program was used with maximum likelihood estimation to test the spiritual leadership model (Arbuckle 2013). One of the most rigorous methodological approaches in testing the reliability and validity of factor structures is the use of confirmatory (i.e. theory-driven) factor analysis (CFA) within the framework of structural equation modeling (SEM, Byrne 2001). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is particularly valuable in inferential data analysis and hypothesis testing. It differs from common and components (exploratory) factor analysis in that SEM takes a confirmatory approach to multivariate data analysis; that is the pattern of interrelationships among the spiritual leadership constructs is specified a priori and grounded in theory. SEM is more versatile than most other multivariate techniques because it allows for simultaneous, multiple dependent relationships between dependent and independent variables. In doing so, it extends regression analysis in that a variable may be an independent variable in relation to certain variables that follow it (e.g., spiritual leadership to calling and membership), a dependent variable (e.g., spiritual leadership as predicted by inner life), and a route for an indirect path from other variables that

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precede and follow it in the model (e.g., calling and membership between spiritual leadership and burnout). Initially, dependent variables can be used as independent variables in subsequent analyses. For example, in the SLT model calling is a dependent variable for spiritual leadership but is an independent variable in its defined relationship with organizational commitment and productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout. Several previous studies have demonstrated the reliability and validity of the spiritual leadership model and its measures, including, Chen and Li (2013), Chen and Yang (2012), Fry, Vitucci, and Cedillo (2005), Fry, Latham, Clinebell, & Krahnke, (2017), Hunsaker (2016), Jeon, Passmore, Lee, & Hunsaker, (2013). Table 1 displays the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables and coefficient alphas for the scales along the diagonal. We used AMOS with maximum likelihood estimation to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis to determine whether a second-order spiritual leadership factor existed and whether it explained the relationships among the three lower-order factors. To assess whether the observed covariance matrix fit our hypothesized model, we used the comparative fit index (CFI), normed fit index (NFI), incremental fit index (IFI), and standard rootmean-square error of approximation (RMSEA), which are widely recognized as appropriate for testing model fit in SEM. Results showed that the hypothesized three factor model fit the data well (χ2 = 172.088; df = 61; p < .000; CFI = .943; IFI = .943; NFI = .915; RMSEA = .088) except for RMSEA which was slightly higher than the recommended stringent upper limit of .07 (Steiger 2007). There is some debate concerning the thresholds to be used in making determinations of acceptable model fit. Hooper, Coughlan, and Mullen (2008) note that while fit indices are a useful guide, a structural model should also be examined with respect to substantive theory. Therefore, based on our theoretical rationale for hope/faith, vision, and altruistic love being components of a higher-order spiritual leadership construct coupled with the high intercorrelations among these variables and previous supportive findings by Fry et al. (2017) and Hunsaker (2016), we concluded that the higher-order spiritual leadership factor could be used for hypothesis testing.

Test of the spiritual leadership model Once again, we used AMOS with maximum likelihood estimation to assess the hypothesized model shown in Figure 1. Results demonstrated a good level of fit (χ2 = 635.320; df = 331; p < .000; CFI = .917; IFI = .918; NFI = .843; RMSEA = .063). Prior to hypothesis testing, we examined alternative models determine if there is a model with better fit (See Table 2). A second model was tested with the calling and membership paths omitted (e.g. inner life → spiritual leadership → organizational commitment + productivity +

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Table 1: Sample means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliabilities.

. Inner Life . Spiritual Leadership . Calling . Membership . Life satisfaction . Productivity . Organizational commitment . Burnout

M

SD 















. . . . . . . .

. . . .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . . .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ .✶✶ . . −.✶✶ −.✶✶ −.✶✶ −.✶✶ −.✶✶ −.✶✶ −.✶✶ 

N = 235; ✶✶. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Scale reliabilities are bolded on the diagonal. Table 2: Comparison of fit between hypothesized and alternative spiritual leadership models. Model Model & Structure ✶

CFI

IFI

NFI RMSEA

Inner life → spiritual leadership → calling + membership →organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout

. . .

.

II

Inner life → spiritual leadership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout

. . .

.

III

Inner life → calling + membership → spiritual leadership → . . . organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout

.

IV

Inner life → spiritual leadership → calling + membership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout; spiritual leadership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout

.

I

. . .

✶

Hypothesized SL Model.

life satisfaction + burnout). This model demonstrated a much poorer fit to the data relative to the hypothesized model (χ2 = 836.618; df = 329; p < .000; CFI = .861; IFI = .863; NFI = .793; RMSEA = .080), therefore, providing support for the hypothesized model. A third model was tested with the construct order changed (e.g., inner life → calling + membership → spiritual leadership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout). This model demonstrated a much poorer fit relative to the hypothesized model (χ2 = 707.677; df = 336; p < .000; CFI = .899; IFI = .900; NFI = .826; RMSEA = .069). Finally, a fourth model was tested by adding direct paths from spiritual leadership to the outcomes (e.g., inner life → spiritual leadership → calling + membership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout; spiritual

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leadership → organizational commitment + productivity + life satisfaction + burnout). This model demonstrated a slightly better fit than the hypothesized model (χ2 = 614.436; df = 332; p < .000; CFI = .923; IFI = .924; NFI = .848; RMSEA = .060).

Chi-square (χ2) test for model significance Adding the direct paths from spiritual leadership to outcomes of the fourth model showed an improved fit. Therefore, a Chi-square difference test is called for to determine if the differences in model fit are statistically different. If the difference between two SEM models is significant, this implies that the model with better fit explains the data better. If there is no significant difference between two models, this implies that the more parsimonious model explains the data equally well compared to the fuller model and is preferred (Werner & Shermelleh-Engel, 2010). To accept the hypotheses that the hypothesized model and the fourth model are significantly different, the critical value of the χ2 must surpass 18.27. Results demonstrated the alternative model was significant and surpassed the critical threshold at 28.392. Therefore, the fourth model demonstrated best fit and was selected for hypothesis testing.

Test of hypotheses Figure 2 shows the alternative model with direct paths from spiritual leadership to relevant outcomes added to the hypothesized model. Nonsignificant paths are not shown for ease of interpretation. Hypothesis 1 predicted inner life practice would be positively related to spiritual leadership. The results revealed that the paths from inner life to spiritual leadership were positive and significant (β = .55, p < .001). Thus hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 2 predicted spiritual leadership would be positively related to calling and membership. Referencing Figure 2, the paths from spiritual leadership to calling (β = .46, p < .001) and membership (β = .87, p < .001) were positive and significant and, therefore, hypothesis 2 was supported.

Test of mediation hypotheses Mediation analyses illuminate the processes that encompass a wide range of variables used to examine the underlying relationship for observed constructs (Ledgerwood and Shrout 2011). Mediation outcomes consist of three types including: (a) full mediation, (b) partial mediation, and (c) no mediation (Aguinis, Edwards, and Bradley 2016). Referencing Figure 3, full mediation occurs when a and b are significant but c is not

The role of spiritual leadership in reducing healthcare worker burnout

167

Organization Commitment Calling / Meaning

.66✶✶✶

Inner Life .46✶✶✶

.55✶✶✶

.33✶✶✶ .45✶✶✶

Spiritual Leadership

Productivity

.41✶✶✶

.31✶✶✶ .27✶✶✶

.87✶✶✶

Life Satisfaction

Membership –.35✶✶✶

Burnout Figure 2: Results of test of alternative spiritual leadership model.

M a X

General Mediation Model

cˊ

M

b Significant

X

Y

Full Mediation

X

Significant

Y Significant

M Significant

Partial Mediation

M Significant

Y Not Significant

Significant

X

No Mediation Significant

Not Significant

Y

Figure 3: Examples of mediation models.

significant. Partial mediation occurs when a, b, and c are significant. No mediation occurs when a and c are significant but b is not. To date, research on spiritual leadership has supported full mediation (Benefiel, Fry, and Geigle 2014; Fry et al. 2017).

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Hypothesis 3a predicted calling will fully mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout. The full mediation hypothesis would be supported if the model fit is not improved by adding direct paths from spiritual leaderships to organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout. Significant paths from both calling and spiritual leadership to outcomes would indicate partial mediation (Aguinis, Edwards, and Bradley 2016). Referencing Figure 2, calling partially mediated spiritual leadership and life satisfaction. Calling did not mediate, either fully or partially, the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment, productivity, and burnout. Based on these results, hypothesis 3a was partially supported. Hypothesis 3b predicted membership will fully mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction, and burnout. Membership partially mediated the relationships between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment and between spiritual leadership and productivity. Membership did not mediate, either fully or partially, the relationship between spiritual leadership and life satisfaction. As predicted and most importantly for this study, membership fully mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and burnout. Based on these results, hypothesis 3b was partially supported.

Discussion This study examining medical laboratory workers found general support for the spiritual leadership model’s positive influence on organizational commitment and unit productivity and life satisfaction, which are considered to be critical results necessary for performance excellence (Fry et al. 2017). Results also confirmed the hypothesis that membership fully mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and burnout. Moreover, the high degree of fit for the overall spiritual leadership model provides support for the hypothesis that together the variables comprising spiritual leadership (i.e. hope/faith, vision, and altruistic love) form a higher-order formative construct that positively influences spiritual well-being (i.e. calling and membership). These findings further support that there is a positive and significant link from spiritual leadership, both fully and partially mediated through membership and calling, to key outcome variables, thereby providing further evidence that leaders who emphasize spiritual well-being in the workplace produces beneficial personal and organizational outcomes (Benefiel, Fry, and Geigle 2014).

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Theoretical implications Most surprising were the findings that the impact of membership overshadowed that of calling and the partial, rather than full, mediation of membership on organization commitment and unit productivity. In addition, as predicted and most central to this study, membership fully mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and burnout.

Calling Hypothesis 3a received limited support. Calling partially mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and life satisfaction, which runs counter to the only other study that tested a competing spiritual leadership model with direct relationships from spiritual leadership to outcomes (Fry et al. 2017). Moreover, this was the only significant finding for this hypothesis. Also counter to Fry et al. (2017), calling did not mediate the relationships between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment and productivity. One explanation may be that it is not uncommon for medical laboratories to be segregated away from patients and positioned in remote locations of the facilities, thus limiting feedback on how their work makes a difference with patients, unless it comes directly from the leader. This would then explain the significant direct effect of spiritual leadership on these outcomes. Regardless, more research is needed before any definitive conclusion can be drawn. Interestingly, calling did not mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and burnout. The absence of a relationship between calling and burnout was an unexpected finding. It is also the only outcome that did not have a significant direct relationship with spiritual leadership. A possible explanation may be due to the overriding influence of membership, which will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

Membership Hypothesis 3b was more strongly supported than hypothesis 3a. Membership partially mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment and productivity, which runs counter to the prior finding that reported full mediation (Fry, Vitucci, and Cedillo 2005; Fry et al. 2017; Jeon et al. 2013). In contrast to this prior research, membership did not significantly influence life satisfaction and thus had no mediating effect on this variable. This is the first study of burnout within the context of the spiritual leadership model, thereby establishing heightened interest for the study of the influence of spiritual leadership on this important individual outcome. In support of hypothesis 3b,

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membership fully mediated the relationship between spiritual and burnout. The relationship observed between spiritual leadership, membership, and burnout may be further explained for medical laboratories by the rationale that medical laboratory professionals frequently work in a team setting. To produce a lab result, the specimen may be handled by many different personnel. Therefore, the workflow is largely dependent on team members to perform their tasks efficiently and accurately. This may be a reason spiritual leadership acts to reduce burnout by positively influencing workers’ sense of membership but has no significant direct effect. It may also provide the rationale for the lessened impact of calling.

Practical implications The results of this study suggest that spiritual leadership in the medical laboratory healthcare setting does have a positive influence on personal and organizational outcomes. Further developing the characteristics of a spiritual leader may allow members of the laboratory to cultivate a desirable workplace culture. In addition to the positive relationship observed from spiritual leadership, membership is in particular important contributor to reduced burnout. Membership is the universal prompting agent that pushes individuals to progress past isolation and develop a sense of belonging while satisfying the need to be understood and appreciated (Fry and Nisieiwcz 2013). Therefore, the leader’s decisions affecting the team may require careful consideration. For example, involving team members during the interview process may be beneficial. Consultation with the team ensures that new members who join the team at some level match the current dynamics and expectations. Based on the outcomes of this study, team involvement during significant change processes may be an approach worth consideration for optimizing workplace productivity and commitment. A challenge when implementing spiritual leadership in the medical laboratory is the negative connotation associated with the term spiritual. Secular organizations may desire a neutral term for the leadership model to avoid negative reactions from those who may associate the word spiritual with religion. Concerns arise regarding employee and employer’s expression of belief without judgment while balancing respective parties’ legal rights has proven challenging (Benefiel, Fry, and Geigle 2014). In addition, fostering voluntary programs may be beneficial for implementing workplace spirituality through several management practices, such as (Fry and Nisieiwcz 2013): – Sponsor company-wide mindfulness training – A brief moment of silence before meetings – A room for silence; spiritual support groups – Corporate chaplains/spiritual directors for confidential inner spiritual guidance and support

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Providing employees with coaching and mentoring opportunities from technical and leadership development and formation to personal vision statements Supporting a context for conversations among workers about soul needs, personal fulfillment, and spiritual aspirations A library that loans spiritual and religious materials

Suggestions for future research Specific to this study, opportunities for future research include further assessment of medical laboratory personnel in the US as well as on an international level. The evaluation of the effects of spiritual leadership in medical laboratories in other countries will help to determine whether work conditions in the United States are comparable and may identify additional factors that affect burnout. Assessing work conditions in foreign medical laboratories will provide valuable insight allowing for a more comprehensive workplace model for laboratory professionals. It is clear that more research is needed to tease out the partial versus full mediating effects of calling and membership between spiritual leadership and outcomes. The mixed results concerning the partial and full mediation effects for this versus the one other studies to date (Fry, Vitucci, and Cedillo 2005; Fry et al. 2017; Jeon et al. 2013; Hunsaker 2016) is an important area for further exploration. To date, though only Fry et al. (2017) investigated alternative models that may have better fit than the hypothesized model. In that study, the original hypothesized model and alternative model had essentially the same level of fit and were not significantly different. In this study, although statistically different, the absolute or practical difference in fit between these is minimal (CFI = .917; IFI = .918; NFI = .843; RMSEA = .063 versus CFI = .923; IFI = .924; NFI = .848; RMSEA = .060). Regardless of whether there is full or partial mediation, leaders should work to further develop their spiritual leadership skills if they want to positively influence spiritual well-being through calling and membership as well as important individual and organizational outcomes. There is also the finding that, contrary to the fundamental hypothesis that the effect of calling and membership on outcome variables are both equal. Calling only positively influenced life satisfaction, while membership affected organization commitment, productivity, and burnout. This is in contrast to Fry et al. (2017) and Jeon et al. (2013) that found both calling and membership to have equal significance as hypothesized. One important avenue for teasing out the differences noted here would be to conduct qualitative research studies to explore the deeper meaning of the interplay among the variables in the spiritual leadership model. Quantitative methods identify and explain trends while qualitative approaches develop the understanding of phenomenon derived from information determined by the study, participants, researcher, and context. Qualitative research is more likely to capture or discover the subtleties and complexities about the research subjects and/or fundamental research question often missed by more positivistic enquiries.

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Conclusion Healthcare leaders are a critical for their organization’s success. Within this context, effective leadership of medical laboratory services to mitigate the negative effect of burnout is especially critical to patient care. Unlike prior leadership models, spiritual leadership theory incorporates leader and follower needs for spiritual well-being into a causal model that optimizes cultural and organizational effectiveness into one framework. The consistent association with the spiritual leadership model and positive organizational outcomes such as organizational commitment, productivity, life satisfaction (Benefiel, Fry, and Geigle 2014; Fry et al. 2017; Jeon et al. 2013) and the results from this study for burnout suggest that implementation of the spiritual model offers medical laboratory personnel an opportunity to find personal fulfillment while meeting operational expectations for performance excellence.

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Part III: Approaches/methodologies of engaging core spiritual/religious principles/practices

Nicole Dillard and Christina M. Walker

Black mothers at work: A contemplative and anti-oppressive approach to dismantling workplace oppression Abstract: Diversity management continues to be a subject of importance in organizations of all types. Therefore, the purpose of our research was to explore the experiences of oppression for Black mothers at work with the goal of providing managers and Black mothers a means of addressing workplace oppression. We conducted qualitative interviews with Black mothers about their experiences of workplace oppression, and then we conducted an interdisciplinary literature review of Womanism in the Black Church around the subject of oppression, as well as the concepts of workplace oppression and anti-oppressive practice. By tracing both contemplative and antioppressive practices, we are highlighting the legacy of Black women as architects for inspiring change. We built our Contemplative Anti- Oppressive Practice (CAOP) framework in light of our findings. While contemplative practice and anti-oppressive practice have been explored separately in management literature, they have yet to be explored in combination as a possible framework to dismantle oppression. We offer this framework as an approach for managers and employees to enable them to address both the inner and outer work that needs to be done in order to dismantle workplace oppression. Keywords: Anti-oppressive practice, contemplative practice, management, Black mothers, Womanism, Black Church, workplace oppression

Introduction Management theory and practice that fosters diversity is crucial for “greater engagement, stronger teams, and more creativity and innovation” (Wheeler, 2014, p. 549). However, organizations continue to struggle with managing diversity, particularly when that diversity intersects multiple identities such as race and gender (Dillard, 2018).

Acknowledgement: As 2020 Fetzer Scholars, the authors would like to thank the Management, Spirituality, and Religion interest group in the Academy of Management and the Fetzer Institute for cultivating an environment that inspired this research. Source: Nicole Dillard and Christina M. Walker. Black Mothers at Work: A Contemplative and Anti-Oppressive Approach to Dismantling Workplace Oppression, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2022, Vol. 19, No. 2, 97-123, https://doi.org/10.51327/OYWW2974 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-008

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Because Black mothers hold these multiple identities of race and gender, they often experience workplace oppression through the enactment of oppressive management actions (Spates, Evans, Watts, Abubakar, & James, 2020). “Workplace oppression” is defined as “complex organizational dynamics and silent forces that give rise to difficulties involving issues of power and powerlessness and of the dominant and dominated” (Alleyne, 2005, p. 287). As Clifford explains in his proposal of anti-oppressive practice, addressing oppression requires attention to “the use and abuse of power not only in relation to individual and organisational behaviour, which may be overtly, covertly or indirectly racist, classist, sexist and so on, but also in relation to broader social structures” (1995, p. 65). When facing oppression, the spiritual and religious practices of Black women can and do provide a source of strength to resist the oppression (Taylor, Chatters, & Brown, 2014). Researchers have found that Christian Black women use religion as a foundation to help them cope with everything from cancer to domestic violence, to make meaning of their experiences, and to gain the insights and courage needed to act (Bowie, Curbow, Laveist, Fitzgerald, & Pargament 2001; Mattis, 2002; Potter, 2007). Agosto & Karanxha profiled a Christian, Black, female leader whose “resilient resistance is guided by critical spirituality so that circumstances and people who challenge her also confront the source of power” (2011, p. 41). When asked how she addressed difficult situations at work—for example, a conflict with a White male colleague—this Black mother responded, “I prayed on it!” Therefore, we propose that examining the experiences of Black mothers in the workplace through the lens of the Black Church’s theology and practice and through Clifford’s anti-oppressive practice can be useful in order to facilitate the theoretical development and practical effectiveness of managing diversity, specifically at the intersection of race and gender. As such, the purpose of this paper is to explore two research questions: In what ways do Black mothers experience workplace oppression? and How can contemplative practice informed by anti-oppressive practice appropriately and effectively address workplace oppression experienced by Black mothers? First, we provide an interdisciplinary literature review, rooted in Womanist Thought in the Black Church, which lays a foundation for joining contemplative and anti-oppressive practice together. Second, after a review of our methodology, we present the findings from qualitative interviews with Black mothers. Finally, we introduce our Contemplative and Anti-Oppressive Framework (CAOP), which connects our findings from the interviews with the literature of both contemplative and anti- oppressive practice. The combination of these two mutually supportive approaches is helpful to understand the experiences illuminated in the participant data and can be used by the Black community in the U.S. and managers in the workplace to challenge experiences of oppression.

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Literature review The Black church in the United States Often serving as the nucleus of African American communities, the Black Church has historically provided both spiritual and material support to its members (Dillard, 2009; Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990). While religious service attendance and affiliation with religious institutions has declined in the United States in the last 25 years, “Black religious congregations are less likely than White congregations to report attendance declines and are more likely to report growing” (Taylor et al., 2014, p. 514). In particular, Black women are more likely to attend services and seek prayer. While it must be acknowledged that Christianity has been used to justify the oppression of Black Africans across the globe, the Christian faith and the Black Church have also been sources of power and solace (Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990; Masenya, 1994). Frederick Douglass (1992) explained the paradox of slaves following the religion of their masters by highlighting the difference between the action of the slave owners and the gospel of Jesus, defining the former as corrupt and deceitful and the later as a source of strength and hope.

Black church foundations In the years following the Revolutionary War, enslaved and free Blacks living in the United States carved out their own space for religious practice. Early African American Christian Churches were founded by the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian denominations. The Quakers were particularly active in welcoming Black women into their community and encouraging them to lead (Martin, 2006). Examples of Black women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries whose Christian faith empowered their work and leadership during a time of legalized slavery include Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart, Harriet Tubman, and Julia Foote. In her autobiography, Amanda Smith explained that her race gave her particular insight into God’s work. “I think some people would understand the quintessence of sanctifying grace if they could be black about twenty-four hours” (1893, p. 117).

Black church theology In some cases, such as with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the congregants split from their founding denominations, often because of growing disagreements about slavery, and built their own governing structure (Pinn, 2006). Over time, these communities began to develop a theology that was distinct from those of White congregations. They began to focus on the themes of oppression and liberation throughout the

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Bible, particularly in relation to those who were captive and poor (Cone, 2010). This perspective became known a Black liberation theology (also known as liberation theology or Black theology). In more recent years, Christian Black women have been building on these ideas, adding the gendered experiences of oppression to those of racism and classism. Black Feminist theologians have sought to expand the work of liberation theology by valuing femaleness in the church, validating Black female experiences, seeing oppression of Black women as a theological problem, and drawing on spirituality to empower Black women to enact change (Cannon, Townes, & Sims, 2011; Masenya, 1994; Townes, 2006). This theology is known as “Womanist” which “takes old (traditional) religious language and symbols and gives them new (more diverse and complex) meaning” and “is both descriptive (an analysis and sociohistorical perspective of Black life and Black religious worldviews) and prescriptive (offering suggestions for the eradication of oppression in the lives of African Americans and, by extension, the rest of humanity and creation)” (Townes, 2006, p. 1165). The exploration of Womanist theology is important work because, “numerous scholars . . . have marked the invisibility of scholarship by and about Black women” (Griffin, 2012, p. 139). Grant describes a Womanist as “one who has developed survival strategies in spite of the oppression of her race and sex in order to save her family and her people” (1989, p. 205).

Black church contemplative practice Along with liberation and Womanist theologies, the Black Church also has unique spiritual traditions particularly in the areas of “(1) worship, (2) preaching and Scripture, (3) the community of faith and prayer, and (4) community outreach” (Chandler, 2017, p. 171). For the purposes of this research, our paper will focus specifically on Christian contemplative practice, which falls particularly into areas 1, 3, and 4. Christian contemplative practice is rooted in an awareness of God “in this present life, in the world, and in myself” (Merton, 1968, p. 320). While it is related to Eastern meditation, rather than emptying the mind, the goal of contemplative practice is for one to be filled with an infused sense of God’s presence (Merton, 1971). Through an ongoing rhythm of stillness-action-stillness-action, the practitioner seeks union with and responsiveness to God’s work in the world (Holmes, 2017). In stillness, the hope is to “adjust the perception of oneself in relation to God along lines that conformed to reality, that in coming to know God one could come to know one’s true self and one’s true relation to the rest of creation and to society” (Labrie, 2006, p. 477). This knowledge then transforms one’s character to give qualities like “compassion, forgiveness, or fearlessness” (Plante, 2010, p. 9) toward others, so that one is moved to act. In action, one is inspired by an outflow of God’s creativity and strength to bring care, justice, and goodness to one’s community and the broader world (Holmes, 2017; Merton, 1971).

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In the Black Church, contemplative practice is often embedded in the communal ritual of call and response: “Everyone has a voice, but everyone must listen and respond to other voices in order to remain in the community” (Keynan, 1994 describing the perspective of T. M. Eugene). In corporate worship, the Black community engages with “the presence and power of God as revealed in Jesus the Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit” (Costen, 2010, p. 91). Dr. Holmes, President Emerita of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, described a communal contemplative experience in her Black Church: The soloist moves toward the center of the podium. The congregation of about 1,500 breathes with her as she moans, “Oh . . . oh . . . oh, Jesus.” Those are the only words to the song. Unless you are sitting within the sound of her voice, it is difficult to imagine how a song of two words can be a cry of anguish, balm, and celebration. In each soaring note, we participate in the unutterable spectrum of human striving. In this world, you will have trouble, but “oh, oh, oh, Jesus.” The shouts of exaltation give no indication of what is happening. Although it appears to be the usual charismatic congregational fare, in fact we are riding the stanzas through time to the hush arbors and swamp meetings, over the dangerous waters to safety. In this ordinary Sunday service, something has happened and we are changed. The worldly resistance to transcendence that we wore into the sanctuary has cracked open, and the contemplative moment carries us toward the very source of our being. (Holmes, 2017, p. xix)

In this story of communal contemplative practice, there is evidence of one particular element often present in contemplative prayer, that of a “sacred word,” used to help practitioners focus on their connection with the Spirit of God. This type of transcendent experience exemplifies how contemplative practice can move a community toward justice. “The whip and lash had no power when the community could sing of their courage, resistance, and survival” (Holmes, 2017, p. 83). Instead, this prayerful connection with God’s power provides discernment and wisdom (Chandler, 2017). For some Black Americans, the Black Church and its contemplative practice provide a way to experience the “freedom denied in the workplace and in society” (Holmes, 2017, p. 74).

Contemplative practice in the workplace In the modern workplace, contemplative practice is gaining acceptance. For example, The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society has been researching contemplative organizations, mapping “the use of these practices across a wide range of professional sectors, including business, education, healthcare, law, media, and social change organizations” (Duerr, 2004, p. 43; see also Rhodes, 2018). Similarly, interest is growing in the concept of contemplative leadership (see for example Eggert, 1998; Grandy & Sliwa, 2017; Schuttloffel, 2008). As an example, according to Holmes, President Obama exhibited some key characteristics of contemplative leadership, drawn particularly from his Black Church experience, such as leading with a “creative exchange between inner and

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outer realities” (2017, p. 171). This exchange in Obama’s leadership is a demonstration of the stillness-action cycle of contemplative practice. Because of this growing acceptance of contemplative practice in the workplace, we see a unique opportunity to draw on contemplative practice, something Black mothers may have encountered in the Black Church, in order to address their experiences of oppression at work. The next section will explore the literature about this workplace oppression.

Workplace oppression Deutsch has provided one of the more comprehensive frameworks for understanding the nuances of oppression. In A Framework for Thinking About Oppression and Its Change, he defines oppression as the “experience of repeated, widespread, systemic injustice” (2006, p. 10). In his explanation, Deutsch provides a conceptual framework for the type of oppression discussed in this paper, that of workplace oppression. Often it is difficult for organizations to identify and respond to workplace oppression because of the inclination to associate oppression with state-sponsored or extreme versions of oppression such as slavery, the Holocaust, and apartheid. As such, the quotidian occurrences of oppression remain obscured. To remedy this “unrecognizability of oppression,” Harvey coined the term civilized oppression (1999, p. 1). Young further developed the concept by defining “civilized oppression” as being “embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutions and rules, and the collective consequences of following those rules. It refers to the vast and deep injustices some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions that are supported by the media and cultural stereotypes as well as by the structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mechanisms” (2001, p. 41).

Types and examples of workplace oppression Deutsch categorized deep injustices into five types that are most associated with oppression: distributive injustice, procedural injustice, retributive injustice, moral exclusion, and cultural imperialism. “Distributive injustice” refers to “gross disparities in distribution of one or another benefit or harm received by the categories of people involved” (2006, p. 12). Whereas distributive injustice refers to outcomes, “procedural injustice” refers to the process by which injustice occurs and is concerned with the presence of justice (or lack thereof) in procedures. “Retributive injustice is concerned with the behavior and attitudes of people, especially those in authority, in response to moral rule breaking” and whether penalties are consistent across groups (2006, p. 14). If there are inconsistencies across groups, “moral exclusion,” the fourth type of injustice, explores why certain groups are excluded from fair and just treatment based on

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their group membership. The final type of injustice that leads to oppression as identified by Deutsch is “cultural imperialism,” which is the “universalization of a dominant group’s experience and culture and establishing it as the norm” (2006, p. 16). These categories help to explain the nuanced experiences of oppression that often go unrecognized as oppression. Workplace oppression, the topic of this study, contains all five types of injustice. Workplace oppression encompasses “workplace violence,” which includes acts such as discrimination, sexual harassment, and bullying (Van De Griend & Messias, 2014). Workplace violence also extends to a threat of violence, which can include “verbal and/or written threats intending to harm, emotional abuse involving insults, gestures, before the work team and/or coercion” (Rodwell & Demir, 2012, p. 2297). In addition to violence, workplace oppression also includes “workplace aggression,” which is “the overarching concept that encompasses acts of bullying and violence” (Rodwell & Demir, 2012, p. 2297). The various components of workplace oppression have been studied extensively across organizational sciences and human resource management. Specific research has explored the contributing factors of organizational culture (Pina & Gannon, 2012), work overload and job demands (Baillien, De Cuyper, & De Witte 2011), and management/leadership (Alleyne, 2005).

Identity and workplace oppression Identity has a significant role in the experiences of workplace oppression. For example, scholars have explored the relationship between workplace oppression and gendered professions. The research covers the presence of workplace violence in gendered professions broadly (Gettman & Gelfand, 2007), as well as the impact on specific gendered professions such as nursing (Rodwell & Demir, 2012), building trades (Denissen & Saguy, 2014), and STEM (Funk & Parker, 2018). Particularly related to marginalized identity categories, significant research has investigated oppression based on disability (Robert, 2003), race (Bell & Nkomo, 1998), sexuality (Chapman, 1995), gender identity (Dietert & Dentice, 2009), age (Chou & Choi, 2011), and gender (Lăzăroiu Rowland, & Bartosova, 2018).

Black mothers and workplace oppression Black Feminist Thought has provided significant analysis relating to the experiences of workplace oppression for women of color in general, and Black women in particular. The research in these fields includes the intersections of race and gender on topics like discrimination (Spates, et. al, 2020), microaggressions (Holder, Jackson, & Ponterotto, 2015), barriers to leadership (Dillard, 2018), and the impact of manager behavior on the experiences of Black women in the workplace (Dickens, Womack, &

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Dimes et al, 2019). Moreover, the experiences of workplace oppression are further complicated by the intersection of race, gender, and motherhood. For example, in addition to overcoming conventional motherhood barriers such as lack of breastfeeding support (Johnson, Kirk, & Muzik, 2015) and work-life balance (Collins, 2016), Black women must also navigate racialized stereotypes and stigmas such as the bad Black mother, welfare mom, mammy, and single mom (Wingfield, 2007). Because of the complexity of these experiences, which are both informed within and also external to the workplace, Van De Griend & Messias (2014) have advocated for workplace oppression to be re-conceptualized to include work and labor beyond what is compensated and occurs in formal work environment, such as the domestic labor associated with motherhood. They propose that this broader interpretation of workplace oppression provides a more accurate description and captures the lifespan of oppressive experiences that mothers face. One approach to addressing oppression was suggested by Clifford (1995) in the field of social work. He was dissatisfied with the approach social workers were using, particularly with black women and their families. Building on Black Feminist Thought, he laid out six themes of understanding and engaging with human social behavior in the context of oppression. Recognizing the complexity of oppression, he developed the concept of anti-oppressive practice which is as follows: to indicate an explicit evaluative position that constructs social divisions (especially ‘race’, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and age) as matters of broad social structure, at the same time as being personal and organisational issues. It looks at the use and abuse of power not only in relation to individual and organisational behaviour, which may be overtly, covertly or indirectly racist, classist, sexist and so on, but also in relation to broader social structures for example, the health, educational, political and economic, media and cultural systems and their routine provision of services and rewards for powerful groups at local as well as national and international levels. These factors impinge on people’s life stories in unique ways that have to be understood in their socio-historical complexity. (Clifford, 1995, p. 65)

While anti-oppressive practice does include “the act of challenging inequalities” (Burke & Harrison, 2002, p. 133), the oppositional behavior can take many forms. For example, Solorzano and Bernal (2001) identified four types of resistance in their study of Latino/a students who were advocating for a quality education: reactionary, selfdefeating, conformist, and transformational. “Transformational resistance” includes both the hope of survival and liberation from oppression (Robinson & Ward, 1991). Because Clifford’s anti-oppressive practice plays a key role in this paper, we are providing the six themes in full, for the reader’s reference: – be historically specific, not reducing human behaviour to biology, or psychology, or economics, but placing the explanation within a specific historical context – relate to material power structures, and the divisions of material wealth and power in society, including the simultaneous impact of unequal power relationships in the present, and the historical accumulation of cultural and economic capital against which oppressed groups struggle

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combine personal, (the family, reproduction, sexuality) and political (work, production and the outside world), illuminating their interpenetration thoroughly analyse ‘difference’, that is, systematically and simultaneously situating individual people and groups within all major social divisions, and their subdivisions, (for example, different ethnicities, disabilities and so on) be internationalist, understanding the wider contexts which affect us all indirectly and some of us directly be reflexive, that is be aware of the impact and dimension of the personal experience of the observer/history taker, and their ethical, social and political values and accountability. (Clifford, 1995, p. 66)

Clifford saw anti-oppressive practice as a way to deeply listen to the stories of the women and families he served. By taking into account the historical legacy of oppression—for example the structural consequences of slavery—as well as a person’s unique social situation, he reasoned that social workers could better understand the current lived experiences of their clients. This anti-oppressive practice would enable them to be more effective at assessment and advocate for resolutions that would increase the chance of familial survival and liberation from oppression. In Clifford’s work we hear echoes of the Womanist desire to see Black women and their communities flourish (Grant, 1989).

Summary The literature above has been examined with two key purposes. First, we sought to ground our research in a history of Black women’s ways of knowing, particularly to support the participants’ own empowered ability to resist and transform their experiences with workplace oppression. By tracing both contemplative and anti-oppressive practices we sought to highlight the legacy of Black women as architects for inspiring change. The revealed legacy will continue in the next section as we address the first research question: In what ways do Black mothers experience workplace oppression? We will showcase how the Black mothers who participated in the study exhibited their own ways of knowing that contributed to identifying, challenging, resisting, and addressing workplace oppression. The second purpose of the literature review was to provide a foundation for our Contemplative Anti-Oppressive Practice (CAOP) framework in light of our findings from the interviews with Black mothers. While contemplative practice and antioppressive practice have been explored separately in management literature, they have yet to be explored in combination as a possible framework to dismantle oppression. By drawing parallels to the shared history in the Black community with specific emphasis on addressing power dynamics, we are seeking to provide context for the integration of both practices. In this way we will answer our second research

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question: How can contemplative practice informed by anti-oppressive practice appropriately and effectively address workplace oppression experienced by Black mothers?

Methodology Qualitative research is best utilized when the data sought relates to how people understand and interpret their experiences in their given context (Creswell, 2018). Specifically, qualitative research looks to “delineate the process (rather than the outcome or product)” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 15). Drawing on a broader qualitative study exploring narratives of mothering and work for women of color in the United States, the data for this project comes from eight original participants and two additional participants who opted out of the original study but agreed to participate in the current study.

Recruitment and participant selection The participants in the study had to meet the following criteria: self-identify as Black; be a mother; have school-aged children (K-12); be currently working full-time or, if unemployed, have at least five years of previous full-time work experience. The inclusion of mothers who were unemployed was intentional in order to possibly yield vital data on the incongruence in the experiences of mothers of paid work with those doing unpaid work (mothering), which may have impacted their ability to be employed. Using these criteria, a purposive sample of ten Black working mothers were drawn first from two different national social organizations that support women of color and then, using snowball sampling, other women who were known to share a similar lived experience as Black working mothers. Snowball sampling is the use of informants to identify cases that would be useful to include in the study (Creswell, 2018). This type of purposive sampling is a recruitment strategy that enables the selection of participants who are believed to be most knowledgeable about the phenomenon of interest. This method is appropriate for qualitative studies in which the researcher seeks to describe the lived experience of a particular phenomenon (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 1994). A major critique of this research method is the perceived limitations created through the possibility of bias in sample selection, particularly if the population is heterogeneous and limited generalizability (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 1994). However, because the notion of generalization was not a goal of this study due to its critical lens, purposive sampling was an appropriate approach to utilize for this study. We were seeking more identitycomplex and context specific information, with the goal of showing the diversity of experiences with workplace oppression of Black mothers, as opposed to one general experience that applied regardless of context and time (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

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Drawing from a national pool of possible participants enabled the sample to be diverse in two ways. First, geographic variety made space for potential differences in the experience of workplace oppression due to locale. Second, because the two social organizations drew members from a variety of workplace organizations, the sample had more industry diversity. Recruitment continued until saturation was reached (Creswell, 2018). All participants were given pseudonyms, which, along with the real identities, were stored separately from the transcripts and only accessed by the first researcher. Additionally, where necessary, we used vignettes to protect the identity of the participants when any employer-related content was mentioned.

Research procedure A modified version of Seidman’s (2006) approach to qualitative interviewing was chosen because of the emphasis on exploring participants’ lived experience and empowerment through community, both of which are aligned with Critical Race Feminism. As Seidman notes, interviewing is a powerful way to gain insight into educational and other important social issues through understanding the experience of the individuals whose lives reflect those issues. As a method of inquiry, interviewing is most consistent with people’s ability to make meaning through language. It affirms the importance of the individual without denigrating the possibility of community and collaboration. Finally, it is deeply satisfying to researchers who are interested in others’ stories. (2006, p. 14)

Each in-depth, semi-structured interview lasted no more than 90 minutes, was audio recorded, transcribed, and stored on a protected external hard drive. Data from the interviews were both hand-coded and computer-coded through NVivo. Three rounds of hand-coding were conducted to capture codes and subsequent themes (1) line by line, (2) paragraph by paragraph and finally in (3) ‘chunks’ of data to ensure that the context of the data was not lost. To ensure transparency of the analysis, the transcripts were then coded through software. An additional level of reliability was secured through member checking by the sharing of the transcripts and coding matrix with the participants to ensure that the codes that emerged and subsequent themes that were assigned accurately characterized the ideas expressed by the participants.

Transferability Qualitative research is chosen “precisely because the researcher wishes to understand the particular in depth, not to find out what is generally true of the many” (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016, p. 254). Since the sample population in qualitative research is particular (and often small), the findings are not generalizable. However, the research can

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provide a framework for transferability. As we examine particular people, contexts, and experiences, we may find patterns that hint at what is essential to a phenomenon, which might be applied in other contexts and with other people. In regard to the study’s limitations, it should be noted that the research was conducted in the United States; therefore, the literature review is western-centric, and the workplace oppression experiences of the participants may not transfer to other cultural contexts. However, this study has at least three contexts into which the findings might be transferable. To begin, researchers exploring the experiences of other women of color who are facing oppression at work may benefit from reading the findings regarding Black women in similar circumstances. Next, Black men who are committed to the work of fathering might gain insights into their own experiences of oppression due to their own intersection of race, gender, and parental status. Finally, as we will discuss in the last section, the findings indicate ways in which managers in other organizations might support Black mothers’ efforts to respond to oppression in the workplace.

Black mothers’ experiences of workplace oppression This section unpacks our findings in relation to the first research question: In what ways do Black mothers experience workplace oppression? Specifically, when answering the first research question, the data suggests that Black mothers experience workplace oppression through four themes related to power: (1) privilege, (2) being an outsider, (3) non-traditional career roles and (4) ownership. These themes (and the data from which the themes emerged) will be explored more fully in this section. In brief, privilege is related to the experiences that the mothers associated with how certain identities (primarily, white and male) were privileged and granted power through positions and reward. The theme ‘being an outsider’ represents the sentiment and treatment of being ‘othered’ based on unwelcomed and ostracized treatment. Non-traditional career roles highlight the narratives of the participants that showcased how their struggles with workplace oppression were exacerbated when they held roles and positions in fields that were deemed as non-traditional for women in general, and Black women in particular. Finally, the theme of ownership represents the narratives shared relating to experiences where managers exhibited power in ways where the mothers felt that their managers were exhibiting forms of control that resembled elements of ownership – of their time outside and inside the office, and even at times their bodies. The linkage of these experiences with the concept of power is well documented in the literature. In fact, as discussed in our literature review, both Alleyne (2005) and Clifford’s (1995) works focus on the use and abuse of power, which support the findings that emerged from the participant narratives. Specifically for Alleyne, power is the central component in her conceptualization of workplace oppression, which she defines as the

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“complex organizational dynamics and silent forces that give rise to difficulties involving issues of power and powerlessness and of the dominant and the dominated” (Alleyne, 2005, p. 287). Similarly, Clifford’s (1995) principles of anti-oppressive practice also center the role of power in understanding the impact of oppression on the families he served. Within each of his principles, power is explored as a key contributor to oppressive practices, not only at the individual and relational levels, but also at the organizational, structural, and societal levels. The findings as explored below validate these assertions.

Privilege “Privilege” is typically defined as a social condition that enables the taken-for-granted benefits and protections afforded to individuals based on their identity categories (Leonardo, 2004). Privilege is often identified through race, gender, (dis)ability, class, and sexuality. In the examples below, privilege is identified through race and gender as White and male. I say things that are so obvious . . . but they’re like “oh, we don’t know.” An example is the employee engagement project. A White male spoke up, at a staff breakfast no less. When I talk about stuff, I try to take it directly to the person behind closed doors and be like “um, I think we’re having some problems with employee engagement.” But when he inappropriately calls people out saying that their engagement sucks, he’s being assertive and direct. Let me have tried that, I’d be fired.

Sanai’s experience confirms what Livingston and Pearce (2009) concluded in their study on the facial features and facial expressions of White leaders vs. leaders of Color. Leaders of Color have to moderate their emotions in order to advance or be accepted in the workplace. Any display of emotion, particularly like what was expressed by Sanai’s colleague, would have been met with prejudice. But, as a recipient of White, male privilege, Sanai’s colleague had the privilege to behave emotively in any fashion he saw fit, without any repercussions for what could be perceived as anger, aggression, verbal abuse, etc. Stacey also shared an experience of the differentiation of treatment she experienced that she linked to privilege: It’s cool for everyone else to do, but when you want to do it, it’s like “um, oh, well, this has been going on . . .” What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. You’ve got to do some extra or they make it seem like they’re bending over backwards to do you a favor.

Here, she perceived that the culture perpetuated the idea that any benefits her White colleagues received were earned while anything she received was perceived as handouts or favors. In addition, many of the participants shared that it was hard for their White female colleagues to understand their own privilege. In fact, one participant recollected

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a response from her White, female co-worker when she was venting about a microaggression she experienced from a White, male co-worker: It was so clear that what it did was related to my race, and you know, she just dismissed me and said, “I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way. He probably would have asked me that too.” In my mind I thought, “Sure, asking a Black mother whether my child’s father lives with me has nothing to do with stereotypes about race. There’s no way he would have even thought to ask her whether her kid’s dad was in her home.”

Nkomo and Al Ariss (2014) link this dismissive experience to the privilege of Whites being seen as raceless. The invisibility of race means that the “advantages that whites as a group enjoy are not explicitly acknowledged and remain invisible in the workplace” (Nkomo & Al Ariss, 2014, p. 395). Due to this invisibility and the embeddedness of Whiteness as a default in the workplace, many of the participants accepted privilege as a matter of fact. While they were interested in creating change, addressing privilege was not their priority. Instead, they opted to focus their resistance on dynamics that specifically challenged their identity as Black women. In essence, they were less concerned about the air of privilege that their White counterparts expressed, unless it directly and actively conflicted with their Black, female identity.

Outsider Another way that the participants experienced workplace oppression was by being made to feel like an outsider. Oppressive practices result in an environment where Black mothers are labeled and made to feel as outsiders in positions they have legitimately earned. Due to the pervasiveness of White privilege, the invisibility of Whiteness within organizations, and the backlash to diversity intervention programs, (e.g., affirmative action), achievements acquired by these mothers are often seen as unearned, unwarranted, and unwelcomed. I think that they rationalize that I’m not a high performer. There’s an immediate rationale. When you walk through the door and someone sees your face, they put together from your features, “she’s a woman; she’s Black.” Maybe if they look at your record, they’ll see like “that HBCU is just . . .” It doesn’t matter to a certain extent how amazing you are. So, you just have to continue to show up and prove your value.

It is important to note in this example, Simone shared that her resolve to “show up and prove her value” was her solution to the challenge of being labeled an outsider. This was consistent with other participants’ comments. Many opted to focus on their own actions as a form of resistance, as opposed to focusing on the actions of the perpetrators. Partially this was due to a focus on what they felt they could control. However, some also shared that they took this approach because when they did attempt to expose the instances of this form of oppression, it pushed them further into the outlier spaces of the organizations, where they are treated even more as space invaders

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(Puwar, 2004). Complaints were seen as an attack and would legitimize the already existing stereotypes and negative assumptions about the participants, their identities, and subsequently, their work performance. As Nkomo and Al Ariss note, “from a white privilege lens, such reactions can be viewed as a defense against the encroachment into what is believed to be white jobs and an erosion of meritocracy and individual effort” (2014, p. 395).

Non-traditional roles The experience of being perceived as encroaching on White jobs was heightened for women in non-traditional career roles. In fact, oppression related to the themes of privilege and outsiders were exacerbated in industry or job roles that historically have been deemed non- traditional roles for women. The oppression was further exacerbated when the intersections of race and motherhood were considered. Indeed, each participant shared oppressive experiences in the workplace that represented a direct unwillingness by others to support working, Black mothers. Patricia experienced this unwillingness first-hand: There is a notion, particularly when a woman is a mother and pregnant, that you are doing her a favor by letting her be a scientist. And that is even more pronounced when she is at some intersection. Like it’s a huge favor to train a Black scientist.

In their research, MacIsaac and Domene (2014) highlighted a specific type of workplace discrimination women in non-traditional roles experience most often: an unwillingness by their supervisor to train them. They found that this challenge is a consistent experience for women in male-dominant industries such as science, construction, technology, etc. Additionally, MacIsaac and Domene note that women would find their bosses or supervisors “withholding information about available apprentice and journey-level jobs that they readily provide to males” (2014, p. 4).

Ownership The final finding related to the experience of workplace oppression is the notion of ownership. Hopson and Orbe’s (2007) research on the oppressive nature of some organizational structures documents the figurative sense of ownership that the participants experienced. Their analysis suggests that even in a post-slavery era, “organizational structures continue to be oppressive such that a Black man’s standing in corporate American can revert to instant slavery at any given time” (2007, p. 75). While their study focused on the experiences of Black men, the female participants in this study had similar experiences of possession and ownership.

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I think a lot of times it comes from that need to be the savior. There’s a god complex in science, and for some reason it’s easier to exert that dominance on a woman of color. Especially a Black woman, because I think that there is a mentality of possession and ownership. There’s this underlying thing of not just that “I’m better than you” but that “you belong to me.”

One participant spoke about ownership and possession in terms of knowledge as a tool of power over women of color. I mean, because my experience with my education was very interesting. At work and at school I’ve felt that White men have been to me like, if they feel that they can’t teach you anything, then they aren’t interested in you.

Patricia shared the experience of her supervisor acting like he could control her time outside of work. She spoke about his “audacity” in thinking he was entitled to her time with her child when she was on sick leave caring for her injured child. When she refused to give him her time (outside of work), he retaliated by penalizing her (during work), restricting her access to larger projects. So, there was kind of a power struggle where I think he got so engrossed in winning the power struggle that he didn’t realize, you aren’t up against me about something with my science or something with my work; you’re up against me about something with my child. You won’t win this one.

It was not enough that he tried to control her while she was in the office; he wanted to exercise his power even beyond his professional role of being her manager. While the literal understanding of ownership through slavery is explicitly understood, these experiences describe a more figurative expression of how it feels when White supervisors and managers express inappropriate control. This dynamic is similar to the experiences of women in non-traditional roles, where the White colleagues exhibited possession and ownership of the knowledge, opportunities, and training necessary for the women to advance. These circumstances created barriers to the women’s success. However, for Black women the possession and ownership behavior of supervisors extended beyond items the participants considered resources to ownership of the participants themselves. The managers sought to exert control in two ways: (1) I own the resources, and as the gatekeeper can control and block your entrance to and advancement within this industry, and (2) I own you, and therefore you must do what I tell you to do. In the former situation, the participants experienced scenarios where their White supervisors would manage access to resources (knowledge, training, office space, bonuses, etc.) in order to own the participant. One example of ownership in this interpretation can even be seen in how Sanai was given the smaller and farremoved office, even though she was the most senior member on the team, and the organizational practice was to allocate office space via seniority. Sanai recounted how her displacement from the core team left her out of impromptu meetings, water cooler talk, and the in-group, which impacted her development at work. In each of these examples, the participant felt that their White, male supervisors exercised

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ownership over all of the resources in a strategic way to have control over the employee. In the latter dynamic, the participants experienced the management behavior as a more visceral experience of workplace oppression.

Summary The data reported in this section addressed the first research question: In what ways do Black mothers experience workplace oppression? First, we provided details on the differentiated impact that power has on creating a sense of privilege for the White colleagues and supervisors of the participants. Next, we explored how power operates within narratives of work that make Black women feel like outsiders. Then, we discussed how oppression can be exacerbated for Black women who work in non-traditional gender roles. Finally, we looked at the theme of ownership with specific emphasis on how workplace oppression can conjure the legacy of slavery by the enactment of ownership behaviors fed by the power and privilege of White, male supervisors. By unmasking systems of privilege and maintenance of power, research studies like this one can help managers understand ways in which we can dismantle workplace oppression and enable the success of Black mothers. In the next section, the second research question will be addressed through a proposed framework of Contemplative Anti-Oppressive Practice.

Addressing workplace oppression through contemplative anti-oppressive practice This section unpacks our findings in relation to the second research question: How can contemplative practice informed by anti-oppressive practice effectively address workplace oppression experienced by Black mothers? As we discussed in the literature review, the Black Church has long used contemplative practice to cope with oppression (Holmes, 2017). While not all Black women identify as Christian, many in the United States prioritize their membership in the Black Church (Taylor et al., 2014) and draw strength from faith in God, including when they encounter workplace oppression (Agosto & Karanxha, 2011). Additionally, “. . . black women have had to deal with multiple forms of oppression and social division. They have thus been on the sharp end of several kinds of oppression simultaneously, and have from their own personal and collective experience been able to develop methods appropriate to an anti-oppressive perspective which seeks systematically to take account of the variety, historical change, complexity and interconnection of social divisions” (Clifford, 1995, p. 66).

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In Figure 1, we present a model in which we propose that contemplative practice and anti- oppressive practice can work together toward dismantling oppression in the workplace. Specifically, we argue that contemplative practice, the process of cycling from stillness to action with God, if shaped by the six “explanations of human social behavior” identified by Clifford as anti-oppressive (1995, p. 66), can lead to a reduction in the actions and experiences of oppression. Since Clifford linked these explanations of human social behavior to power, we thought it would be an appropriate framework to explore and respond to the ways in which power (through workplace oppression) was manifesting in the experiences of the study’s participants. As such, our framework for Contemplative Anti-Oppressive Practice (CAOP) ties three of Clifford’s themes to contemplative stillness and three to contemplative action. As we discussed above, far from serving as a way to evade the problems of the world, contemplative prayer centers a person in God, transforming the practitioner’s vision of the world in order to affect positive change (Merton, 1971). The two—stillness and action—should feed each other, as so should the relationship between the manager and the mother (employee). For example, in discussing the role of contemplative practice in the civil rights movement, Holmes comments that, “You cannot face German shepherds and fire hoses with your own resources; there must be God in stillness at the very center of your being” (2017, p. 116). If our existence, our “beingness,” is rooted in stillness, then we will have the sustained energy to act by resisting oppression in the world. This necessary attention to both beingness and action is also evident in Clifford’s anti- oppressive practice, which too focused on the exchange between the relationship of the social workers and their clients. This is an important distinction of why Clifford’s model was selected for our framework. We believe that it is critical that the model be collectively informed and used by both the manager and the employee (mother). However, even with the communal use, it is critical to note that the model is centered on the wisdom and experiences of the mothers. We believe the women are the source of solutions for their lives, but that they should not be the sole bearer of that responsibility. Therefore, the managers’ experience and behaviors are also valuable to the success of the model’s application. Clifford’s principles recognize the importance of the behaviors of those in power. Of the six themes he identified which should ground anti-oppressive practice, three of them begin with terminology that expresses “beingness”: be reflexive, be internationalist, be historically specific. Similarly, three of Clifford’s themes begin with action-oriented words: relate, thoroughly analyze, and combine. From a centered position in God, we are able to observe the complex antecedents of both our behavior and the behavior of others and then act in a way that helps “in the assessment of the situation and also in its resolution” (Clifford, 1995, p. 8). Within the overall framework proposed here, two of the CAOPs are focused on “I”—my individual internal and external reality—where the invitation is to attend in stillness and action to myself and my context. Two of the CAOPs are focused on “We”—our collective, communal reality—where the invitation is to attend in stillness

Figure 1: Contemplative Anti-Oppressive Practice Framework (CAOP).

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and action to us and our shared context. Two of the CAOPs are focused on “You”—the reality of other individuals—where the invitation is to attend in stillness and action to you and your context.

Examples of anti-oppressive practice in contemplative stillness In stillness, we are with God asking for guidance to integrate the unknown and known (Merton, 2007), making us more aware of the internal and external realities of oppression. Within the model, using the reflexive lens of “I,” a person engaging in CAOP might invite God to reveal the true self. So “I” would seek to explore how my personal experiences and my ethical, social, and political values influence my engagement with oppression both toward myself and toward others. Additionally, the invitation to “beingness” can also affirm and humanize anti-oppressive work. As an example, Edwards, McArthur, and Russell-Owens wrote about the effect of the role of “beingness” in their education and research with Black girls (2016). An example of being reflective in contemplative stillness can be seen in an experience shared by one of the participants, LaTasha. You know, before I became a mom, I was one of those managers who was really insensitive to working mothers. I would secretly be annoyed when they left at 5 PM and spoke about work-life balance. Being a woman didn’t make me sensitive because I was more focused on being like [them]. It wasn’t until I became a mom that I realized that I had been conditioned and was using the tools of the oppressor against women who I should have been in solidarity with.

Here, LaTasha reflects on how being a woman in a masculine work environment conditioned her not to respect the experiences of working mothers. She shared that she was so consumed with excelling as the only female manager in her division that she lost sight of the experiences of those she was managing. In essence, at first, she joined in the oppression of other women. Okun speaks to this phenomenon in her essay, White Supremacy Culture (2001). In this powerful work, Okun illustrates how White supremacy culture operates within our organizations in ways that maintain oppression. Directly relating to LaTasha’s experience, Okun speaks to the White supremacy culture characteristics of individualism, paternalism, and there being only one right way to do things. LaTasha’s reflection allowed her to identify how her behavior and the culture of her organization fostered a strong need to compete, which moved her focus from collaboration to individual accomplishment. Her drive to want to succeed in this culture blinded her. Holmes describes this experience in relation to oppression as “the lust for power and egos of control and imperialism” (2017, p. 112). Using a reflexive lens led LaTasha to identify that her organization’s model was paternalistic and did not honor the multiple ways that their employees could show up, perform, and engage in the workplace. LaTasha’s “I” reflection and subsequent changes to her management style are indicative of how,

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through anti-oppressive practice in contemplative stillness, we invite God to expand our awareness of our blind, hidden, and unknown motivations that are impacting our behavior (Luft, 1961). LaTasha’s experience also shows how, using the CAOP internationalist lens of “We,” a person sitting in a place of contemplative stillness might invite God to open the heart to recognize the collective context of oppressor and oppressed. Through her own intersections of identity, LaTasha was able to see how, as we share this world together, there are direct and indirect consequences of oppression in our community. For LaTasha, her experience with oppression was not solely based on the oppressive practices of the dominant group, but also based on how she as a Black woman exemplified oppressive practices. Alleyne describes this as the internal oppressor, “an aspect of the Self that carries historical and transgenerational baggage” (2004, p. 7). From the internationalist lens, employees and managers can link their behaviors to the wider environment of “a post-slavery post-colonial context [where] baggage is passed from generation [and] shapes black people’s attachment patterns and relationship with the white Other” (Alleyne, 2004, p. 4). In this way, LaTasha could understand the wider context of oppression, how it is collectively created, and how it must be collectively dismantled. Finally, using the historically specific lens of “You,” a person applying CAOP in stillness might invite God to help him/her explore the behavior of the “other” within a historic context rather than just blaming an individual or group for relational difficulties or frustrating behavior. Mary’s experience at work after a series of Black History Month presentations reflects the need for this approach: This is why celebrations of diversity are so important. The stuff they were saying to me afterwards . . . I tell you my co-workers had no idea about the history of Black innovation nor the continuous marginalization of Black people in this country until my presentation.

She felt that her colleagues viewed Black experiences only through slavery and the Civil Rights movement and had no other historical context for the experiences of Black people in the United States. She reported that, based on the volume of conversations after the presentations, she felt many were unaware of the numerous contributions that Black people have made in the United States nor were they aware of the legacy of structural racism that impacted Black people post-slavery (Jim Crow, Black Codes, redlining, lending discrimination, etc.). More often than not, racism is seen as individual acts of discrimination and hate against another person. However, in accessing the historically specific lens of “You,” within the CAOP model we are able to see the history of racism and oppression, and how they are embedded deeply within our systems and institutions, including our organizations and management structures. By reflecting on who, where, and what has shaped the other person or group, we are better able to understand our interactions with them. In this way, we can invite God to reveal our unconscious biases that cause us to judge others. As Clifford (1995) suggests, instead of reducing behavior to biology,

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psychology, or economics, this process can help us expand our appreciation of the personhood of those who are in some way different from us. These three CAOPs open up the practitioner to discover “the reality underlying one’s fellow human beings so that they are seen not abstractly as an institution might see them but rather as distinct persons, each valued by God and thus deserving of care and justice” (Labrie, 2006, p. 477). Particularly for those who are oppressed, stillness can become an internal source of power toward resisting experiences of workplace oppression. Before moving to the next section, it should be noted that being reflexive, internationalist, and historically specific in contemplative stillness may reveal different things for different people in the same context. What each person discovers while “being” with God will be unique to them and as such is not easy to globalize. For example, it is difficult to outline the steps another person could follow to recreate LaTasha’s discovery about her values, her context, and how she was treating other mothers. Therefore, we did not provide specific management recommendations for each item under CAOP stillness. However, as we move into the next section of contemplative action, along with offering specific points of data from the interviews, we will also provide specific management recommendations for behavior, drawn from an analysis of the data. Additionally, there may be a difference between the reactions that a CAOP practitioner experiences when pursuing stillness versus pursuing action. While contemplative stillness does challenge us to reframe our internal perspectives in the light of what God reveals, it is generally only demanding to the one practicing it. In contrast, contemplative action, which seeks to dismantle oppression in an external context, can encounter significant resistance from the community in which the work is undertaken. It is to this active work that we now turn.

Examples of anti-oppressive practice in contemplative action Along with contemplative stillness, we also need contemplative action to dismantle oppression. Womanist theology points out that the need for action is rooted in God’s work on behalf of the oppressed as revealed in the Bible (Townes, 2006). The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed (Psalm 103:6, NIV). For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help . . . From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight (Psalm 72:12, 14, NIV).

In active CAOP, we are with God seeking courage and wisdom to act out the “being” of stillness in our everyday lives (Holmes, 2017, Merton, 2007; Noel, 1988). As we move into action, we seek to dismantle the oppression, again through the three lenses: I, We, and You.

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For example, acting with a focus on “I,” a person engaging in CAOP might invite God to enable him/her to address structural oppression, specifically, “unequal power relationships of the present, and the historical accumulation of cultural and economic capital” that feed imbalance within an organization (Clifford, 1995, p. 66). Connie’s experience of being treated like an outsider highlights the negative consequences on a Black mother’s work success when the structures inhibit equal power relationships. You know even though I had seniority, they put me in this broom closet far away, while the team was all centered together and when I tried to spend time in their pods, it wasn’t perceived that I was connected to social capital. My boss actually asked me why I was loafing around.

The office structure resulted in Connie being physically separated from the relational capital that would come from regular interactions with colleagues. She continued to feel isolated as new, less-tenured employees were given more ideal workspaces. When her boss reprimanded her for spending “too much time” socializing around the team’s work pod, her struggle was exacerbated since she was the only person of color and only woman on the team. Below are some examples drawn from the data analysis that represent how managers can address structure in contemplative action. These actions focus on organizational practices that create or maintain barriers to access for marginalized groups, especially Black mothers. – Invest capital in identity-based leadership development. Ensuring the development of groups who are typically marginalized in the workplace will decrease the imbalance in leadership diversity. – Have a clear and transparent plan for addressing forms of workplace oppression such as bullying and harassment. Unequal power dynamics are often maintained through lack of accountability, which often silences the voices of those most impacted by these transgressions. – Consider issues of access in all decision-making. In addition to a focus on the accessibility of leadership roles and promotions, managers should also consider access to resources such as office space, networking opportunities, and professional development. Next, emanating from a focus on “We,” a person working from a place of contemplative action might invite God to enable him/her to act in ways that account for the differences and uniqueness of the members in the organization’s community, with all their major divisions and subdivisions. While the specific focus of this article is on race, gender, and parental status, the possibilities for systematically exploring the diversity within a community are almost endless. The classifications can include, but are not limited to, culture, ethnicity, age, physical (dis)abilities/qualities, education, geographic location, marital status, religious beliefs, economic status, communication style, learning style, etc.

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To gather this information, we must approach conversations with others from an attitude of humility and an active desire to listen and learn from them (Walker, 2020). The willingness to listen was something the participants often noticed was missing from interactions with their colleagues and supervisors. For example, Stacey reflected on the frustration she experienced when attempting to speak up about issues of injustice and oppression within her workplace. Oftentimes, it feels like they don’t want to know. You can talk until you’re out of breath and somehow you return back to square one.

To mitigate against this resistance to listening, the CAOP model invites a person working to dismantle oppression through the “We” lens to seek to ask questions that would reveal the collective variety within a group. This contemplative attention to thoroughly analyzing the differences of individual people and specific groups makes it possible to appreciate and celebrate the diversity within the community. Some managerial practices that are drawn from the interviews and embody this approach are as follows: – Incorporate diversity training that utilizes an intersectional lens. By exploring the various intersections of identity, we are able to not only see the uniqueness of a person’s experience and contributions to the organization, but we are also able to find opportunities for shared experiences which we might not have found if we focused on one identity alone. – Celebrate diversity actively and intentionally. Make it a priority to have programming that continuously acknowledges the diversity within your organization. This includes incorporating cultural celebrations like Dia de los Muertos, Diwali, Kwanzaa, as well as other identity-based celebrations like Black History Month and Women’s History Month. It is important that managers and organization leadership take an active role in these initiatives. – Provide opportunities for participation in affinity groups. Affinity groups, such as employee resource groups, provide a sense of belonging and connection for employees as well as make space for greater collaboration and problem-solving. The benefits to the organization include retention and employee engagement. Finally, acting from a focus on “You,” a person applying CAOP might invite God to help him/her engage specific others in a holistic way that combines care for both their work within the organization and their personhood outside the office. In this way we invite God to reveal the interpenetration between what Clifford identifies as the personal and political elements of life. Acting in a holistic manner that accounts for the personal sphere and the work sphere is critical for all employees, and working mothers, in particular. For example, earlier we reported on Patricia’s experience where her manager sought to reprimand her for not being a team player when she refused to fly across the country to meet a client after she had explicitly taken approved time off to support

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her son who was hospitalized for an illness. Missing from her manager was holistic contemplative action where the systems, strategies, and goals value the whole person. When we encounter challenges in our teams and organizations, this particular CAOP opens up the possibility for crafting holistic solutions. The Black mothers participating in the study shared a few examples of recommendations toward this cause: – Re-imagine networking opportunities. Most of the participants noted that networking happened after-hours and typical masculine environments (golf course, cigar lounge, bar, etc.). Consider offering networking opportunities in environments that are not intimidating or unwelcoming to women and are during the workday so that they do not conflict with the personal lives of employees. Specifically in the case of empowering working mothers, try not to offer networking events during the hours when their kids need to be dropped off or picked up from school. – Offer employee assistance programs. These programs offer resources that support the whole person, not just the needs of their professional identity, and can include childcare services, legal advice, educational/tuition assistance, etc. – Incentivize wellness. Have a fully developed wellness program which rewards behaviors and activities that support the whole person, including promoting healthy work-life balance. Ultimately, these three active CAOPs can enable the practitioner to “reconfigure the status quo with hope, and then . . . implement hope with social action” (Noel, 1988, p. 25). Particularly for those who are oppressed, action with God can become a source of power toward resisting experiences of workplace oppression.

Concluding thoughts To conclude this paper, the authors would like to offer Rosa Parks as an example of a Black woman who embodied contemplative practice in a way that sought to dismantle oppression. In her chapter titled “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around,” Holmes paints a picture of contemplative strength as she describes Rosa Parks’ response to the order to move to the back of the bus because she was Black. Yet she sat. While people yelled at her and the police threatened, she sat. The stillness within became a sign of external dignity and a model of contemplative activism. When she was asked to vacate her seat, three other black passengers were also asked to move from a row of seats behind the whites-only section. They obeyed; she did not. As a lay woman acquainted with the struggle for justice, her actions become the quintessential expression of the power of the people. What could be more contemplative than the act of sitting silently? (Holmes, 2017, pp. 132–133)

In Parks’ response to oppression, we see the intimate connection between stillness and action. This defiant act of refusing to submit to the unjust subjugation of her personhood was not a sudden, out-of-character, act. She had been preparing herself so

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that, when the moment came, she would be ready (Parks & Reed, 1994). Through stillness and action together, she transcended the limitations of her external circumstances (Merton, 2007) so that her contemplative practice ignited a flame of collective action against oppression. Extending the legacy of Black women like Parks, the mothers in this study offered examples of how, in stillness and in action, they worked to identify, resist, and dismantle workplace oppression. Their intentionality and boldness in challenging oppression provides a model for all of us, not just managers, to join them in that work.

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Lasse Lychnell

When work becomes meditation: How managers use work as a tool for personal growth Abstract: Thi paper identifies an empirically grounded process for how managers apply a meditative attitude to work in order to further personal growth. When managers actively engage in challenging situations with a meditative attitude, the process unfolds as the managers’ focus shifts from attending to suffering, to witnessing what is, and responding with authenticity. The study is based on qualitative analysis of empirical material generated during a two-year, in-depth, clinical inquiry of how seven CEOs and business owners of small and medium-sized companies integrate their spiritual development insights into their working lives. Meditation practice provides mangers with a foundation for personal growth by increasing their capacity to explore situations through a different light, changing their perspectives of life. This study shows that work can provide the individual with an environment where this capacity can be practiced and embodied in real time to further personal growth. Keywords: Workplace spirituality, management, meditation, mid-life, personal growth, meditative attitude

Introduction We have to see that [meditation] practice is not separate from our life, and we have to examine our life for the areas of conflict and unconsciousness. (Kornfield 1989, 153)

In midlife, many exhausted and stressed managers turn to different kinds of personal development practices to better cope with the challenges of work and life, and to find new meanings for them (O’connor and Wolfe 1991). Supported by recent advancements in neuroscience (e.g., Brown, Ryan, and Creswell 2007; Golkar et al. 2014; Wolever et al. 2012), contemplative practices such as meditation and mindfulness have become popular ways to relieve stress and find new perspectives, energy, and hope. Over time, hope and energy tend to diminish for people attending meditation courses and retreats (Kornfield 2000) which may make them crave yet another course, or resort back to their old, unwanted patterns. Another option is to integrate contem-

Source: Lasse Lychnell. When work becomes meditation: how managers use work as a tool for personal growth, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2017, Vol. 14, No. 3, 255–275, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14766086.2017.1307782 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-009

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plative life with active life (cf. Kornfield 1989; Zajonc 2009); i.e., to let the meditative attitude spread into work, thereby continuing the existential journey and furthering personal growth. This is in alignment with traditional Buddhist practice, which does not view meditation and life as separate (Kornfield 1989). People may have different intentions with their meditation practice. In popularized writings about mindfulness, benefits such as an increased ability to concentrate and more successfully cope with difficult situations at work are often emphasized. Using meditation to become more productive and efficient could be seen as an instrumental intention. In original Buddhist practice, however, the ultimate goal is to eliminate suffering (Purser and Milillo 2014), a spiritual intention, which goes deeper than the instrumental one as, ironically, the source of suffering might be one’s drive to become more efficient at work. This creates a never-ending search for optimization. Thus, as this paper is about personal growth, it is the spiritual intention of meditation practice that is the focus. Previous studies on meditation and work have primarily concentrated on the outcomes of meditation practice, rather than the process in which the meditative attitude spreads to work. For example, Petchsawang and Duchon (2012) reported that people who regularly practice meditation have higher workplace spirituality scores than those who do not. Herriott, Schmidt-Wilk, and Heaton (2009) found that long-term meditation practice enabled entrepreneurs to cultivate inner experiences, leading to inner stability, enhanced intuition, and broadened awareness. Thus far, empirical management research on how people let the meditative attitude spread to work in order to further personal growth has been limited. Prior literature has focused on how simple activities, such as washing dishes, chopping wood, or writing emails may contribute to cultivating mindfulness (Kabat-Zinn 1994; Nhat Hanh 1987; Tan 2012). Also, previous writings have, to a large extent, been based on various authors’ experiences or conceptual ideas rooted in Buddhism (e.g., Hunter 2013; McCormick 2006), rather than systematic, empirical management research. Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions. The preliminary study of Phaetthayanan (2016) explores how highly qualified managers, who were practicing traditional Buddhist mindfulness, integrated their spiritual practice into work, finding they were: “watching their thoughts at work, observing their senses, their reactions to emotions and conditions, until it became part of their being, in dealing with people, showing them compassion, and dealing with their work to prevent mistakes” (19). Goldman Schuyler et al. (2017) conducted a two-year action research project to study leaders’ experiences of “waking up” at work, referring to “the fleeting moments when people notice they are more aware and present to what is happening within or around them” (87). In these moments, the participants had a heightened experience of bodily sensations, feelings, and thoughts; connectedness, safety, appreciation, and gratitude; empathy, relationships, and meaning; and creativity, flow, and effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explore how managers can allow work to become a meditation in order to further personal growth. Developing empirically based knowledge about this process is particularly important for at least two reasons. First, it can lead to

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a deeper understanding of how meditation can facilitate personal growth for working managers. Second, it may help broaden the understanding of how contemplative practices could be integrated with work guided by a spiritual intention. This is highly relevant to management practice as meditation is said to require considerable effort to be developed (Kornfield 2000; Rosch 2007), and the work setting usually does not support such personal growth (O’connor and Wolfe 1991). The paper is structured as follows. First, the phenomena of midlife transition and personal growth will be discussed, followed by a section on how meditation can further the latter. Later, different kinds of meditation will be explored and connected to work. A discussion of how suffering is linked to personal growth and meditation will conclude the theoretical part of the paper. Thereafter, the research design and method will be described, before the findings of the study are presented and discussed. Finally, there will be a discussion of the study’s limitations, as well as suggestions for further research, before concluding remarks.

Personal growth When a successful “program” suddenly stops working The starting point of this research lies in the need for personal growth that many people experience in midlife. During youth and early adulthood, people usually deal with life’s challenges by using a kind of “program” which is learned early on, enabling them to successfully cope (Kegan and Lahey 2009). Such a “program” is governed by a cognitive framework which guides individuals as they “attend to some aspects of experience and, by implication, ignore others” (Bartunek and Moch 1987, 485). This “filter” helps us operate in the world; we learn where to find directions, what to value, and how to pursue our purposes. These guidelines are generally found externally and performed within preconceived roles (O’connor and Wolfe 1991), providing us with a recipe of how to act in order to be accepted and successful. Once established, they tend to remain (Bartunek and Moch 1987). Nevertheless, life usually becomes more complex. Responsibilities accumulate, and family, career, and social life increase pressure on the individual. When the dynamics of life change and new kinds of issues arise, the “program” that was previously so successful may stop working and start producing unwanted consequences such as stress, conflict, and a loss of meaning. As a result, an inability to combine work and life may arise.

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Learning to grow A significant challenge is that the individual often tries to find a solution to the problem within the existing “program”, to which the following example helps illustrate. Steven is a manager in his forties who identifies as an achiever. Recently, however, he started to suffer from fatigue and ended up in a situation where he found himself performing poorly for the first time in his life. Steven’s programmed response was to work even harder. However, this may not help him succeed as striving for achievements was the problem that originally caused his fatigue and that is now stopping him from executing his “program.” By trying to find a solution within the existing “program”, Steven is caught up in a vicious circle. Such efforts, which focus on fixing the problem within the current framework, are called first-order changes (Argyris and Schön 1978; Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch 1974). Einstein’s often cited quote “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” pinpoints the challenge. While first-order changes are “incremental modifications that make sense within an established framework or method of operating”, second-order changes are “modifications in the frameworks themselves” (Bartunek and Moch 1987, 484). For Steven, a second-order change would be to see that life is about well-being, which comprises both achievements and good health. He would, though, need to question his “cognitive framework” and upgrade it with new beliefs, values, and assumptions that better serve his current situation, rather than the one for which the old “program” was created. Kegan and Lahey (2009, 6) use an “operating system” metaphor to illustrate the idea: “[t]rue development is about transforming the operating system itself, not just increasing your fund of knowledge or your behavioral repertoire.” Thus, such a fundamental shift could help change an individual’s ability to cope with the challenges and opportunities of life. Consequently, when anxiety surfaces in midlife and a growing dissatisfaction presents itself, the opportunity to question beliefs, values, and assumptions appears (O’connor and Wolfe 1991). Such qualitative shifts in perspective are sometimes referred to as increases in “mental complexity” (Kegan and Lahey 2009), changes in the “personal paradigm” O’connor and Wolfe 1991), or the substitution of “schemata” (Bartunek and Moch 1987). In this paper, they are equated to personal growth. Thus, personal growth implies a process in which it becomes possible to “look at” the “filter”, which one was previously “looking through”; in other words, that which was previously seen as part of a subject, becomes an object (Kegan and Lahey 2009). In Steven’s case, this happens when he realizes that he (the subject) is not the achiever (the object). Such a shift can result in a sensation of tremendous freedom for the individual. When Steven disidentifies himself from the role of an achiever, he can deliberately use this particular role as a tool at work, rather than “being used by it,” i.e., when he unconsciously performs the role in order to sustain his dysfunctional identification with being an achiever. Shifts like this happen in a process of “reperceiving” (Shapiro et al. 2006).

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While the logic of second-order changes is quite straightforward, it is not always easy to know how to create them while being a prisoner of one’s own frame of reference. For Steven, it could be tempting to establish clear goals and some action points in order to work less, but that could easily result in yet another achievement. Hence, this would not imply a qualitative change in the beliefs, values, and assumptions that initially got him into the crisis. It then becomes crucial for the individual to make a third-order change, which according to Smith is “the capacity to change one’s point of view, and therefore to explore one’s situation through a different light” (Smith (1984) cited in Bartunek and Moch 1987, 488). In the following section, how meditation can help develop such a capacity will be discussed.

Meditation as a means to support personal growth at work Inducing third-order changes In line with the idea of third-order changes discussed in the previous section, Rosch (2007, 263) argues that “lives could be improved by changing the consciousness with which experience is perceived rather than the content of the experience.” But how can such a shift in consciousness take place? Below, a proposal will be developed by drawing on the example of mindfulness meditation, which has received much attention in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral medicine, offering interesting opportunities to management research (Good et al. 2016). Following the seminal work of Brown and Ryan (2003, 822), mindfulness is often defined as a state of mind characterized by “an enhanced attention to and awareness of current experience.” While the focus of this paper lies on practice of meditation, rather than on a state of mind, the definition provided by Kabat-Zinn (1994, 4) is more helpful: “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non- judgmentally.” In mindfulness practice, it becomes possible for the meditator to watch the phenomena of the mind as something distinct from the mind itself. The practitioner is just witnessing thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations as they arise and pass away without clinging or avoidance, evaluation or interference. These experiences are merely seen as temporary manifestations of an inner world characterized by continuous change. Shapiro et al. (2006) suggest that this kind of practice supports the process of “reperceiving” as its core practice is to separate “the observing self ” from “what is observed.” By allowing a broader range of experiences to take place without judging or reacting to them, mindfulness contributes to expanding the practitioners’ capacity to temporary hold and process different pieces of information (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011b, 107). When this capacity is limited, for instance when a person is under the

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influence of compulsory thoughts or overwhelming emotions, it is more likely that the practitioner executes the old “program.” Through mindfulness practice, capacity expands making it easier for the individual to integrate seemingly contradictory experiences into a wider understanding of a situation. Such sensing of the situation, which not only encompasses the intellectual understanding, can be seen as a more valid base to respond from (Rogers 1961). When a practitioner acts from such an understanding with the intention to be true to her or his experiences, the response has the quality of authenticity. According to Gardner et al. (2005), authenticity builds on owning one’s personal experience as well as acting accordingly. However, as pointed out by Erickson (1995), a person is neither authentic or inauthentic, but rather expresses with more or less authenticity. To conclude, practicing meditation is a way to induce a third-order change as it enhances the individual’s capacity to shift perspective and explore situations from different viewpoints (Shapiro et al. 2006). Hence, it also provides an opportunity to respond in a more authentic way where meditation is connected to personal growth. In the next section, how meditation is connected to work will be discussed.

Meditation and work The contemplative life of meditation and the active life of work can easily be seen as opposites. When taking a closer look at this perceived dichotomy, it is useful to make a distinction between two fundamentally different attitudes to life: the everyday life attitude and the meditative attitude. While phenomena are taken for granted without regard to the process with which they are experienced in an everyday life attitude, the meditative attitude allows a separation to be created, making it possible to witness the phenomena with awareness as they are perceived by the conscious mind. Meditation can be practiced in many different ways, but can be broadly divided into two general categories based on the quality of the attention. In focused attention, the attention is directed toward a particular object, for example, breathing, a visual image, or a mantra; in open awareness one is allowing and witnessing whatever comes into the field of awareness without doing anything (Kabat-Zinn 2002; Zajonc 2009). The latter type is sometimes referred to as “insight meditation” as [i]nsights tend to arise naturally under such conditions, but on their own timetable . . . out of stillness, out of your willingness to sustain an open and spacious attention, with no agenda other than to be awake. (Kabat-Zinn 2002, 69)

Another way to categorize different types of meditations is by looking at formal practice and informal practice. In formal practice, the practitioner withdraws from active life and adheres to a certain structure when meditating. With experience, however, the meditator usually lets the meditative attitude spread to more and larger aspects of the daily life (McCormick 2006). Consequently, it becomes easier to practice meditation

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informally also in the midst of everyday life, for example, while walking, eating, washing dishes, and writing emails (Kabat-Zinn 1994; Nhat Hanh 1987; Tan 2012). Bringing aspects of meditation practice to working life may however be difficult, especially when the tasks are complex, such as handling difficult customers or communicating tough decisions to the management team. This paper defines allowing work to become a meditation as engaging with active working life while maintaining a meditative attitude. In other words, to practice informal meditation in the midst of working life by applying focused attention and open awareness. This is the opposite of engaging in the active work life with an everyday life attitude or withdrawing from the activities of the world to practice formal meditation. Thus, the focus of this study is not how to remain continuously in meditation, but to use work situations as moments for practice. So far in this paper, meditation has been seen a means to induce third-order changes in order to support personal growth. It has also been suggested that it is possible for work to become a meditation by engaging in it while maintaining a meditative attitude – where thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations can be witnessed as they arise and pass. In the following section, we will return to the spiritual intention, and see how meditation is connected to eliminating suffering, and by extension to personal growth.

Suffering and personal growth As stated by the Buddhist tradition, mindfulness aims to eliminate dukkha, a Pali word which is often translated to suffering, pain or unsatisfactoriness. Here, the term suffering will be used, but what is it in this sense? Suffering covers a wide range of experiences “from the intense anguish we can suffer from physical or emotional pain, through to the subtlest sense of world weariness or existential unease” (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011a, 90). Hence, suffering may be what many of us experience at work several times a day, for example, the distress we feel before a challenging presentation, the feelings after a difficult decision was communicated, or a vague sense of unease stemming from a lack of purpose in life. For a stressed manager on the verge of a burn out, however, suffering may be the default mode, i.e., the “filter” through which the world is seen. According to the Buddha, the cause of suffering is a reaction of the mind. When reactions are repeated, accumulated, and intensified over time, they lead to an aversion of feelings that are experienced as unpleasant and cravings for feelings that are seen as pleasant. Thus, suffering is actively created and recreated when a particular set of conditions are repeated over and over again (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011b, 104) and suffering is inseparable from a judgmental attitude. Consequently, when witnessing phenomena with a nonjudgmental attitude, the fundamental mechanism of suffering is suspended in that particular moment. The interplay between craving and aversion constitutes a “mental habit of insatiable longing for what is not, which

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implies an equal and irremediable dissatisfaction with what is” (Hart 1987, 37). Thus, “[c]raving and aversion reflect a need for experience to be different from how it actually is” (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011b, 113). For a person who is not aware of her or his internal world, this may lead to an unwarranted urge to change things in the external world, even though that person may not be able to recognize where the dissatisfaction with the current situation really came from. The aforementioned argument has an interesting consequence: suffering in itself cannot be judged as neither a good nor bad thing. At the same time, saying that misfortune is not a bad thing seems odd. Building on the work of Victor Frankl, Driver (2007) shed light by distinguishing between two different kinds of suffering. Suffering, as an objective phenomenon, can never have a positive value as such, for instance by having a burnout or losing a job. In situations where we have to accept a given reality however, we are free to create meaning from the events that occur to us. A burnout may be a way for the body to signal that it needs attention, and losing a job could be an opportunity to pursue other goals in life than a career and money. Thus, suffering as a subjective experience can challenge us to find new meanings, and to ignite and sustain personal growth (cf. Kegan and Lahey 2009; O’connor and Wolfe 1991). In other words, suffering may act as a pointer toward areas that are relevant to work with on the path to personal growth (Kornfield 1989). By practicing meditation, the capacity to hold seemingly conflicting experiences simultaneously increases. These can then be processed in a new light and integrated into a new understanding of a situation that no longer evokes suffering (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011b, 111). To summarize, suffering can act as a pointer toward areas of personal growth in challenging situations. Meditation, in turn, facilitates this by allowing one to create richer understandings of such situations and act accordingly. Building on meditation as a way to induce personal growth, how meditating managers apply meditative attitudes when suffering is triggered by events in working life will be empirically investigated. First, however, the research design and the method with which the study was carried out with will be presented.

Method Background This research is the outcome of a longitudinal project, which applied a clinical approach (Schein 1987, 2001). The clinical intervention was governed by the dual aim of helping participants integrate insights from spiritual development into their working lives, and developing academic knowledge about that process. Approximately two years before the research project started, I participated in an extensive, one-and-ahalf-year long meditation-based program geared towards personal development.

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When the program finished, a number of business leaders, who had also participated, felt that the way they related to life in general, and working life in particular, had changed as a result; they did not want to continue the same as before, becoming more aware of burnout risks or crises. They did, however, want to continue working in their businesses for financial security. Thus, they were looking for ways of running their businesses that were more in line with their insights rather than just maximizing profit and beating competition (cf. Purser and Milillo 2014). Quite unexpectedly, this provided me with an opportunity to research how managers integrate insights from spiritual development into their working life and, at the same time, a way for me to integrate what I had learned about myself within my working life.

Research design As little is known about the phenomenon in question, a qualitative and explorative methodology was used, appropriate to study people’s lived experiences (Van Manen 1990). To be able to follow the business leaders over time, a longitudinal approach for generating empirical material was used. Because of my own background in leadership and organizational development, both in executive education and as a consultant, as well as eight years of meditation practice, I saw a unique opportunity to create a clinical and collaborative research setting that would not only generate new knowledge, but also help the participants with important challenges (Adler, Shani, and Styhre 2004). According to Schein (2001, 229), clinical inquiry involves the gathering of data in a setting that are created by people seeking help and the researcher is called in because of her or his helping skills. A clinical approach was used in the study with the dual aim of aiding participants integrate insights from spiritual development into their working lives, and developing academic knowledge about that process.

Participants Seven middle-aged business owners and CEOs of small and medium sized companies participated, six of whom took the meditation-based course together. The seventh – the wife of one participant and co-owner –had taken the same course one year before, and could smoothly be integrated into the group. The participants were all active in different industries, including communications, PR, consulting, and the service industry. After one year of working together, the participants wanted to continue for another as they felt that the intervention and the group supported them in their integration processes. However, the couple faced serious time constrains in their small business and decided that only the wife would continue.

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While this research approach generated rich empirical material covering many aspects of the integration process, this paper concentrates on how the participants applied a meditative attitude at work in order to continue their personal growth. It is beyond the scope of this study to say how particular formal practices influenced the participants. Nevertheless, they all emphasized the importance – as well as the difficulty – of sustaining some kind of contemplative practice in everyday life and chose paths that worked for them, such as mindfulness meditation, yoga, regularly going to courses and retreats, or being in nature.

The intervention Two months after the meditation-based program finished, I started a clinical intervention with the aim of helping the business leaders to integrate their course insights into working life. My role was as a facilitator, as well as data collector and analyst in order to create academic knowledge. All of the participants, including myself, had worked with delicate personal issues during the course for self-development, and there was a large amount of trust in the group. Therefore, it was very important for me to be specific about what it meant to participate in a research project, how the material generated would be documented and used, and we agreed on confidentiality. The quotes in this paper have all been read and approved by the participants and I use aliases instead of their real names. During the research process, each participant worked on a crucial project within their own company aimed at forming an external situation and patterns of action more in line with their new insights. For example, one manager looked at the possibility of selling her company, hiring a professional CEO and taking another role, or resigning from an operative role but still owning the business. Another explored changing company strategy to pursue what she really wanted to do instead of only maximizing profit. A third worked on changing the culture of the organization so that it would be more in line with her new inner values rather than the old ones that had previously guided her. In total, the intervention consisted of one introductory meeting and fifteen tenhour process days held over the course of two years. In between the meetings, the participants worked to advance their projects in practice. Before every meeting, each participant distributed a reflective status report describing the project’s current status, how she or he had integrated the learning from the last session, as well as any requests for help. In this way, the participants came prepared and were ready to give each other structured feedback in so-called project discussions (see Torisson, Mårtensson, and Blank 2003). It became clear that the research project in itself provided them with an important condition for integration, namely a holding environment (Kegan 1982; Winicott 1965) that allowed them to “be part of a community of other practitioners with whom they can share their struggles and victories” (Baron and Cayer 2011, 354). During a

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process day, project discussions were interspersed with contemplative practices and theoretical input on personal and organizational development. Guided by what was relevant for the participants, some discussions came to center on certain themes, such as self-compassion or applying a meditative attitude at work.

Empirical material The research process allowed rich empirical material to be generated on delicate matters that emerged over time. Because of the sensitive nature and the length of the discussions, as well as resource constrains, the meetings were not taped or video recorded. During the project discussions, I took real-time notes that included transcriptions of relevant parts of the discussions with enough detail to capture longer quotes, as well as my own reflections. It was easy for me to take notes and summarize the conversations during the project discussions as they followed a clear structure in which the participants gave feedback to each other. My role in this part of the process was to hold the space for the participants. It was in these sessions the participants revealed their victories and struggles as they shared their experiences and received help from each other. In addition to the notes and transcripts, photos of whiteboards summarizing the main learning points, surveys, reflection papers, and reflective status reports submitted were gathered as empirical material. In total, the documentation comprised nearly 500 pages, covering a wide range of themes. However, the empirical material used in this paper is mainly taken from the project discussions, a thematic discussion, and reflective status reports that captured how participants applied a meditative attitude at work in order to further personal growth.

Coding and analysis The longitudinal research design with its focus on helping the participants (Schein 2001), rather than collecting well-structured data, easily results in rich and unstructured material. This comes with certain challenges for coding and analysis, and a structured approach is needed in order to avoid “death by asphyxiation” (Pettigrew 1990). The process had an abductive character as it oscillated between bottom-up coding and top down interpretation in an iterative manner. On the one hand, bottom-up coding was guided by empirical events that described how the participants brought aspects of meditation to work. On the other hand, my interpretation of these events were guided by my conceptual understanding of meditation (as outlined in the theory section), as well as my own embodied experience as a meditator. During my life, I have come to practice a variety of meditation techniques, as well as different somatic practices. Nevertheless, I would say that the analysis has been influenced by my own Vipassana practice (cf. Hart 1987), as well my training as a mindfulness instructor (cf.

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Kabat-Zinn 2009). Both techniques build to a large extent on scanning the body and witnessing thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations as means to eliminate suffering. These are of course general themes in many different techniques rooted in ancient Eastern wisdom. Nonetheless, a different kind of personal practice could have inspired a different kind of analysis. The coding process was carried out in three iterative steps. Firstly, it started with “open coding” of the whole empirical material, in which each discrete incident was given a name that represented a particular phenomenon (Corbin and Strauss 1990), for example, “demanding customers”, “hijacked by feelings and thoughts,” and “being in nature.” These empirical codes aimed at giving voice to the participants’ experiences in a systematic way. Then, using constant comparison, these first-order phenomena were aggregated into second-order, theoretical themes (Gioia, Corley, and Hamilton 2013), such as “external triggers”, “experiencing suffering,” and “maintaining a contemplative practice in everyday life.” Second-order themes, related to the process in which the participants engaged in their daily work with a meditative attitude and a spiritual intention, were then singled out for further analysis. Accordingly, second-order themes such as “maintaining a contemplative practice in everyday life” were excluded. Finally, the remaining second-order themes were sorted based on how the participants’ suffering was triggered by a particular situation at work, how they then processed their experiences, and ultimately responded. Thus, three main focuses were identified and the generalized process unfolded as these shifted. This process was not entirely sequential, as will be discussed. Here, it is important to underline that the purpose of this research effort is not to generalize from one empirical sample of managers to a larger population, but to develop a deeper understanding of the phenomenon by systematizing the participants’ experiences and synthesizing them into a generalized process (cf. Lee and Baskerville 2003; Van de Ven 2007). This generalized process will be described in the following section and supported with concrete empirical instances identified in “open coding.”

Findings The analysis suggests that allowing work to become meditation to further personal growth can be seen as a process with three separate focal points: attending to suffering, witnessing what is, and responding with authenticity. The process unfolds as the individual’s attention shifts from one focal point to another. These points are interrelated and mutually supported. For example, when witnessing is improved, it is easier to attend to suffering. However, the focal points do not have to be reached sequentially as the individual can move “back and forth” between them, as well as exit the process at any point, as would happen when something in the external world suddenly calls for one’s attention. These focal points can be seen as different aspects of one general process, and I will therefore use the words “focus” and “aspect” interchangeably, rather than

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using the words “stages” or “steps” which suggest a greater necessity in the way a sequential process unfolds (Van de Ven and Poole 1995). This process starts when an individual recognizes that she or he is experiencing suffering. Participants describe moments of being overwhelmed by feelings, intense physical sensations, compulsory thoughts, or automated behavior – all of which “hijack” their consciousness while working. Sara, the CEO of a cleaning and home-care company, leads an intense emotional life and describes: “I go so into things that I drown. In the end, I cannot separate myself from that which is eating me. I am completely hijacked by my feelings and thoughts.” At this particular moment, there is no separation between Sara (subject) and her feelings (object); she looks at the world through her feelings as a special kind of filter. The participants say that situations like these can occur when they are in challenging discussions with employees or partners, when they need to make uncomfortable decisions, have pressing meetings with the board or demanding customers, travel extensively, or other similar straining occasions. In other words, an external event – real or imagined – may trigger something in a person, such as a profound sense of insecurity or some deeply rooted fear. For example, Peter is the CEO and owns 20% of a small and rapidly growing company that imports and sells equipment for swimming pools. He has a strong drive to achieve in life and explains: “In [challenging] situations, my fear of failure is triggered and my pattern of not being good enough without my achievement is activated.” Further, Marie has worked successfully with PR in the music industry for more than twenty years, and run her own company for the past ten. She has a history of satisfying customers’ expectations at the expense of her own needs and describes: “When I get triggered, I feel, my God, it is because I am insecure [. . .].” Suffering may also be evoked by a reluctance to “see reality as it is”, as put in Buddhist philosophy. John, the CEO and owner of a ventilation company, has gone from having an easygoing attitude at work to one that is more structured. He comments: “lately, what has triggered me is my partner’s mood swings and his inability to take on new routines – he has pushed decisions without discussing them first.” To summarize, suffering takes place when the participants experience that they need to perform according to others’ expectations, or when the world does not conform to their own expectations.

Attending to suffering For the process to take place it is crucial to step out of this stream of reactions in order to consciously “look at” them. This is very different from taking immediate action to avoid unpleasant feelings or suppressing them in order to continue with the current task, as if nothing had happened. Sarah notes: “I stop in order to feel what is going on inside me.” Similarly, Peter says: “I give myself time and space to meet what

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is going on inside and outside of me. I can take this time when I have an emotional or physiological reaction.” To prepare this inner space, participants practice different kinds of focused attention, for instance, by concentrating on their breathing or sensations in their bodies. By doing so, they can break out of a situation in which they were previously entangled, allowing a gap to be created between breathing and feeling on the one hand, and reactions on the other. Allowing this inner space to be created opens up for a connection between the inner world of experiences and the external world that is experienced. Peter explains: “Then, I can be conscious about the outer world. Otherwise, I am so directed outwardly that I am not conscious of my inside.” Marie concludes that when she breathes deeply, she does not stress and that the “inner space” she creates gives her an opportunity to “see things as they are.” Here, “to see things as they are” does not mean seeing them in an “objective” way, but to see them without the “filter” of thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that were previously hijacking them (Kegan and Lahey 2009). Attending to suffering is not always easy. Everyday working life tends to absorb participants’ minds leaving little “inner space” for the shift in perspective necessary to attend to suffering. Peter illustrates the challenge by saying: “When I go into the unconscious state, I just fill up my time with more work.” Here, the participant uses the word “unconscious” to refer to an “automatic” state of mind which does not provide him with the necessary space. To become aware of that is, however, a first step. The participants’ formal meditation training has provided them with a foundation, which supports this process. However, they all agree that this base needs to be continuously maintained. It can be described as a buffer which makes it possible to handle triggering events. The size of this buffer, although, seems to depend on the extent to which contemplative practices are maintained. With time, many of the participants have developed increased sensitivity that helps them detect the pointers needed for personal growth at work. Cecilia, who has practiced formal meditation for a few years after successfully having sold the family business, says: “I get into meditation very quickly because my ‘meditation muscle’ is so well trained.” Moreover, Maria explicates: “. . . previously, I had to go away in order to find stillness . . . Now, I can see that ‘this triggers me’ and I can find the feeling. Thanks to this increased sensitivity, I can see work as a meditation.”

Witnessing what is In this aspect of the process, the participants focus on observing the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations triggered by the reaction of the mind. They do this with open awareness, i.e., from moment-to-moment, and without judging or reacting to whatever arises. The participants describe how they, for instance, observe compulsory thoughts about failure and rejection, feelings of anger and guilt, as well as tingling sensations in

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their legs and pressure in their chest. The participants are trying to welcome whatever comes up: “I take the opportunity to just sit with it and give myself time to observe the feelings. I have started to welcome it”, Peter states. With time and practice, the participants’ sensitivities have developed, and a larger portion of their thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations have become available. While the increased sensitivity makes it easier for them to observe what is going on in the inside, it also poses challenges. In a moment of despair, Sara said: I feel so much all the time. I can get tired of it and sometimes I wish that I didn’t feel with such intensity. At the same time, I see it as a strength, something good, that can help me learn to balance things.

The participants often come back to the importance of being kind to oneself. Marie, who has high demands and easily judges herself when she is experiencing intense reactions, is trying to mitigate these judgments: “I calm down, I don’t listen to the [mind’s reactions]. I try to be more gentle towards myself. Everyone can feel like this.” The participants have also developed a sense of curiosity, which serves as a kind of antidote and propels them onto the journey of personal growth, as John explains: “Many times, I think this is difficult, but it is also exciting . . . I enjoy it and it gives me energy too.” One difficulty– especially for achievers – is that witnessing may easily turn into something that resembles a striving. Peter notes: I have pushed myself because I wanted to. I have been enormously active . . . Staying busy all the time. I have practiced being present and meeting myself in these moments of pressure and stress. It has been a kind of challenge.

Such striving may ironically reinforce the same pattern that the person wants to let go of, for example, the pattern of not being good enough without one’s achievements. When participants start to meet and accept thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they are, without trying to avoid or cling to them, they may start to shift to other experiences without any effort: “I have previously not succeeded in meeting these feelings, but I have now started to meet them and then, they transform,” Peter explains. Here, trans- formation refers to a shift in quality, rather than an increase or decrease of the same quality. For example, a sensation of fear may shift into a feeling of clarity or compassion; a physical sensation of pressure over the chest may transform into stillness; and a compulsory thought that “I must finish the report before I go home,” may turn into the more relaxed thought of “I could finish the report before I go home,” suggesting that other alternatives are possible. Cecilia has for a long time identified with being somebody who works hard and achieves things. After selling her company, she found herself in a position where she did not need to work so hard and experienced feelings of guilt, commenting:

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There is something that I don’t feel satisfied with. I was burdened by the feeling of not being good enough, not delivering, not pulling myself together. However, when I sit down and meditate, and really go into the feeling, I can feel the guilt disappearing . . . Everything is quiet and I can see the patterns. These are my own fantasies [. . .].

When guilt is transformed into stillness, Cecilia can let go of the strong identification with being an achiever (referred to as her “fantasies” above) which includes other perspectives too, for example, self-compassion. When John talks to his coworkers and finds out that they have a completely different opinion of a certain situation, he tries to stay with the feeling of frustration, letting it transform and then he gains new energy: “To perceive reality as it is, is difficult, that their reality is different than mine. But I think it is fun, it gives me energy too.” As a result of this process, a kind of non-dualistic, experience-based acceptance emerges where there is room for several perspectives. In other words, the participants found insights into seemingly contradictory situations through opening up their minds to new levels of awareness, rather than through making changes in the outer world. By allowing these transformations to take place, a more holistic understanding is presented based on the individual’s own, concrete and embodied experience. I use the word holistic for two reasons. Firstly, the understanding is not only based on thoughts, but also on feel- ings and physical sensations. Secondly, seemingly contradictory experiences may occur simultaneously, such as the joy and anxiety that one might experience while preparing a demanding presentation. As shown above, such a holistic understanding may challenge previous assumptions characterized by eitheror thinking and open up to letting go of rigid patterns. During witnessing what is, participants have managed to observe their reactions, allowing them to transform into something else which brought about new holistic understandings to themselves and their situations as a whole.

Responding with authenticity After witnessing thoughts, feelings, and sensations, allowing them to transform, and getting a new holistic understanding, an individual is in a qualitatively different position to respond to the situation than at the outset of the process. Here, responding with authenticity refers to drawing upon this holistic understanding and then deliberately choosing how to respond in a way that makes that person feel “true” to her or his experiences. For example, Sara says: “I choose to express what I am wishing for or what I need, but from a calm, sober-minded and good space.” By doing this she takes responsibility for what she finds important for the business, as well as her need to be respectful and caring towards her employees. In other words, she now can hold and process thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that – when “hijacked” – appeared contradictory and thus could not be concurrently contained. This is a way of letting

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go of a kind of either-or thinking that is characteristic of situations in which suffering is predominant. Over the course of this longitudinal study, a clear shift gradually occurred in the way the participants’ minds reacted to different situations as they were able to better integrate experiences into a holistic understanding. Sara, for example, explains how her relationship with her brother and co-owner changed dramatically: “I have honest and calm discussions with my brother after having worked out what was triggering me before. Now our conversations are much nicer and without any hurt feelings.” This shift significantly influences the way they cooperate to run the company. Many times, participants tapped into this holistic understanding when making business decisions, trying to get a sense what felt “true” to them. Elisabeth says: “A big difference is that I have started to reject some projects [that we actually don’t want to carry out] and it feels like a liberation.” But rejecting what feels difficult is not always the solution. Taking on challenging customers without compromising what is important may sometimes be an opportunity for personal growth. John says: “We have customers who are somewhat difficult. When I feel that something resonates with my inner values, I can fight for it even though it is tough and challenging.” Thus, responding with authenticity to a situation may also be about making oneself available for it, working through one’s resistances, and taking the opportunity to grow as a person – rather than finding “smart solutions” to avoid meeting one’s own resistances. Sara comments: I do tasks that I previously felt resistance to. The “old me” wouldn’t have written up time reports for the employees. The “new me” will work through that resistance and do it. It makes me feel good because I end up knowing more about my company. I know that six people have worked far too much and that I can coach them to better manage the situation.

The empirical material shows that there are many different ways of responding with authenticity depending on the person’s background, as well as the situation. Generally, it means not executing the old “program.” For a person with a pattern of overachieving, an authentic response may be to balance the effort with the actual situation. While preparing for a “Mindfulness Day” for a department at the town’s hospital, Cecilia explains: I prepared myself a lot, read books, planned the day, and thought about exercises when I was on holidays. Then I realized that I didn’t need to prepare anything at all. I don’t know what will happen when I meet these ten people. And what they want from me is a glimpse of what mindfulness is, not a thorough, fact-based lecture.

Sometimes, responding with authenticity means not responding at all. Sara explains how she reacts when the middle managers approach her with a problem: I can hear it, I can see it, see that it is serious . . . then I leave it. After a couple of days [the middle managers] have fixed it themselves. It is good that I don’t go into it with all my energy.

Over time, this allows her to save her energy, which can then be used for strategic purposes rather than controlling and firefighting.

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Nonetheless, responding with authenticity may also include executing the old “program”, but using it deliberately as a tool for a certain purpose. Cecilia says: Going at a high speed, there is also a lot of joy. I get many things done and feel a wonderful sense of satisfaction. Most of the time, the result is good; sometimes it goes a little bit too fast, but it doesn’t really matter.

Rather than judging herself for applying the old “program”, Cecilia can see both the benefits and disadvantages of doing so. Subsequently, the nonjudgmental attitude makes the grasp on the old “program” weaker. However, responding with authenticity can be challenging. The participants need to choose behaviors rooted in values previously given less attention. This is uncharted territory and brings about feelings of insecurity. When participants took responsibility for what they valued, they were initially afraid of disappointing other people or losing business opportunities. Marie has put too much effort into satisfying some clients, but has not been compensated for the extra time spent as noted: “I am considerate [to my clients] and that has affected my profitability . . . I need to learn to say no.” With time, Cecilia has gotten a new perspective on rejecting requests from clients: “Previously, a ‘no’ was not an option . . . [Now] it doesn’t feel like I’m closing a door when I am rejecting a request, I’m opening [other] doors. It feels so nice.” Elisabeth is the CEO of a small communications agency, which she owns together with her husband Anthony, the creative director of the firm. She expresses herself in a similar way: Since we have started to reject certain projects, other requests have started to come. Now, we carry out more projects that are both fun and contribute to the customers. It feels tough but necessary to reject proposals from friends [that wouldn’t be either profitable or fun].

Over time, however, many of the participants started to experience that the people around them accepted their new behaviors and, in fact, appreciated it. John says: “When I stand up for my values and I am clear on the decisions I make, I feel that others are more relaxed even when we have a high work load.” Moreover, as automated responses are deeply rooted, it can be a long process to let go of old patterns. When Marie expressed her anxiety to the rest of the group at one of the meetings, Cecilia thought about what was happening and commented: “I think that the ‘demons’ are just an old habit, I don’t think they are really there. I have the feeling that she is in such a flow, but she is not used to it.” In Cecilia’s perspective, it seemed like Marie had no real reason to worry given how well she was actually doing. Rather, it was her old personal paradigm that still had such a tight grip on the way she experiences the world and herself, for instance by judging and diminishing her performance. The authentic response represents a key part of the process as it is about externalizing new ways of being in the world, based on a holistic understanding rooted in a concrete and embodied experience. Consequently, the authentic response

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is a gateway between the inner and external worlds. Put another way, it is key to integrating meditation into working life.

Discussion Discussion of the findings Many claims have been made in the popular management literature about how meditation could support managers in their daily life (e.g., Gelles 2015; Hunter 2013; Tan 2012). These have mainly been based on Buddhist teachings and supported by advancements in neuroscience, behavioral medicine, and psychology. However, little empirical management research has actually studied how meditation supports personal growth in the managers’ daily working life. Personal growth was here defined as awareness, i.e., witnessing the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without trying to change them, she or he can allow them to transform. While previous writings have focused on allowing mindfulness to spread to work, especially while conducting simple tasks, this paper shows several concrete examples of how managers practice focused attention and open awareness as responses to the complex and unforeseen events of everyday business life. Meditation increases the individual’s capacity to embrace a broader range of reactions as opposed to the initial reaction that was triggered by the event (Teasdale and Chaskalson 2011b). During witnessing what is, the participants have managed to observe their reactions and allowed them to transform into something else, which brought about new holistic understandings of themselves and their situations as a whole, and other possible reactions. As response flexibility increases, the individual may respond with greater authenticity, i.e., take into account a broader range of experiences in relation to the event (Gardner et al. 2005). Such a response externalizes an alternative way of being, and gradually suffering will diminish in relation to the events that initially provoked the reactions. This aspect is about letting go of the compulsory urge to execute the old “program” by drawing upon the emerging new personal paradigm. As a result, an individual can more freely choose what “program” to use. With time and practice, these new ways of responding to certain events form the bases for new ways of operating in the world. Responding with authenticity is thus the touchstone of the process of personal growth. This can sometimes be a highly challenging process. Nevertheless, it was also perceived as exciting, joyful, and energizing by the participants. Over time, it has been possible to observe how the managers gradually incorporated such responses into new ways of operating. As noticed by O’connor and Wolfe (1991), however, the process is imperfect and there is no guarantee that the “personal paradigm” eventually shifts. The findings of this paper support this view. Nevertheless, the empirical material displays many instances in which the

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managers act in accordance with a new “personal paradigm” as challenging situations occur and the meditative attitude is applied. In line with Shapiro et al. (2006), this study points toward the importance of developing a capacity of third-order change, that is, the ability to explore situations from different perspectives (Bartunek and Moch 1987). Likewise, it highlights the importance of continuity, as suggested by most meditation teachers. As aforementioned, the aspects of the generalized process did not necessarily unfold in sequence. Furthermore, each participant displayed varying emphases on the three focuses and the process as a whole. Some participants, for instance, talked more about how reactions were triggered by different situations at work, others emphasized what they witnessed after this, yet one focused almost solely on how to respond to challenging situations without explicitly revealing the processes that led to these. Also, different qualities were emphasized in each of the three focuses. For instance, some individuals were more engaged in witnessing feelings or physical sensations, while others emphasized witnessing cognitive patterns and automated behaviors. Nonetheless, the identified process provides an empirically grounded framework to relate these observations to a greater whole and to theorize how applying a meditative attitude at work can help further personal growth.

Limitations, suggestions for further research The participants in this study are CEOs and owners of small and medium-sized companies. As such, they have considerable freedom to work on their personal growth, as well as to make changes in their organizations. As the identified process is generalized, however, it is likely that the aspects of attending to suffering, witnessing, and responding with authenticity may be practiced by any manager, employee, or person. The nature of the events that triggered suffering, the reactions witnessed and transformed, as well as the authentic responses may, however, be very different. The findings in this study build on a vast range of observations. The purpose of the analysis was, though, not to generalize these into other empirical settings, but rather to synthesize them into a generalized process (cf. Lee and Baskerville 2003; Whitehead [1929] 1969) illustrated by the observations made. As a result, the observed instances are not exhaustive, and one suggestion for future research could be to continue to identify and systematize such observations of how the different aspects of the generalized process manifest in different empirical settings. This could create opportunities for quantitative research aimed at identifying correlations between characteristics of the process and their varying outcomes. During the study, it became clear that the process manifests itself in different ways for different people. Some participants, for example, were naturally in touch with – and expressed – their emotions. This was more difficult for others, who developed bias towards cognitive aspects instead. All in all, the current sample has provided a fairly rich basis for analysis. Further, as this study was

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carried out from a clinical perspective, the sample was guided by the potential participants’ motivation in participating in the research effort. In the future, it would be interesting to use strategic sampling and an interview-based methodology to highlight the differences between individuals’ experiences and how different personal practices may affect the process.

Implications for managerial practice This paper has discussed how work can be allowed to become a meditation to further personal growth for managers, raising the question of what the consequences of such a process are for the business? The study suggests that allowing work to become a meditation has implications for managerial practice on several levels. By having a more meditative attitude towards work, it becomes possible to make more sustainable decisions. There are several reasons for this. First, these decisions are grounded in more and larger perspectives, and combine “head knowledge,” “heart knowledge,” and “body knowledge.” Second, the knowledge is rooted in the manager’s own direct experience, rather than being based on only logical arguments or so-called best practice derived from “successful” organizations. One consequence of the process in which these decisions are made is building relationships with stakeholders, characterized by greater openness and authenticity, thus offering an increased capacity to handle difficult situations in more constructive and sustainable ways. Over time, this can contribute to substantial changes in the way business is conducted. Observations from the research process include: more time spent on strategic work; changes in the business model leading to more focused project portfolios; a larger share of activities contributing to the greater good; renewed and healthier relations among co-owners; less “smart solutions” employed in order to avoid issues that one feels resistance towards; starting projects in order to address root causes of organizational problems; and, a reluctance to start new projects that are not firmly rooted in the managers’ passion and/or the company’s concrete needs. Together and viewed from a long-term perspective, these changes suggest a potentially more viable way of doing business.

Conclusion Literature suggests that formal meditation practice increases a person’s ability to change her or his perspective, which is considered fundamental for personal growth to occur. Thus, by actively engaging in work with a meditative attitude, work may actually become a principal route to personal growth for middle-aged managers.

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The process identified in this paper unfolds as the individual’s focus shifts from attending to suffering, to witnessing what is, and finally to responding with authenticity. While formal meditation practice provides managers with a necessary foundation for personal growth, it is not sufficient. One needs to integrate the insights brought about by meditation practice into her or his daily life. As work accounts for the major part of a middle-aged manager’s life, it may either become an obstacle to personal growth or an enabler of it. This paper has identified one way of making use of the numerous situations provided by work to further personal growth. The spiritual intention of personal growth enables a motivated person to stick to a meditative attitude which is much stronger than, for example, wanting to reduce stress or becoming more productive at work. A powerful motivation is needed as contemplative practices are difficult to pick up; when meeting difficult feelings it is easy to turn to the escape routes offered by working life with the perceived demands of “efficiency” by purely instrumental intentions. In order to have enough “internal space”, it is very important to continuously cultivate the meditative attitude in ways that are feasible; the opposite of stubbornly sticking to a formal practice, doomed to failure after a short period of time. This study clearly indicates that it is important to find one’s own way. Formal meditation can be complemented with other activities contributing to one’s general well-being both at work and at home. This includes, for instance, taking pauses at work when tired, pursuing projects that give energy, making sure that one’s office space provides a healthy environment, taking long lunches, going on regular holidays, spending time with friends and family, and – last but not least – having fun. Ultimately, it seems that the research setting and the process have also been important for allowing work to become a meditation. While the participants’ previous “programming” to a large extent was guided by external expectations, their challenge was to start listening to new values emerging from the inside. The collaborative setting provided a context in which these sprouts of new values could be cultivated without judgments in a zone free from the “old voices.” In this way, the research setting as such provided a kind of “holding environment” for the managers.

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Kent D. Miller

Discernment in management and organizations Abstract: Discernment integrates spiritual and religious values, wisdom, and sensibilities into decision making. What can spiritual and religious traditions of discernment contribute to management and organizations? A set of authors has responded to this question and offered initial empirical evidence. This article identifies and reviews research on discernment in management and organization studies, and clarifies the nature and location of discernment within the field. It also draws together writings on discernment from outside the field, organizes their coverage according to three units of analysis – processes, practices, and meetings – and elaborates the details of discernment within each. The literature review and conceptual development offered here sets the stage for further advances in discernment research and extending discernment in management and organizations. Keywords: Decision making, discernment, managerial reflection, sensemaking, spiritual practices Delbecq et al. (2004) commended discernment to senior managers as a perspective that integrates spiritual wisdom into the analytical process required to make decisions about complex business issues. Concurrently, Falque and Duriau (2004) presented discernment as a process invoking analytical rationality and personal spirituality in managerial decision making. Likewise, Benefiel (2005b, ch. 4; 2008) affirmed discernment as a spiritual approach to individual and group decision making that includes intellectual and emotional intelligence. Other authors subsequently picked up this theme and carried it forward in management and organization research. The result is a set of articles, chapters, and books explaining and illustrating discernment in managerial and organizational settings. This literature has yet to take on a recognized identity as a stream of management and organization research. As such, the first purpose of the present article is to identify and review discernment research within management and organization studies. Interests in the potential contribution of discernment to management practice and assessment of the research to date motivate this review of the literature. Next, this article clarifies the nature of discernment and identifies where it fits among the diverse topics

Acknowledgments: Conversations with Portia Brown-Winston, Vanderlei Soela, and Jura Yanagihara contributed to my understanding of discernment in management and organizations. I thank them and two anonymous JMSR reviewers for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Source: Kent D. Miller. Discernment in management and organizations, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2020, Vol. 17, No. 5, 373–402, https://doi.org/10.1080/14766086.2020.1812425 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-010

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associated with managing and organizations. For clarification and further elaboration of the nature of discernment, I turn to the largely-untapped body of recent work on discernment outside the field. I locate discernment as a topic proximate to managerial reflection and sensemaking in organizations. This study further contributes by organizing the literature on discernment in terms of three units of analysis – process, practices, and meetings (see Hildreth 1990; Kouamé and Langley 2018; Whittington 2007) – and elaborating the details of each. Overall, this study seeks to raise awareness and understanding of discernment in management and organizations and contributes to conceptual development that serves researchers and practitioners.

Management and organization literature I employed the snowball method to identify literature on discernment in management and organizations. After identifying a few key references, this search proceeded by examining their cited references and subsequent work citing these key references. Starting points from which to search backward and forward included Delbecq et al. (2004), Benefiel (2008), Traüffer et al. (2010a, 2010b), and Rothausen (2017). I used both Google Scholar and Scopus to identify citing references. In addition, using the keyword “discernment,” I searched all past issues of Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion. Figure 1 provides an overview of identified articles, chapters, and books according to their date of publication from 2004 (the inaugural year for discernment publications in the management and organization literature) through 2019. This review of the management and organization literature on discernment proceeds chronologically. Nevertheless, because authors’ works tend to cluster in time, and any given author tends to develop related themes, a chronological presentation of the literature also turns out to be thematic. Hence, this review provides both an indication of temporal precedence and thematic development within the management and organization literature on discernment.

Chronological review Pioneering work Delbecq et al. (2004, 146) reasoned that complex managerial decisions call for “[a]n intuitive holistic perspective that integrates wisdom, human sensitivity, and value premises” with analytical techniques. They proposed integrating wisdom and spiritual traditions into managerial reasoning and practice. In particular, they considered what the Christian tradition of discernment might contribute to strategic decision making. Within this tradition, “[d]iscernment is the process of developing eyes to see God in the midst of

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ordinary, finite existence, to allow ourselves to be stirred by this God and called into a vocation of service in God’s creative project” (Delbecq et al. 2004, 147). Importantly, these authors’ framing challenges dualistic separation of secular and sacred realms; instead, they depict organizations as spiritual, as well as sociomaterial, contexts. This framing surfaces new questions and possibilities by bringing a spiritual perspective to organizational issues. According to these authors, discernment evokes creative thinking about means and ends that helps to overcome reductionist and myopic decision framing. It also affords opportunities for building consensus during decision making, which supports the ensuing coordinated response. Allen (2017) Burton (2017) de Jongh (2017) Rothausen (2017) Burton, Koning, & Muers (2018) Falque & Bougon (2014) Muers & Burton (2018) Tran & Carey (2018) Traüffer et al. (2010a) Burton & Bainbridge (2019) Traüffer et al. (2010b) Nullens (2019)

Benefiel (2008) Cavanagh & Hazen (2008) Delbecq et al. (2004) Falque & Duriau (2004) Benefiel (2005a) Benefiel (2005b)

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Figure 1: Timeline of Literature on Discernment in Management and Organizations.

According to Delbecq et al. (2004), spiritual practices within the Christian tradition (particularly contemplation and prayer) foster openness to new insights and patience in resolving dilemmas. A posture of “indifference” sets aside initial inclinations for the sake of greater patience and freedom in deliberation. This posture finds practical expression in openness to learning from others, gathering and analyzing relevant data, considering multiple alternatives, and reconciling stakeholders’ different concerns. Spiritual practices shape managers to be non-anxious in their unknowing and to relinquish self-serving interests and control over the eventual outcome. Once a decision is reached, it is held open until confirmed through subjective internal indicators (i.e., feelings and perceptions) and external validation from other sources. Managers practicing discernment attend to decision outcomes – beyond operational and strategic performance – that include their own spiritual formation and the quality of their interpersonal relationships. Falque and Duriau (2004) summarized the Ignatian approach to discernment in five steps. First, define finality or the ultimate end sought. The finality for any decision is a core presupposition that encompasses one’s particular identity and vision for life. Second, formulate the question in terms of binary alternatives oriented toward this finality. Questions can be formulated as choices between alternatives (option 1 or option 2) or choices to act on a single option or not. Third, deliberate on the internal and external implications of the choice. Deliberation encompasses both intrapersonal feelings and contextual evidence pertaining to the choice. Fourth, adopt the option that emerges as favored based on rational and spiritual considerations. A choice should grow out of

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personal conviction that builds momentum toward a particular course of action. Fifth, confirm the choice internally and externally before acting on it. Consistent with the third step (deliberation), both personal feelings and affirmations from relevant evidence and advisors contribute toward confirming a choice. Falque and Duriau offered a case study to illustrate application of Ignatian discernment to employee appraisal. Their case illustrates, inter alia, “how the use of discernment can lead to increased self-awareness and the realization of important contextual factors” (Falque and Duriau 2004, 66). Furthermore, discernment surfaces the contradictions involved in managerial decisions and promotes flexibility and effective interpretation of organizational procedures. However, these authors also point out several impediments to practicing discernment in organizations, particularly the challenge of sustaining the level of managerial engagement through the steps that the process requires and avoiding turning the process into a ritualistic exercise. They called for further research examining the effectiveness of discernment in managerial decision making. In developing the theme of spiritual leadership, Benefiel (2005a, 2005b) featured discernment. She portrays discernment as involving “all of one’s faculties within the larger context of the transcendent . . . Through being deeply spiritually grounded, the discerner cuts through the usual distractions and attachments that obscure accurate perception, and seeks to see reality clearly” (Benefiel 2005b, 51). Drawing from Delbecq et al. (2004), Benefiel (2005b, ch. 4; 2008) affirms five principles for practicing discernment in organizational leadership: (1) enter the decision process with a reflective disposition, (2) exercise patience in discovering the underlying nature of the decision issue, (3) undertake the hard and time-consuming work of gathering information, (4) reflect and pray, and (5) test tentative decisions by attending to their outcomes. Although leaders can practice discernment individually, collectives (i.e., groups, organizations, and communities) can do so as well (Benefiel 2005b, 2008). Individual discerners contribute to collective discernment and discerning communities support and guide individuals in their personal discernment processes. Benefiel (2008) highlighted the ongoing inner spiritual preparation of leaders that supports collective discernment in organizations. Collective discernment calls for openness and trust, attentive listening, and a shared commitment to seeking God’s guidance for the situation at hand (Benefiel 2005b, ch. 8). An implication of collective discernment is shared support for the decision in which participants had a part. Furthermore, Benefiel (2005b, ch. 4; 2008) pointed out that discernment is not exclusive to Christianity; Greek philosophy, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sufism, among other traditions, espouse their own expressions of discernment.

Construct development For Traüffer et al. (2010b, 178), discernment brings spiritual and religious sensibilities to the acquisition and application of knowledge in decision making. Discernment is expressed in a reflective response to exercise judgment in complex situations. Overall,

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“discernment appears representative of a multidimensional concept of decision making by logic and reason, by empathy gained through reflection and understanding, and by moral ethics determined by one’s spirituality” (Traüffer et al. 2010b, 178). These authors identify three behavior components within discernment: knowledge acquisition, selfregulation, and knowledge application. Knowledge acquisition refers to gathering information pertinent to understanding a situation that bears upon the decision outcome, and includes distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information. Self-regulation occurs through forethought given to assessing one’s motivations and the consequences of behaviors within a social setting. Knowledge application involves organizing information to gain understanding and acting to bring about preferred outcomes. These three components of discernment bring understandings of context and self to decision making. Running throughout these behaviors is a willingness to surface and challenge one’s personal values and assumptions, thereby opening oneself and the situation to transformation. Following their conceptual article, Traüffer et al. (2010a) developed an instrument for measuring organizational leaders’ discernment practices. Starting with 50 items administered to 250 respondents, they applied principal component analysis to identify three primary factors composed of 14 total items, which they labeled “courage,” “intuition,” and “faith.” The first factor (8 items) addressed “the leader’s mental and moral courage; willingness to accept uncertainty; use of common sense; as well as ability to seek new ways to look at old things; see a future full of possibilities, believing in the equality of all people; and to be firm, but loving, in addressing issues” (Traüffer et al. 2010a, 274). The second factor (3 items) referred to “the leader’s understanding of his or her emotions; willingness to make decisions based on a hunch; as well as paying attention to body cues or thoughts that may flash across the mind” (Traüffer et al. 2010a, 274). The third (3 items) included “the leader’s use of quiet time (to include prayer and meditation) to reflect and find meaning; use of principles of faith as guidance; as well as incorporating religious beliefs in professional undertakings” (Traüffer et al. 2010a, 274). This study supports an understanding of discernment as multidimensional, encompassing leadership traits such as courage, intuition, and faith.

Hermeneutics de Jongh (2017) calls attention to the unavoidability of subjective interpretation in managing organizations and, hence, the relevance of hermeneutics. Discernment, for de Jongh (2017, 64), is “inevitably bound up with a normative frame of reference in the sense of one’s orientation in life, values, worldview or religion.” He turns to some literature on discernment within management for guidance regarding the nature of managers’ hermeneutical horizon. His primary sources, Delbecq et al. (2004) and Falque and Bougon (2014), followed the Ignatian discernment tradition. This tradition affirms the subjectivity of decision making and, hence, the value of clarifying frames of

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reference, personal motivations, and ultimate ends. Subjectivity is evident in reliance upon a general sense of correctness associated with the direction chosen. de Jongh (2017) summarizes six guidelines for practicing discernment in managerial contexts. First, recognize that organizational behavior is not solely determined by external factors and that organizational participants, including managers, exercise agency, and are responsible for their own conduct. Second, it is crucial that managers maintain a reflective disposition with respect to their own experiences, sustained by a community of accountability and support. Third, there must be a desire for and, more preferably, a commitment to human growth. Fourth, discernment calls for patience and “continued listening that always recognizes that the deeper questions or issues may not emerge until one is further on in the process” (de Jongh 2017, 65). Fifth, managers rely upon awareness of their internal movements and attend to the interpretation of these movements in order to assess the correctness of any choice. Finally, managers must remain attentive to their experience of events and implications following their decision to act on what they have discerned.

Ignatian practices Rothausen (2017) discussed discernment within the context of leader development practices. For her, leader development calls for reflection and moral centering, which she elaborates in terms of Ignatian (Jesuit) spiritual principles and practices. Within this tradition, ultimate ends are transcendent and centered on God. Rothausen relates feelings of consolation and desolation to ultimate ends, accompanying means, and motivations. Distinguishing between consolation and desolation can be subtle; insight comes more from the “aftertaste” that an option leaves rather than from an initial sense of exhilaration, which can reflect disordered desires centered on self rather than God. Rothausen (2017, 819) cautioned that consolation and desolation should not be reduced to pleasure and pain; instead, they reflect motivations toward “love-based contributions to the common good” or “fear-based self-interest.” The personal practice of journaling (“keeping spiritual notes”) can facilitate the personal reflection needed for discernment and leader development (see also Nullens 2019). Discernment takes place at the level of the developing leaders’ personal vocation (i.e., calling or purpose) as well as organizations’ missions. Practices that cultivate personal spiritual formation equip managers to lead collective discernment in organizations. Chapters by Cavanagh and Hazen (2008), Tran and Carey (2018), and Nullens (2019) also examine the relevance of the Ignatian perspective on discernment to organizational leadership. Cavanagh and Hazen (2008) present three diverse examples of the successful application of Ignatian discernment in organizations. They illustrate its application to the challenge of responding to global climate change and commend the method for bringing together analysis of information, emotions, imagination, and an orientation toward action. Tran and Carey (2018) review and integrate prior literature

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on Ignatian leadership. Discernment, with introspection and openness, is at the heart of this approach. Nullens (2019) depicts Ignatian spirituality as bridging self-awareness and morally responsible leadership. By employing spiritual consciousness, discernment goes beyond cognitive and emotional dimensions of decision making. Solitude and silence create space for reflection, getting in touch with one’s deepest values, and hearing from God. Discernment calls for humility, expressed as detachment from the agenda of oneself, which brings freedom expressed in creative decision making.

Quaker business method Discernment was not the primary subject for Reis Louis (1994), Allen (2017), Burton (2017), or Burton, Koning, and Muers (2018), yet all characterized the Quaker business method as an approach to collective discernment. This distinctive process calls meeting participants to attend to God as the ultimate authority for decision making. The process of collective deliberation includes spoken contributions and periods of silence. Anyone may speak during a Quaker business meeting. Concern for others and finding a way forward together should motivate speakers, rather than advocacy for partisan points of view. Norms for speaking include not speaking twice or repeating a point already raised. Intermittent periods of silence invite reflection. Allen (2017) emphasizes the recognition of “unknowing” (i.e., one’s own personal ignorance) in receptivity to others’ statements. Personal discernment of the Spirit’s leading contributes to a collective “sense of the meeting” resulting in a decision to act. Unlike decisions based on participants’ willingness to compromise, the intention behind the Quaker business method is to produce unity in affirming the direction that emerges in the course of the meeting. Muers and Burton (2018) and Burton and Bainbridge (2019) examined the applicability of the Quaker business method to non-religious organizations. The former article assesses the method’s transferability to settings where its core theological assumptions are absent. Muers and Burton (2018) argue that Quaker decision-making revolves around enacting truth throughout the process, where truth is understood in terms of both the (ontologically) real and the (ethically) normative. Such an epistemological stance, which need not be theological, applies in nonreligious organizations; hence, the Quaker discernment approach holds promise for effective deployment in non-Quaker organizations. Burton and Bainbridge (2019) consider the challenges to practicing discernment posed by corporate legal compliance. They highlight the role of the clerk and conflict resolution within the Quaker business method. The clerk facilitates the group discernment process – including presenting the business at hand, sensing the emerging consensus, proposing and recording minutes that reflect that consensus, and following up on action items. Lack of consensus suggests that God’s will has not been discerned and that there is a need to take more time to reach a decision. Waiting can contribute to conflict resolution. Dissenters may choose to “stand aside” in order not to obstruct

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the shared sense of direction, despite personal reservations. Burton and Bainbridge (2019, 11) conclude that the Quaker business method “may offer advantages to nonQuaker and non-religious organizations in terms of a more collaborative and participative approach to making decisions”; nevertheless, “remaining compliant with the requirements of corporate law presents non-trivial challenges.” Compliance calls for shareholder approval of bespoke articles of incorporation amended to include the Quaker business method.

Observations This review of the literature on discernment in management and organizations prompts observations in several areas.

Value orientation Authors motivate interest in discernment on the basis that conventional approaches to managerial decision making fail to integrate the values, wisdom, and sensibilities found in spiritual and religious traditions. They do not argue against analytical or so-called “rational” approaches, but instead view discernment as complementing and enhancing such processes. There is some openness to including wisdom traditions beyond spiritualities and religions, such as those based on secular philosophies (Benefiel 2005b, 2008); however, to date, no author has pursued a non-religious tradition when developing the topic. Hence, within this literature, the primary distinguishing characteristic of discernment is the integration of spiritual and religious sensibilities and practices into managerial decision making. Studies in this line of research seek to overcome the presumed dichotomy between secular (sociomaterial) and sacred (spiritual) realms; instead, they propose a holistic approach to decision making that integrates criteria and practices from both. Spiritual and religious traditions contribute to the hermeneutic used to interpret data relevant to a managerial decision (de Jongh 2017; Traüffer et al. 2010b). The decisions of interest for applying discernment generally relate to organizational mission and strategy, but also include functional decisions such as those regarding personnel (Falque and Duriau 2004). Decision quality depends on the values reflected in the managerial process, not just the decision outcome and ensuing performance. Furthermore, discernment includes both personal and interpersonal practices, and each level complements the other (Benefiel 2005b, 2008; Rothausen 2017). From a discernment perspective, decision making efforts are occasions for spiritual growth, as well as building and strengthening relationships; they are occasions for expressing and cultivating virtues. Discerners express ethical convictions in their practices, relationships, and decisions.

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Portrayal of discernment Authors present a consistent portrayal of discernment and guidelines for its practice. Discernment calls for a personal posture of patience and openness that sets aside selfinterest and control. Orientation for the process is found in clarifying the question, values at stake, and ultimate ends. Discerners seek information broadly and listen carefully to others’ perspectives. They deliberate collectively and reflect personally. They evaluate personal motives from within the perspective offered by their spiritual or religious tradition, and prioritize spiritual growth, freedom, and expression of faith-based values. The process is spiritual in both its formative and expressive dimensions. Decisions occur as personal conviction and collective sense of God’s direction build. Intrapersonal and external confirmation should precede acting on a decision reached. The management and organization literature on discernment consistently develops and reinforces these complementary themes, and applies them normatively and descriptively. An Ignatian perspective predominates in this literature. This reflects the seminal role of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises (Ignatius of Loyola 1951) in Catholic and Protestant understandings of discernment, and the predominance of the Christian faith in the authors’ Western cultural contexts. Framing in terms of Ignatian principles and practices affirms a particular normative understanding of the discernment process. This article’s appendix provides details from St. Ignatius’ seminal guidance for discernment. The other tradition evident in this literature is the Quaker business method, as applied within and beyond Quaker circles. Ignatian and Quaker traditions value discernment as ways of orienting participants’ lives toward God. However, they differ in their respective emphases on personal and communal discernment. The Ignatian perspective focuses on the individual discerner, who may be accompanied and guided by an experienced person. The emphasis is on personal spiritual formation and life direction. In the Quaker tradition, the process is communal. It builds interpersonal relationships and fosters unity regarding collective direction. Research on discernment in management has yet to venture in any significant way beyond the normative perspectives of the Ignatian (Jesuit) and Quaker traditions within Christianity. Although Benefiel (2005b, 2008) recognized that other spiritual and religious traditions affirm and practice discernment, alternative perspectives remain unexplored in the management literature. By elaborating the nature of discernment primarily from within just two traditions, the field lacks a conceptualization of discernment that applies across traditions in general. Whereas discernment must necessarily be practiced within particular traditions (i.e., there is no generic expression of discernment), nevertheless, the phenomenon should be defined and conceptualized in terms that reflect process characteristics that generalize across traditions.

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Limited research This line of research is young, dating back to Delbecq et al. (2004) and Falque and Duriau (2004). The set of contributors and writings on discernment in management and organizations is limited but publications on this topic are coming more frequently as time passes (see Figure 1). Early work showed little referencing of prior work on discernment in the management literature. References to the discernment literature were selective and came mostly from outside management. Only recently do we see more extensive acknowledgment of prior discernment research within management and organization studies. This search revealed ten journal articles, seven book chapters, and two books (one in French) on discernment related to management and organizations.1 Although most authors contributed just a single piece on discernment, others (Falque, Benefiel, Traüffer and coauthors, and Burton and Muers) have contributed two or more pieces, suggesting that it is possible to develop a research program on this topic. Empirical work on discernment in the field of management consists primarily of illustrative case studies. Each case reflects a particular tradition, and only Benefiel (2005b) offers comparative case studies of organizations operating on the basis of different spiritual and religious traditions. Traüffer et al.’s (2010a) development of an instrument for measuring discernment practices stands out as the sole study using quantitative methods. Despite these authors’ intention to foster quantitative empirical research on discernment, this search of the literature found no subsequent published research applying their instrument.2 Questions could be raised about whether the items in the instrument and the factors that they compose – namely, courage, intuition, and faith – are sufficiently precise to capture validly discernment practices. Their items worded to reflect the individual leader’s perspective do not encompass the management team or organizational process. Much room remains for expanding the quantitative and qualitative methods applied in empirical discernment research.

Clarifying and locating discernment The preceding review of the literature on discernment in management and organizations leaves two fundamental questions unanswered. First, exactly what sort of phenomenon is discernment? This question presses for clarity regarding the definition and nature of discernment. Second, where does discernment fit into the management and organization literature? Locating discernment within the literature can clarify where it contributes to research and practice, and where other research streams may shed light on discernment. Framed in terms of these two questions, this section specifies discernment’s nature and identifies connections to the broader management literature.

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Discernment’s nature The word “discernment” comes from the Latin word “discernere,” which means to separate, set apart, divide, distribute, distinguish, or perceive. “Discernment means making a discriminating choice between two or more good options, seeking the best for this moment” (Liebert 2008b, 10). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in contemporary usage, discernment refers to both an action and a faculty of perceiving or distinguishing. In other words, it is both a process and a skill for discriminating. Perceiving differences is critical to reaching judgments of truth, value, and how to act (Lawler and Salzman 2012). According to what criteria do we discriminate? Framed spiritually, discernment “means skill in discriminating between those influences that enhance or lead to a fuller relationship with God or transcendent reality or, where no belief in transcendent reality is held, to fuller appropriation and implementation of one’s value system” (Koenig 2014, 502). Framed psychologically, “discernment is an intentional practice which develops the ability to act in accordance with those agencies that are conducive to integration of the personality and which avoids or resists those influences that would bring about psychic fragmentation or disintegration” (Koenig 2014, 502). Overall, discernment is the process or capacity for “seeing clearly enough to make wellconsidered decisions which take into account and integrate the multiple dimensions of life” (Koenig 2014, 502). Discernment is not a systematized method for decision making; instead, it is situational and allows for creative improvisation. “Because the evidence and experiences on which we act are usually conflicting and ambivalent, and because we are by nature vulnerable to our capacity for self-deception, discernment is often tentative and uncertain” (Farnham et al. 1991, 27). “Discernment, which proceeds in a series of local and bounded reflections, decisions, and evaluations, each providing the context for the next, provides one way to proceed tactically, pragmatically and tentatively” (Liebert 2008a, 339). Liebert (2008a) argues that discernment has particular relevance in the current postmodern intellectual and cultural setting. “The way forward in the postmodern world is not necessarily by grand schemes and huge institutional responses, but by small, tactical, pragmatic, incremental, dialogical and consensusbased action, which is the kind of outcome we would expect from repeated local, bounded and contextualized discernments” (Liebert 2008a, 339). Dialogue and consensus building are critical to establishing what is true and right during this process. Truth and guidance emerge relationally, through dialogue, rather than objectively (Lawler and Salzman 2012). Justification of beliefs and actions through dialogue in a social setting, rather than according to acontextual or timeless criteria, receives support among philosophers such as Habermas (1984, 2003). The postmodern context acknowledges – and even insists upon – the inherent hermeneutical dimension, and thus subjectivity and intersubjectivity, in how people understand and find their

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way in the world (de Jongh 2017). Discernment proceeds based on faith and hope, not certainty. Discernment is a fitting response to a postsecular culture (see Parmaksız 2016). Postsecular culture recognizes the unavoidability of faith in human knowing and action (Milbank 1992). Postsecularism allows for the expression of diverse faith-based perspectives (whether spiritual, religious, or secular), none of which has privileged or taken-for-granted standing in public discourse (Casanova 1994; Taylor 2007). Such a cultural setting affords the possibility of integrating spirituality and religion with secular reasoning in discourse and decision making. It allows that there is not a single normative form of rationality, but instead a plurality of possible faith-based rationalities expressed in knowing, deciding, and acting (MacIntyre 1988; Schrag 1992; van Huyssteen 1999). For a postsecular culture, discernment takes shape through dialogue between secular and sacred perspectives on decision making and seeks to integrate the two. Postsecularism also imposes the challenge of discerning between diverse spiritual and religious expressions (Hettema 2015) and engaging in discernment in inter-faith groups (Cornille 2009; Panikkar 1999). This postmodern and postsecular framing raises questions about the epistemological basis for discernment. What criteria for knowing apply? What kind of truth does discernment produce? In what sense are the resulting decisions correct, or not? Relative to secular norms for managerial understanding and decision making, discernment carries a distinct epistemology. This epistemology, which may be more implicit than explicit in practice, unites moral and intellectual virtues in analyzing situations and making decisions (e.g., Muers and Burton 2018; Traüffer et al. 2010b). Truth is known and done in relation to an understanding of the transcendent shared within a faith community. Hence, discernment calls for an enlarged sense of reality relative to secular thinking. As such, discernment employs an expanded ontology as well as a distinctive epistemology. It considers that more is at stake than secular reasoning and decision making acknowledge. The spiritual lives of the persons involved in the process and the quality of their relationships with one another are at least as important as the truth claims and direction discovered. The epistemic criteria in play are ethical, esthetic, and theological (Libânio 1982; Macintosh 2004) as well as scientific and pragmatic.

Related management literature Where does this conception of discernment fit within the diverse subject matter of the field of management and organization studies? Three points of connection stand out. In its epistemological orientation, discernment aligns with the interpretivist perspective in management and organization research. Discernment also overlaps with two specific phenomena studied in the field: managerial reflection and sensemaking in organizations.

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Interpretivism Among management writers, de Jongh (2017) makes explicit and elaborates the interpretive nature of discernment. Interpretivism appreciates the inherent hermeneutical challenge involved in management practice and research (e.g., Allard-Poesi 2005; Cunliffe 2011; Gabriel 1991; Phillips and Brown 1993; Prasad 2002). Social situations, like texts, call for interpretation (Ricoeur 1981), yet their features underdetermine their meaning. Interpreters confer meanings to ambiguous and polyvalent situations. They do so as members of practitioner communities with distinct hermeneutical traditions (Brown and Duguid 1991; Knorr Cetina 1999). Meanings are proposed, contested, and reworked within such local and time-bound communities. Recognizing that interpretations of texts and social situations reflect local traditions has been an important feature of philosophical hermeneutics since Gadamer (2002). Perspectives and presuppositions inherited through participation in local traditions both enable and constrain meaning making (Westphal 2009, ch. 6).

Managerial reflection Research on reflection dates to Schön’s (1983) classic book, The Reflective Practitioner, which highlighted reflection in managerial action. This research claims reflection in and around acting as the basis for managers’ skillful performances and ongoing learning. Schön (1983) described this way of acting and learning as “reflective conversation with the situation.” Subsequent research incorporated social construction of the context and, hence, “reflexivity” to acknowledge the reverberation of one’s own actions in subsequent situations faced. Managers do not simply reflect independently within a given setting; instead, they author social realities through interpersonal dialogue (Barge 2004; Cunliffe 2001; Shotter 1993). Such dialogue shapes managers’ personal identities along with the nature and meaning of the situation. Cunliffe (2004) argues that the demands of their role as authors of social reality call managers to “critical reflexive questioning” of their practices and assumptions, including the ethical implications of their decisions (see also Cunliffe 2009; Hibbert and Cunliffe 2015). How managers participate as “coauthors” in dialogue, not just what they produce as a result, carries ethical connotations worthy of reflection (Cunliffe 2002; Shotter and Cunliffe 2003). Allen (2017) makes explicit the connection between reflexive practice and discernment in the setting of the Quaker business method. For Allen, managing reflexively can be understood as a collective practice of searching for unity, as expressed in Quakers’ “sense of the meeting,” achieved through a social process.

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Sensemaking Research on sensemaking in organizations has its roots in Weick’s (1979) seminal book, The Social Psychology of Organizing. There is considerable overlap between sensemaking and reflexivity in organizations, and Weick’s (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations provides a point of convergence that is widely cited in both streams of work. Sensemaking is the interpretive and constructive process that creates meaning out of an ambiguous situation (Weick 1995; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). Sensemaking refers to action, which may include, but also extends beyond, decision making (Sutcliffe 2018). Sensemaking seeks clarification of organizational identity, meaning, and direction in changing circumstances. Although sensemaking is ongoing in organizations, novel events, such as crises, can intensify sensemaking activities (Christianson et al. 2009; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). Mindfulness in sensemaking, expressed as attentiveness to context and appreciation of alternative ways to respond in coordination with other actors, can improve the reliability of organizational performance (Weick and Sutcliffe 2006; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 1999). In their review, Maitlis and Christianson (2014) pointed out that the sensemaking literature includes portrayals as an individual-level cognitive process as well as social and discursive. Sensegiving – in which individuals attempt to influence the sensemaking of others (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991) – assumes sensemaking goes on at both levels of analysis. We already observed that discernment similarly includes complementary personal and social processes (e.g., Benefiel 2005b, 2008; Falque and Duriau 2004; Rothausen 2017). Maitlis and Christianson (2014) also note that, although the preponderance of the literature frames sensemaking as retrospective, sensemaking also can be prospective. Likewise, discernment draws from the past and projects into the future; hence, it is a process involving an inclusive temporal horizon (cf., Hernes & Matlis, 2010; Wiebe 2010). What remains unique to discernment relative to portrayals of reflexivity and sense-making in organizations is its acknowledgment of the influence – and normative role – of spirituality and religion in constructing intersubjective meaning.

Process, practices, and meetings The literature on discernment from outside the field remains largely untapped in management and organization research. Writers have acknowledged little of this literature and many potential contributions to management discussions have gone unexplored. Hence, this section seeks to advance the study of discernment in the field of management and organizations by reading beyond the work already cited in order to describe discernment in organizational settings more fully than prior accounts. Discernment never takes a generic form. It is situated and traditioned, and depends on the organizational context and question faced. As such, discernment is always distinct

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in its particular expression. Nevertheless, the literature on discernment seeks to identify patterns in the process and practices that are observable and potentially transferrable across places and time. This literature is explicitly normative. The authors advocate processual features and practices consistent with their espoused faith. The Christian tradition predominates in the literature on discernment available in English; hence, it does so in this synthesis of the literature as well. Drawing from this literature, this presentation necessarily reflects the contributing authors’ normative stances; nevertheless, it also describes discernment to the extent that prescription and practice inform each other. To organize this section, I distinguish between processes and practices (see Kouamé and Langley 2018; Whittington 2007). A process consists of sequential activities undertaken over time, where sequencing matters to outcomes because some activities are necessary precursors for others (Mohr 1982, ch. 2; Pettigrew 1997). Identifying patterns in events over time is the key to understanding processes, and such understanding often takes the form of a narrative account (Clandinin and Connelly 2000; Langley 1999). In keeping with an interest in management and organizations, the models of the discernment process chosen for presentation here apply to groups, rather than individuals. Practices are human activities that are organized socially based on understandings, rules, emotions, and intentions (Schatzki 2005). Practices reflect values and, as such, can be performed in ways that express virtues (MacIntyre 1984). The “practice turn” in social theory has influenced studies of religion and congregations as well as management and business organizations (e.g., Bass 2010; Kouamé and Langley 2018; Whittington 2006), thereby providing a shared analytical perspective to relate work across the two fields. Spiritual and religious practices figure prominently in discussions of discernment. Discernment practices include a variety of ways of attending to what is going on spiritually in a social setting, and growing in personal and collective capacity for such attending (Fendall, Wood, and Bishop 2007, ch. 2). The practices in themselves carry no assurance of discerning well; they merely establish a personal or group posture that is conducive to discerning (Farnham et al. 1991, ch. 4). In addition to process and practices, the discernment literature features a third unit of analysis: meetings. Meetings are organized events that bring people together with a focus of attention oriented toward a purpose (e.g., Goffman 1961; Hildreth 1990). As discussed in the review above, research on the Quaker business method identifies meetings as the primary setting for group discernment. Likewise, discernment literature outside the management field often addresses how to organize and conduct meetings. Meetings vary in the extent to which their agendas encompass the sequential activities making up an overall discernment process. Also, as discussed below, discernment meetings incorporate spiritual practices suited to the occasion. Hence, the discernment meeting constitutes a distinct unit of analysis mediating between the overall discernment process and specific discernment practices.

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Discernment Process Movements in discernment Drawing together different strands from Christian history, Morris and Olsen (1997, ch. 4) propose a discernment process consisting of 10 movements. Figure 2a presents these movements in sequence; however, Morris and Olsen emphasize that the order is flexible and steps may be reordered or skipped. As a group advances, they may decide to revisit an earlier step in light of the acquired learning that informs that step. Furthermore, particular movements may be accomplished through delegation to individuals and subgroups, rather than be taken up by the group as whole (Morris and Olsen 1997, ch. 5). Framing begins the process by identifying the focus for discernment. Grounding establishes a guiding principle relevant to the issue, as informed by the values, beliefs, and mission of the discerning group. Shedding identifies and lays aside selfish and false beliefs, as well as preconceived conclusions, to establish a posture of openness to learning and possible outcomes. Rooting relates the situation for discernment to pertinent aspects of the group’s faith tradition. Listening enables hearing from those within the discernment group and other stakeholders, and attentiveness to God’s guidance. Prayer and silence, and attending to one’s own feelings are aspects of listening. Exploring imagines possible options and paths forward. Improving attempts to enhance the proposed options beyond their initial conception. Weighing sorts and tests the options. A discernment group can draw from a variety of possible evaluative criteria consistent with its tradition. Closing moves the deliberation to selecting an option. If consensus has emerged, then the decision should be straightforward. If non-consensus remains, then the group considers whether to return to earlier steps in the process, find an alternative way to decide, or drop the matter entirely. Resting tests the decision by pausing before acting on a decision and attending to subsequent feelings of consolation and desolation.

Preparation and process Barton (2012) emphasizes preparation of individual leaders and the leadership group prior to engaging in discernment. This emphasis expresses her contention that “the preparation is actually more important than the process” (Barton 2012, 13–14). Barton stresses the cultivation of discernment practices, as discussed below, for personal spiritual transformation to enable personal and collective discernment. Figure 2b summarizes the movements within Barton’s (2012) depiction. The process begins with clarifying the question for discernment. Not all questions warrant a full discernment process. A presenting issue should be probed to determine the underlying question and its significance for the organization. Once the question for discernment has been clarified and qualified, it is time to gather the group by identifying those who

Figure 2: Discernment Processes.

Current situation

Gather the group

Clarify the question

Focus for discernment

Grounding

Framing

Pray and test for indifference

Affirm guiding values and principles

Social analysis

Rooting

Shedding

Exploring

Listen together

Theological reflection Decision

(c) Liebert (2015)

Set the agenda

(b) Barton (2012)

Listening

(a) Morris and Olsen (1997)

Select and weigh options

Weighing

Confirmation

Silence

Improving

Implementation

Agree together

Closing

Evaluation

Seek confirmation

Resting

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should be involved. This group includes those who have responsibility for decision making and action in response to the question and a facilitator of the discernment process, and may include other stakeholders or experts who can make unique contributions to the group’s deliberations. Next, affirm guiding values and principles that orient the process and create safety for dialogue. Praying and testing for indifference intend freedom from disordered attachments and openness to alternatives. Not all participants may reach indifference, but willingness to be open with oneself and the group establishes collective readiness to move forward with the discernment process. Prayers for wisdom and quiet trust acknowledge leaders’ needs in facing the discernment question and affirm reliance upon divine provision. Setting the agenda establishes direction for the process and assures that needed voices and information will come before the group. Listening together includes attending to each other, to pertinent information, and to personal and group dynamics. Silence complements listening by allowing time for personal reflection. Silence introduces patience into the discernment process for the sake of thoroughness and gaining clarity. When the group reconvenes, time is given for further listening. Selecting and weighing options identifies one or more options and seeks to improve upon them. Beyond simply evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each option, the goal is to discern God’s leading. As consensus emerges, the group agrees together about the direction to pursue. The final step before acting on the decision is to seek confirmation, reflected in a sense of peace about the process and outcome. Social Discernment Cycle Liebert (2015) presents a “social discernment cycle” consisting of the sequential movements shown in Figure 2c. This model has in view a social system as the focus for discernment and eventual action. Its antecedents include Catholic teaching on social justice and liberation theology. As the term “cycle” indicates, this process is meant to be repeated over time. The process begins by choosing or clarifying the aspect of the social system that will be the focus for discernment. This initial step leads to describing the current situation, along with noting personal responses to it and feelings about it. Sharing observations and experiences within the group enriches the understandings that individuals bring and locates the group in relationship to the social system that is its focus for discernment. Social analysis delves into the empirical details of the social system – such as its history, mission, culture, relationships, and participants’ assumptions – to develop a fuller picture. Here the group collects data and can apply analytical methods from history and the social sciences, as well as management and organization studies. Theological reflection explores how resources from a religious or spiritual tradition address the social setting. Theological reflection is a dialogue between the descriptive empirical evidence and wisdom from the group’s tradition for the sake of gaining a faith-informed perspective on the situation. As the group moves toward a decision, Liebert (2015, ch. 7) advocates choosing a single feasible point of engagement that starts to move – even if

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only subtly – the complex social system. Tentative decisions require confirmation through anticipating the results of a decision, and associated emotions, that commend it. Liebert (2015, 131–132) advises, “Look for whatever enhances life, spiritual freedom, and wellbeing, and be suspicious of whatever depletes life, spiritual freedom, and well-being not only for discerners, but within the system as a whole.” Initiating the chosen first action moves the process to implementation within the social system. Evaluation may occur in parallel with implementation or follow as a means to learn and adjust, and prepare for the next cycle of discernment.

Commonalities The discernment processes described by Morris and Olsen (1997), Barton (2012), and Liebert (2015) share key features in common. These authors advocate flexibility and contextualization and, as such, their portrayals can be seen as variants within a general schema for the discernment process. Shared movements across the models include issue framing, indifference, analysis, listening and silence, identifying and improving options, evaluating options, moving toward agreement, and waiting for confirmation before implementing a decision. The following norms characterize the various movements within collective discernment processes: (1) Issue framing includes clarifying the focal question as well as the group’s guiding assumptions and values. (2) Indifference should be addressed early in the process. Seeking and testing for indifference may be a recurring need within the discernment group. (3) In advocating social analysis, Liebert (2015) acknowledges explicitly the need for applied research to gather information relevant to an issue for discernment. Other authors subsume analysis under “listening.” (4) Listening and silence complement each other and can be done iteratively. Waiting is an active part of the discernment process; it affords time for reflection, listening, and clarification of understanding regarding the situation and one’s own emotions and motivations. (5) Developing options is a constructive process: option improvement follows initial option proposal. Collective evaluation of options should move the group toward agreement about the direction to pursue. (6) An emerging consensus should be held tentatively, and confirmation sought before acting. (7) Evaluation, learning, and discerning continue during decision implementation. These sequential movements – along with the priorities that they reflect – compose the overall discernment process espoused in contemporary Christian writings.

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Discernment practices Writers commend a variety of traditional spiritual practices for discernment. Prominent among these are solitude and silence, prayer, scripture reading, worship, listening, and reflecting, each of which this section presents briefly. Although identifiable as unique, these discernment practices complement one another and often blend together in use. Writers emphasize that these practices are not merely ways of doing discernment; they are, more essentially, ways of living and growing spiritually. Individuals can do these practices, but not without connection to others. Immersion in a spiritual or religious community and its history orient and give meaning to these practices, and individuals gather to learn and engage in these practices together.

Solitude and silence Solitude involves scheduling uninterrupted time in isolation and silence that provides freedom from speaking as well as listening (Calhoun 2015, 128). Solitude and silence grant reprieve from the company of others and the many demands upon personal attention, and free people to attend to God and their spiritual lives (Barton 2006, ch. 2; 2012, ch. 2). Solitude and silence facilitate the other contemplative practices (prayer, meditation, worship, etc.). Solitude and silence also afford time for rest, refreshment, recreation, and creativity, which can bring new insight and energy for discernment. The two most influential discernment traditions within Christianity – Ignatian and Quaker – affirm solitude and silence as means to gain a fresh perspective on the issue that a decision maker faces. Movement between discussion with others and interludes of solitude and silence characterize discernment processes and meetings.

Prayer Dougherty (2009, 61) writes, “Whatever the route to a decision, the path must always be prayer. The methods we choose can never be a substitute for prayer . . . We must live receptively in all of life. Our receptivity will take different forms at different times in life, just as the form and content of the prayer of discernment may vary.” Prayer expresses the essential posture of the discerning individual or group, which is one of humility and trust in divine provision (Dougherty 1995, ch. 3). Expressions of prayer are diverse and creative. “Prayer encompasses all the ways we communicate and commune with God” (Barton 2012, 42). Liebert (2015) stresses recurrent prayer for “spiritual freedom,” resulting from a disposition called “indifference” in the Ignatian tradition, throughout the discernment process. Barton (2012, ch. 2) highlights three particular expressions of prayer pertinent to discernment: (1) prayer of

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quiet trust, which confesses dependence on God, (2) prayer for indifference, and (3) prayer for wisdom, which seeks God’s guidance.

Scripture reading The teachings of scripture provide guidance from history that can be brought to bear upon an issue for discernment. Scripture offers stories and images that stimulate the imagination. Scripture may prompt a surprising option that would not otherwise be considered; it may establish a focal point for engaging a complex issue. The purpose of reading scripture is not to support a preferred argument but instead to provide a way to listen for divine wisdom regarding the matter at hand (Farnham, Hull, and McLean 1996, 47; Fendall, Wood, and Bishop 2007, 30–31). Scripture serves discerners as a check on their assumptions, direction, and motives. The key to spiritual formation through the reading of scripture is openness to what God is speaking to the discerner(s) in their particular time and place (Barton 2012, ch. 2).

Worship Worship includes diverse ways of acknowledging and honoring God as practiced across religious and spiritual traditions. For Quakers, the business meeting is part of gathering for worship, thus worship and business are interwoven. Through worship, the meeting focuses on God; participants are given an opportunity to disengage from the pressures of their lives and settle into God’s presence (Farnham, Hull, and McLean 1996, 58). Worship exalts the one who is of supreme value, thereby giving the discerning group a theological orientation for facing the issue at hand. Worship functions as a formative spiritual experience by shaping the affections that its practitioners live (Smith 2016). From such affections arises the possibility that virtuous practices and ethical decisions are more than a mere covering for a primary orientation toward oneself.

Listening Active listening is the skill of hearing and processing the ideas and feelings conveyed by others in their words. It includes seeking clarification by asking questions, paraphrasing for assurance of understanding, and pausing to absorb what has been said. An active listener may identify and name the feelings expressed by a speaker. Listening expresses deference to others who may be quite different from the listener, and openness to learning from them. Moreover, listening in the context of spiritual discernment includes awareness of what is occurring spiritually. This means, among other things, attending to the various ways that God may be communicating – through circumstances, emotions,

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other people, and so forth (Fendall, Wood, and Bishop 2007, chs. 2–3). A holistic approach to learning and knowing encourages you as a discerner to “[l]isten to others with your entire self (senses, feelings, intuition, imagination, and rational faculties)” (Farnham, Hull, and McLean 1996, 57). Reflecting Reflection does not stand alone; it runs through solitude, silence, and prayer, among other spiritual practices. Nevertheless, it also can be a focal practice, particularly when cultivated as a regular discipline for reviewing what is going on in one’s own life and relationships. Historically, this was known as the examen (or examination of conscious). A daily habit of personal examination encourages staying up-to-date through regular reflection. Dougherty (2009, 25) explains, “In this practice, we want to be aware of the unique ways God has been present for us during the past twenty-four hours, the unique invitations to love that have been present during that time and how we have missed, responded to, or resisted those invitations.” The examen and discernment are closely related in their reliance upon and fostering of careful discrimination in choices about how to live (Liebert 2008b, 4–6). Reflection gives perspective to what is going on in our exterior and interior lives; it reveals sources of consolation and desolation, thereby contributing to discernment. Furthermore, as cultivated in the Ignatian tradition, reflection contributes to self-awareness and builds personal capacity for leading organizations (Nullens 2019; Rothausen 2017; Tran and Carey 2018). Barton (2012, 45) notes, “A leader cannot be discerning about external matters if they are not able to discern what is true and false within themselves” (Barton 2012, 45). She cautions, “If we are not growing in self- awareness through honest self-knowledge and self-examination, there is every possibility that our leadership may in the end do harm where we had hoped to do good” (Barton 2012, 44).

Discernment meetings The Quaker tradition offers a well-established protocol for structuring discernment meetings (Fendall, Wood, and Bishop 2007). These meetings begin by affirming the intention to follow God’s direction. Participants should be willing to set aside preconceived ideas and convictions, and open themselves to how God may lead the group during the meeting. The facilitator presents relevant information to the group and clarifies the issue for discernment. The group waits in silence and seeks to perceive how God is leading. The participants then share their perceptions, allowing sufficient time for all who have something to offer to do so. Next, the discussion shifts to how their observations fit together and what understanding (or “sense of the meeting”) is emerging. When the group reaches a common sense of agreement, the meeting facilitator (re)states this understanding. At this point, the facilitator may ask those who

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hold objections if they are willing to stand aside and let the decision go forward. The decision is written into a provisional minute that is read to the group to check its accuracy. The participants then reconsider and, if ready, affirm the decision as God’s wisdom for the group. Farnham et al. (1996, ch. 8) advise setting a simple agenda for discernment meetings. The agenda should provide a clear focus and adequate time to work through the discernment steps. Discernment at the highest level of governance should address issues that are strategic for the organization; less weighty matters can be delegated and handled in other settings. Boards and management teams engaging in discernment need to schedule meetings that are long enough to allow sufficient time for incorporating spiritual practices, listening to one another, and deliberating together. The scope of the meeting can be kept reasonable if it is situated within a broader discernment process, which includes pre- and post-meeting communication and work. Fendall et al. (2007, 58–60) offer four guidelines for speaking during a discernment meeting: recognition, respect, brevity, and clarity. Rather than simply speaking up when someone else finishes, or worse yet, interrupting someone while they speak, participants should ask to be recognized. They should speak respectfully, and avoid comments that demean others’ work or personhood. This perspective turns deliberation (or debate) into open dialogue, where personal vulnerability and interpersonal trust facilitate learning (see Palmer 2004). Avoiding repetition and irrelevant additions keeps comments brief, and moves the meeting along efficiently. A certain amount of “processing out loud” can help to build understanding during the discernment meeting, but speakers should seek to avoid muddled speech and, instead, express themselves as clearly as possible. Upholding norms for an effectively discernment meeting (e.g., Farnham et al. 1991, Appendix 1) is the general responsibility that the facilitator assumes. The meeting facilitator should value an inclusive process and bring a skill (or gift) for understanding what is going on spiritually during the discernment process (Fendall, Wood, and Bishop 2007). This facilitator also brings a commitment to work through conflict and find common ground among participants. The facilitator takes responsibility for organizing the meeting and the information that will come before the group. The facilitator guides the meeting through each of its sequential phases and, when needed, provides clarification and instruction to the participants. When the group is confused or in conflict, the facilitator calls the group into listening silence – for whatever duration that the group needs. As noted earlier, within the Quaker tradition, the discernment meeting facilitator is known as the “clerk” (see Burton and Bainbridge 2019). Consensus as a criterion for group discernment deserves clarification. Consensus is an alternative to voting, but it does not require unanimity. Farnham, Hull, and McLean (1996, 89) explain, “Jesuits sometimes use the terms consensus and unity interchangeably; Quakers do so less easily. Most people who practice consensus, including secular groups such as the League of Women Voters, which has used consensus for many years, generally steer away from the term unanimous.” Consensus affirms a prevailing shared perception among group members about the way forward. Consensus suggests that the group has

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given sufficient attention to lingering concerns, and that participants holding such concerns are willing to stand aside and not allow their concerns to obstruct movement toward resolution of the matter at hand. Consensus also may require deferring a decision to allow time for further reflection and to address concerns. “Consensus often unfolds over time and may not fit into a predesigned schedule” (Farnham, Hull, and McLean 1996, 32).

Discussion Values expressed in discernment In societal and organizational cultures that promote competition, productivity, selfsufficiency, and individualism, discernment offers a contrasting approach to decision making – one that emphasizes cooperation, dependence, collectivism, and ethical behavior (Farnham et al. 1991, ch. 4). Those engaged in discernment seek freedom from their own captivity to personal desires and a surrounding culture that limit their freedom to act consistently with that which is transcendent and which they ultimately value. Above all, it calls for centering on God, rather than oneself. Discerning leaders acknowledge love, trust, humility, and patience as virtues to which they aspire in their work together with others. A willingness to acknowledge ambiguity and engage in ongoing listening and learning, and not to press for hasty closure or certainty, characterizes discernment. In this way, discernment expresses appreciation for patiently “living the question” (Farnham et al. 1991, 87). Discernment acknowledges the social, material, and spiritual aspects of decision making. It involves a holistic perspective on decision making that requires paying close attention to both the external world and the inner world of emotions and desires (Au and Au 2006). “[D]iscernment goes beyond the analytical to engage our senses, feelings, imaginations, and intuition as we wrestle with issues” (Farnham, Hull, and McLean 1996, 6–7). It fosters awareness of what is at stake spiritually – personally and collectively – in the decision making process, as well as the resulting actions and outcomes. While discerning, participants have occasions for clarifying and expressing deeply-held values, experiencing spiritual growth, and supporting one another – in short, they practice their spirituality. Fendall, Wood, and Bishop (2007, 118) emphasize, “For those of us whose polity is based on group discernment, the invitation is always to go beyond the forms and procedures to the life and power that undergird them.” Within the Christian tradition, writers often frame their presentations of discernment in terms of the intention to know and do God’s will – personally and together with others (e.g., Barton 2012; Lawler and Salzman 2012; Morris and Olsen 1997). This intention is pursued in part by articulating principles from a spiritual tradition that guide inquiry into the question for discernment and the response that emerges. Beyond explicit principles, spiritual traditions shape the epistemology, ontology, and

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ethics of discernment implicit in practice. Discernment is a distinct way of knowing within a spiritual or religious community and tradition (Macintosh 2004). Its theologically-informed ontology extends beyond the social and material to the “discernment of spirits” (Chang 1998, ch. 11; Ignatius of Loyola 1951; Wink 1992). Its ethic lies in expressing theology practically in social settings. A holistic understanding of people as embodied, spiritual, and social beings in relationship with God motivates the rationality expressed in discernment. Discernment holds potential positive implications for organizations. Familiarity with discernment raises awareness of how managers can obstruct effective and ethical processes by letting their personal interests dominate decision making. Managers’ posture of indifference (spiritual freedom) opens exploration of alternatives and consideration of diverse stakeholders’ interests. Building consensus through discernment can facilitate coordination and heighten commitment during the ensuing organizational action (Delbecq et al. 2004). Nevertheless, managers and researchers should consider not only performance in terms of conventional criteria for organizational efficiency and effectiveness; they should incorporate the values affirmed within discernment traditions. Such criteria include participants’ self-awareness, spiritual growth, expression of virtues, and the quality of interpersonal relationships. Discerners value decision making and collective action as spiritual experiences, not merely as means toward personal, social, or material ends. The purposes internal to discernment reflect spiritual and religious beliefs and values that should not be overshadowed by secular performance criteria. Evaluations of discernment’s effects on managerial decision-making processes and outcomes should include criteria both internal and external to the expressed tradition.

Extending discernment in practice In many of its movements, discernment processes are similar to portrayals of managerial decision making found elsewhere – including framing the question, gathering and analyzing relevant data, and identifying courses of action and assessing their implications. Fry (2020) points out that guidelines for managerial decision making align with discernment in advocating inclusion of stakeholders, openness, safety, and mutual listening in deliberations, aspiring to creative outcomes, time for reflection, combining intuition and emotion with analytical work, and a period of incubation for reflection. When discerning, guidance for decision making found in the management literature remains relevant, yet incomplete. By bringing practical wisdom from spiritual and religious traditions, discernment augments and enhances, rather than replaces, secular approaches to decision making. Diverse spiritual and religious convictions among organizational members involved in a decision present challenges to designing a discernment process and affirming its associated beliefs and practices. The diverse faith traditions to which organizational members adhere contrast with the assumption of a common tradition implicit in much

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of the literature on discernment. Members in organizations embedded in cultural settings with a single dominant religion should be able to come to shared appreciation for discernment as practiced within their tradition. Religious or faith-based organizations – where values, norms, and mission are understood in spiritual terms – are better prepared to engage in discernment than organizations where such framing of managerial issues is missing. Organizations characterized by spiritual and religious diversity face the challenge of designing inclusive processes and practices. Organizations may lack capacity for interfaith dialogue and the willingness to contribute resources to cultivating it. Where the organizational culture precludes collective discernment, individuals remain free to practice discernment personally. Gaining a better understanding of the challenges and adaptations required for practicing discernment in non-religious organizations, such as business firms, should motivate future learning. By assessing the applicability of the Quaker business method to corporations, Muers and Burton (2018) and Burton and Bainbridge (2019) provided precedents for examining this issue. Falque and Duriau (2004) recognized both potential benefits and impediments to adopting discernment in business settings. In particular, they flagged the high level of managerial engagement required as an obstacle to sustaining discernment. Constraints on managerial attention (e.g., Ocasio 1997) need to be faced squarely when designing discernment processes and meetings. Beyond figuring out how to incorporate discernment initially, managers need to understand what makes discernment sustainable in organizations. Organizations pursue efficiency and effectiveness in decision making by delegating decisions to specialists, whether teams or individuals. This principle applies when implementing discernment. Choosing the participants in the process is an important step in discernment (see Barton 2012). Matters of mission and strategy typically involve the upper echelon of the organization and, because of the high stakes involved, merit considerable investment of time and organizational resources. As such, management may deem a collective discernment process worthwhile. Guidance regarding the design of such a process allows for flexibility to fit the organizational setting. Management teams may do well to move into discernment incrementally rather than attempting radical changes from past decision-making norms. This can be done by introducing a particular new practice, organizing a meeting with a discernment-oriented agenda, or incorporating a discernment step into an already-familiar decision process. Decision making by functional or cross-functional teams can incorporate selective elements of discernment, as illustrated by Falque and Duriau (2004) for personnel decisions.

Advancing research Research on discernment in organizations is still at an early stage, and there are ample opportunities for qualitative and quantitative studies. Most of the presentations of discernment from outside management and organization studies are normative, rather

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than descriptive. As such, researchers can make unique and valuable contributions by studying empirically how discernment takes place within organizations. Furthermore, they can bring a perspective that balances appreciation and critique when assessing discernment. On the qualitative side, in-depth, comparative case studies could uncover the facilitators and contingencies relevant to implementing and sustaining discernment. These include the leadership characteristics and practices required, organizational processes and culture, and the nature of the issues addressed. Qualitative research could adopt longitudinal designs that track discernment processes over time. Action research (e.g., Greenwood and Levin 2007) offers a method for engaging and learning with management teams and organizations transitioning toward discernment. Following Traüffer et al. (2010a), quantitative studies could pursue the development of discernment scales for use in large-sample studies. Indicators of discernment should cover the three units of analysis elaborated earlier – processes, practices, and meetings. This study identified two interrelated streams where discernment fits within the management and organization literature: managerial reflection and sensemaking in organizations. Researchers could study how managerial reflection and sensemaking inform the theory and practice of discernment, and vice versa. Discernment is unique in bringing spirituality and religion into the interpretive process. In discernment, the dialogue between interpreter and situation includes a third dimension – the interpreter’s faith tradition (including the literature and community that express that faith). The interpretive process is one of theological reflection or “reflective believing” that seeks to put faith into practice in a particular situation (see Foley 2015; Liebert 2015, ch. 6; Miller 2015). The discerner seeks to understand and act upon that which is spiritual in nature and significance. Such considerations remain unacknowledged in the literature on managerial reflection and sensemaking, yet they align with interest in ethical decision making expressed in this research (e.g., Cunliffe 2004, 2009; Hibbert and Cunliffe 2015). Descriptions of discernment processes (such as those summarized in Figure 2) separate reflection and action, with the former preceding the latter. In contrast, writings on managerial reflection and sensemaking envision other possibilities – such as concurrent action and reflection (Schön’s (1983) “reflection in action”), and action followed by reflection (Weick’s (1995) “retrospective sensemaking”). Acknowledgment of alternative temporal arrangements between deliberation and action may stimulate new, and possibly less rigid, conceptions of discernment. Furthermore, researchers could examine discernment from the constructivist perspective found within the literature on managerial reflexivity and sensemaking. Such a perspective would ask how the dialogue associated with practicing discernment in organizations transforms the sociomaterial context in ways – intended and not – beyond the actions envisioned in explicit decisions emerging from discernment processes. As a repeated managerial process, the implications of discernment carry forward in the constructed sociomaterial settings in which subsequent experiences with discernment unfold. Although authors such as Benefiel (2005b, ch. 4; 2008) and Dougherty (1995, 24–25) acknowledge discernment in traditions as diverse as Sioux Native American, Hindu,

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Buddhist, Jewish, Sufi, and yogic, the English-language literature provides little coverage of discernment processes and practices outside Christianity. One exception is the volume edited by Cornille (2009), which addresses discernment in interreligious dialogue and includes Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist perspectives, along with Christian. The question of how discernment takes place in encounters between persons of distinct religions is a worthwhile line of inquiry; it could provide insights into how to approach discernment in religiously pluralist management teams and organizations. Nevertheless, an articulation of discernment within each tradition is a needed antecedent. Elaboration of a tradition should delve into its particular processes and practices, as well as principles for discernment. Studies within spiritual and religious traditions can contribute to building a literature that sets up comparative and integrative research. By offering examples of how Buddhism could support Ignatian discernment, Dougherty (2009) begins to suggest the possibility of finding points of complementarity in discernment practices across spiritual and religious traditions. Such work requires elaboration in greater depth, and interfaith research teams could take up this dialogue (see Miller 2017).

Appendix: Background on Ignatian Discernment The influence of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, written in the 16th century, pervades discernment practice and literature in the Western Christian tradition. This influence extends to writings on discernment in management and organizations, as documented in this review. Despite its influence, Ignatian beliefs and practices may be unfamiliar to many of those working at the intersection of management, spirituality, and religion. For this reason, this appendix summarizes guidance from Ignatius pertaining to discernment. All quotes (and page numbers in parentheses) come from L. J. Puhl’s English translation of Spiritual Exercises (Ignatius of Loyola, 1951) from the original text in Spanish. St. Ignatius organized his guidelines according to 4 weeks of spiritual exercises, with different instructions for each week. His opening section addresses presuppositions and his closing section offers rules for discerning spirits. This summary draws from those two sections.3 The opening paragraph introduces spiritual exercises and their purpose: By the term ‘Spiritual Exercises’ is meant every method of examination of conscience, of meditation, of contemplation, of vocal and mental prayer, and of other spiritual activities that will be mentioned later. For just as taking a walk, journeying on foot, and running are bodily exercises, so we call Spiritual Exercises every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, of seeking and finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our soul (1).

Exercises emphasized by St. Ignatius – such as reflection and prayer, and a posture of indifference to all but doing God’s will – remain prominent in discernment practice to this day. Shortly after this quotation comes a statement that reflects the intended

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integration of intellect, will, and emotions in discernment: “In the Spiritual Exercises which follow, we make use of the acts of the intellect in reasoning, and of the acts of the will in manifesting our love” (2). The core theological premises affirmed in the spiritual exercises are: Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created. Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him. Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for all other things. Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created (12).

These premises are not just theological, they are theocentric. The spiritual exercises were meant to shape people to be oriented exclusively toward honoring God, and free from hindrances to this commitment. By implication, the commended ethic for decision making gives no weight to the discerner’s welfare. For St. Ignatius, distinctions made in discernment regarded the good spirit and the evil spirit. He observes, Then it is characteristic of the evil spirit to harass with anxiety, to afflict with sadness, to raise obstacles backed by fallacious reasonings that disturb the soul. Thus he seeks to prevent the soul from advancing. It is characteristic of the good spirit, however, to give courage and strength, consolation, tears, inspirations, and peace. Thus, he does by making all easy, by removing all obstacles so that the soul goes forward in doing good (141–142).

This passage personifies these contrasting spirits and attributes to them means and ends. Recent writings on discernment tend to omit such attribution of good and evil to personal spiritual beings; instead, writers focus on the internal states of discerners when addressing discernment of spirits. Ignatius, however, kept them distinct and kept both in view. In fact, immediately following the statement just quoted, he goes on to address discerners’ interior states of consolation and desolation. 3. Spiritual Consolation. I call it consolation when an interior movement is aroused in the soul, by which it is inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord, and as a consequence, can love no creature on the face of the earth for its own sake, but only in the Creator of them all. It is likewise consolation when one sheds tears that move to the love of God, whether it be because of sorrow for sins, or because of the sufferings of Christ our Lord, or for any other reason that is immediately directed to the praise and service of God. Finally, I call consolation every increase of faith, hope, and love, and all interior joy that invites and attracts to what is heavenly and to the salvation of one’s soul by filling it with peace and quiet in Christ our Lord.

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4. Spiritual Desolation. I call desolation what is entirely the opposite of what is described in the third rule, as darkness of soul, turmoil of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love. The soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord. For just as consolation is the opposite of desolation, so the thoughts that spring from consolation are the opposite of those that spring from desolation (142).

St. Ignatius framed consolation and desolation in terms of the divine-human relationship. Internal states are not only psychological; they are also spiritual in their nature, causes, and implications. For further study, Fleming (1996) offers an accessible contemporary interpretation along with a literal translation of Spiritual Exercises. Fleming (2004) and Gallagher (2005) provide commentary and guidance for practicing the Ignatian exercises. For applications of the exercises to the development of organizational leaders, see Lowney (2003, ch. 6) and Vermander (2010).

Notes 1 The timeline in Figure 1 includes all but one of these 19 references, Reis Louis (1994), which predates publications (beginning in 2004) with a primary focus on discernment in management and organizations. 2 I examined citing references listed in Scopus and Google Scholar on 15 February 2019. 3 The coverage of “making a choice of a way of life” in the second-week section of Spiritual Exercises (71–77) contains further practical guidance for discernment in decision making.

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Mitchell J. Neubert, Cindy Wu and Kevin D. Dougherty

Servant leadership from multiple domains and follower work behavior Abstract: Managers and ministers exercise influence over their members inside and outside of their organizations. We examine the relationship of servant leadership from two contexts, an individual’s workplace and place of worship, with regulatory foci, and, in turn, entrepreneurial behavior and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) at work. Moreover, we contend that spiritual discipline (i.e., prayer and reading sacred texts) moderates the relationship of servant leadership to regulatory focus by altering the salience of each leader’s behavior. Using data collected in two waves from 912 working adults, we test the proposed relationships with multi-group structural equation modeling. Findings largely support the hypotheses and point toward important implications for servant leadership in both workplace and place of worship settings. Keywords: Servant leadership, regulatory focus, entrepreneurial behavior, counterproductive behavior, spiritual discipline

Introduction Leaders serve as role models in organizational contexts and therefore play a significant role in influencing the mindsets and behavior of organizational members (Bandura, 1986; Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Servant leadership is a leadership style practiced in multiple organizational contexts, including the workplace and religious congregations (Greenleaf, 1977). Servant leadership emphasizes “service to others and recognition that the role of organizations is to create people who can build a better tomorrow” (Parris & Peachy, 2013, p. 379). Specifically, servant leadership places a priority on service to others and accentuates developing members of the organization, for their own sake as well as for the good of the organization (Eva et al., 2019; Greenleaf, 1977). Compared to most other styles of leadership, servant leadership has a salient commitment to doing the right thing, respecting others, and selflessly exercising authority (Ehrhart, 2004; Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008). As might be expected, this type of other-centered moral leadership is received well by employees. Research indicates that servant leadership is

Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #0925907. Source: Mitchell J. Neubert, Cindy Wu and Kevin D. Dougherty. Servant Leadership from Multiple Domains and Follower Work Behavior, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2021, Vol. 18, No. 4, 272–292, https://doi.org/10.51327/CLQM9400 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111216058-011

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positively related to employees’ productive behavior and is negatively related to counterproductive behavior (Liden et al., 2014). Despite the mounting evidence supporting the positive influence of servant leadership, several important research questions remain unanswered. First, while considerable attention has been directed toward studying the effects of managers and other leaders within work organizations, research is largely silent on the work-related influences of leaders outside employment settings, such as religious leaders, on organizational members (Chan-Serafin, Brief, & George, 2013; Tracey, 2012). Research has recognized the influence of multiple domains on an individual’s leadership development and its exercise at work (Hammond, Clapp-Smith, & Palanski, 2017). By the same token, an individual’s experience, particularly with leaders from multiple domains, is likely transferable to the domain of work. Given that 77% of Americans identify with a faith tradition and half of American adults report belonging to a specific place of worship (Jones, 2019), religious leaders still occupy a position of influence in the United States, even as membership in traditional religious institutions has declined. The potential of ministers to influence members both within and beyond the immediate religious domain stems from their spiritual authority as well as their opportunities to model and promote particular beliefs and behaviors (Joo et al., 2018; Park et al., 2014; Pearce, Fritz, & Davis, 2010). Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that individuals’ behavior at work is shaped by both leaders in the workplace and leaders from their religious organizations. However, to what extent, through what means, and under what conditions servant leadership from multiple domains influences employee behaviors remain unclear. In this study, we develop and test a model that depicts how servant leadership by managers in a workplace and ministers in a place of worship concurrently influences productive work behavior (in our study, entrepreneurial behavior) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Employee regulatory focus mindsets are proposed as mediators of the influence of servant leadership from both work and religious contexts. Furthermore, an employee’s spiritual discipline is proposed as a moderator of these relationships. We contribute to the existing literature in several ways. First, in recognition of individuals’ memberships with multiple organizations, we extend servant leadership literature (Eva et al. 2019; van Dierendonck, 2011) by examining servant leadership influences simultaneously within and beyond organizational contexts. This approach parallels the recently emerging multidomain approach of leadership development (Hammond et al., 2017). Our study sheds new light on the development of desired behavior and deterrence of undesired behavior via leadership from different contexts. Second, we advance selfregulation literature (Higgins, 1997, 1998; Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson, 2012) by exploring whether regulatory focus mindsets can be a universal mechanism for servant leadership influences, regardless of the originating contexts of such leadership. Lastly, consistent with the convention of the follower-centric approach of leadership (Lord, 2008), we contribute to the literature on religion and work (Chan-Serafin et al., 2013; Tracey, 2012) by

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investigating how individual religious practices (i.e., spiritual discipline) may enhance the influence of servant leadership from both workplace and religious contexts.

Servant leadership and work outcomes Servant leadership in its modern manifestation is an ancient form of leadership with a moral imperative to forgo self-interest to serve others (Ehrhart, 2004; Graham, 1991; Greenleaf, 1977). Reviews of servant leadership note its distinctive concern for the interests of the organization, its employees, and external stakeholders such as the community (Eva et al., 2019; Parris & Peachey, 2013; van Dierendonck, 2011). Although there are several measures of servant leadership, there is some commonality in asserting that servant leaders serve through exercising humility, treating employees or members respectfully as partners rather than subordinates, emphasizing the growth and advancement of others, practicing empowerment and inclusion in decision making, and directing attention to positively influencing those outside the organization (Liden et al., 2008; Sendjaya et al., 2008, van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011). Servant leadership exhibited by managers is associated with important organizational outcomes, such as followers acting more creatively and cooperatively (Neubert et al., 2008), exhibiting organizational citizenship behaviors (Newman et al., 2017), experiencing higher job satisfaction (Zhang, Lee, & Wong, 2016), demonstrating higher engagement in their work (van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011), and showing less likelihood to leave the organization (Hunter et al. 2013). At the unit or organizational level, servant leadership contributes to a service climate that is linked to increased sales behavior in a retail setting (Hunter et al., 2013), employee and patient satisfaction in a healthcare setting (Neubert, Hunter, & Tolentino, 2016), and restaurant performance (Liden et al., 2014). Dimensions of servant leadership behavior make unique contributions over transformational leadership and leader member exchange in explaining community citizenship, in-role performance, and organizational commitment (Liden et al., 2008). The influence of servant leadership is not limited to the workplace. Places of worship are a prominent setting for servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977). Its popularity among ministers stems from the demonstration and endorsement of servant leadership in the life of Jesus (Sendjaya, 2015; Sun, 2013); however, it is not exclusive to Christianity. Servant leadership is also valued and practiced by leaders in other religious traditions (Sendjaya et al., 2008). Because religious leaders stand between the divine and the devoted, they act as salient role models (Oman et al., 2012). Servant leadership in religious settings is associated with beneficial congregational outcomes, including members’ organizational commitment, trust, satisfaction, faith maturity, participation, and church growth (Joo et al., 2018; Scuderi, 2010). A separate line of research reveals that places of worship influence individuals’ behavior outside their doors (Park et al., 2014; Putnam & Campbell, 2010). Yet, the relevance of servant

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leadership demonstrated by religious leaders to work outcomes has not been thoroughly theorized or tested. In the sections to follow, we describe a model of how servant leadership in the workplace and a place of worship may be associated with productive behavior, entrepreneurial behavior, and CWB at work.

Entrepreneurial behavior Entrepreneurial behavior is essential for the formation, performance, rejuvenation, and survival of firms in competitive markets (Kreiser et al., 2019). Within existing organizations, entrepreneurial behavior contributes to improving existing products, services, processes, and practices (Hornsby, Kuratko, & Zahra, 2002). Entrepreneurial behavior includes, but is not limited to, an individual’s proclivity to take risks, recognize opportunities, act innovatively, and encourage innovation in others (McCline, Bhat, & Baj, 2000; Pearce, Kramer, & Robbins, 1997). The sources of entrepreneurial behavior are both personal and contextual, including one’s motivations as well as those who influence those motivations (Balog, Baker, & Walker, 2014; Smith et al., 2019). Leadership is one influence on entrepreneurial behavior, with servant leadership holding potential to be a positive influence given its association with outcomes such as creativity, discretionary citizenship behaviors, and extra-role effort (Hunter et al., 2013; Neubert et al., 2008; Yoshida et al., 2014). A common thread linking servant leadership with these forms of positive workplace behavior is the notion of development of oneself, others, the work environment, and the community. Given this developmental focus of servant leadership, it is likely that followers will take this approach to their own work (van Dierendonck, 2011). Furthermore, because servant leadership is held in high regard across a range of religious traditions (Sendjaya et al., 2008), when servant leadership is modeled by leaders in places of worship, this example may be deemed worth replicating. Replication may occur within the congregation, but it can extend outside of the congregation into the workplace (Park et al., 2014). Specifically, the example of attending to growth and improvement may transfer to the workplace as entrepreneurial behavior.

Counterproductive work behavior While entrepreneurial behavior is a positive deviation from the status quo and norms of behavior, counterproductive workplace behavior is a negative deviation (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). It is negative because it exposes the organization or its members to harm or loss (Marcus et al., 2016; Warren 2003). Acts of organizational deviance such as stealing, falsifying information, use of illegal drugs, or simply withholding effort are typically not targeted at other organizational members but are harmful to an organization’s well-

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being (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Organizational deviance in this negative form is both common and expensive for the organization (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Marcus et al., 2016). This type of behavior is likely to be recognized as a moral or ethical violation. More than any other form of leadership, servant leadership by its nature is virtuous (Hackett & Wang, 2012). It is the antithesis of vice. Yet, servant leadership’s potential to discourage negative forms of deviance remains unconfirmed (Neubert et al., 2008). The moral basis of servant leadership, in the sense of emphasizing responsibility and ethical behavior, suggests that when modeled in the workplace, it should have some utility in minimizing CWB (Sendjaya et al., 2008). This may be amplified when an individual is exposed to servant leaders with explicit moral authority. Because places of worship provide a sense of moral order and ethical boundaries, leaders in this setting may be especially relevant in guiding the ethical choices of adherents (Parboteeah, Hoegl, & Cullen, 2008; Wuthnow, 1987). Although the associations of servant leadership, regardless of context, with both entrepreneurial behavior and CWB may be direct, we propose that the means by which these relationships occur is explained, in part, by Higgins’ Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) (1997, 1998). Theoretically, leader behavior communicates and reinforces guiding assumptions regarding what is appropriate for organizational members to focus on and do (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). In this sense, leaders influence the mindsets and motivations of their followers that precede expressions of entrepreneurial behavior and CWB in organizations.

Regulatory focus as a mediator Regulatory Focus Theory describes two orthogonal motivational mindsets that can be dispositional in having a general tendency across domains but also can be shaped by a variety of factors, including prior experiences and social influences (Higgins et al., 1994). A promotion focus is a self-regulatory mindset of pursuing a pleasurable outcome, maximizing gains, and attaining advancement; a prevention focus is a selfregulatory mindset of avoiding a painful outcome, minimizing loss, and attaining security (Higgins, 1997, 1998). We recognize that managers and ministers play different roles in a person’s life, and servant leadership in these domains may aim to affect different outcomes, such as promoting growth in technical skills versus spiritual growth or preventing the loss of a customer versus losing a congregant. Still, the core behaviors of servant leadership and their influence on these motivational mindsets are similar. Regardless of context, a defining feature of servant leadership is that it promotes the interests of others, particularly organizational members but also those in the community (Ehrhart, 2004; Eva et al., 2019; Greenleaf, 1977; Parris & Peachey, 2013; van Dierendonck, 2011; Sun, 2013). Servant leaders strive to improve the condition and capabilities of others (Ehrhart, 2004). Through modeling an other-centered orientation, servant leaders can induce in members the promotion focus mindset that regulates

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attention toward nurturing others, attaining ideals, and pursuing growth (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Another important feature of servant leadership is the moral commitment to ethics and duty (Ehrhart, 2004; Liden et al., 2008; Sendjaya et al., 2008). Servant leaders model humility, fairness, and doing what is right in their own actions and in the treatment of others. Such modeling aligns closely with a prevention mindset in that it directs the attention of followers toward fulfilling moral obligations and preserving others’ rights (Higgins, 1997; Neubert Wu, & Roberts, 2013). Thus, servant leadership’s dual emphasis of fostering virtue and avoiding harm gives it potential to endorse and induce both promotion focus and prevention focus mindsets among followers. The servant leader’s endorsement and inducement of these mindsets then influence followers’ regulation of subsequent behavior. Individuals with a promotion focus notice and recall information and emotions related to growth, gains, and achieving ideals and direct their actions toward promoting these desired outcomes (Higgins et al., 1994). This promotion mindset manifests itself in exploratory behavior, such as creativity and entrepreneurial behavior, that goes beyond minimum role expectations and contributes positively to advancing the organization. Alternatively, individuals with a prevention focus notice and recall information related to avoiding loss, reducing risk, and fulfilling obligations, and direct their actions toward these ends (Higgins & Tykocinski, 1992). People with a prevention mindset tend to follow the rules and act in accordance with expectations (Higgins et al., 1994). This prevention mindset manifests itself in vigilance to avoid behavior that is counterproductive to the organization. Figure 1 displays a general conceptual model. The model shows hypothesized relationships among servant leadership, workplace regulatory foci, and the two contrasting forms of workplace deviance (positive and negative). Specifically, we propose: Hypothesis 1: Servant leadership at a person’s (a) workplace and (b) place of worship will be positively associated with entrepreneurial behavior in the workplace. Hypothesis 2: Servant leadership at a person’s (a) workplace and (b) place of worship will be negatively associated with counterproductive workplace behavior. Hypothesis 3: Workplace promotion focus will mediate the relationship of (a) workplace servant leadership and entrepreneurial behavior and (b) place of worship servant leadership and entrepreneurial behavior. Hypothesis 4: Workplace prevention focus will mediate the relationship of (a) workplace servant leadership and counterproductive work behavior and (b) place of worship servant leadership and counterproductive work behavior. For visual purposes, the full set of paths for workplace servant leadership and place of worship servant leadership are not illustrated. The hypothesized relationships are identical for both domains of servant leadership. Figure 1 also introduces the influence of

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spiritual discipline as a moderator of these relationships, which is described in the following section.

Workplace Promotion Focus

+

+

Entrepreneurial Behavior

+ Workplace or Place of Workship Servant Leadership

Spiritual Discipline + +

Workplace Prevention Focus

–

Counterproductive Workplace Behavior

Figure 1: General conceptual model.

Spiritual discipline as a moderator Leadership research suggests that certain “enhancers” magnify leadership influences (Howell, Dorfman, & Kerr, 1986; Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag, 2010). The characteristics of a follower shape how a leader is perceived and the degree of influence the leader has on the follower (Lord, Brown, & Freiberg, 1999). Individual characteristics of those exposed to leadership can moderate the influence of leaders on followers (Taylor & Pattie, 2014). Personal habits or discipline are individual characteristics with the potential to moderate leadership influence because they can govern an individual’s response to influences in specific contexts (Neal, Wood, & Drolet, 2013). One follower characteristic affecting cognitive appraisals of the behavior of others, especially those who are modeling moral behaviors, is the practice of spiritual discipline (Bremner, Kooler, & Bushman, 2011). Spiritual discipline refers to sustained practices used by individuals for spiritual development. Prayer and reading of sacred texts are evidence of spiritual discipline in most faith traditions (Stark & Glock, 1968; Lynn, Naughton, & VanderVeen, 2011). These practices moderate the influence of behavioral stimuli (Bremner et al., 2011), and they seem to do so more than general measures of religiosity (Saroglou, 2013). Unlike attending religious services with others, prayer and scripture reading are private practices not subject to the same social pressures of public rituals. As such, these private practices represent an expression of faith being central to one’s identity (Liu & Robertson, 2011; Weaver & Agle, 2002). Spiritual discipline is indicative of a

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higher level of spiritual integration, the degree to which one’s beliefs are integrated within one’s lifestyle, providing a meaningful, transcendent core value to organize one’s life (Lynn et al., 2011;Rogers et al., 2012). Individuals with higher levels of spiritual integration view faith as integral to their whole life and seek to behave in a coherent way (Batson & Ventis, 1982); this results in them “living their religion” in various areas of daily life (Putnam & Campbell, 2010). In this case, the moral basis of servant leadership and its potential to influence followers may be moderated by followers’ spiritual discipline. Because servant leadership has a moral basis consistent with many religions (Sendjaya et al., 2008; Sun, 2013), followers’ spiritual discipline, as evident in the habits of prayer and scripture reading, may raise the salience of servant leadership. For individuals deeply invested in their faith, this approach to leadership should be conspicuous and persuasive. Thus, the status and power of servant leaders to influence the mindsets of followers are likely to be enhanced by the spiritual discipline of followers (Bandura, 1986; Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Whether coming from a workplace or a place of worship, we theorize that the salience and influence of servant leadership in shaping mindsets should be heightened for those who regularly pray and frequently read sacred scriptures. Hypothesis 5: Spiritual discipline will moderate the relationship of (a) workplace servant leadership with workplace promotion focus and (b) place of worship servant leadership with workplace promotion focus such that these relationships will be strengthened for those with high spiritual discipline. Hypothesis 6: Spiritual discipline will moderate the relationship of (a) workplace servant leadership with workplace prevention focus and (b) place of worship servant leadership with workplace prevention focus such that these relationships will be strengthened for those with high spiritual discipline.

Methods Sample The sample for this study is 1,022 full-time working, American adults drawn from a panel developed and maintained by GfK (formerly Knowledge Networks). The panel was developed by contacting potential respondents through a combination of random digit dialing and address-based sampling procedures to avoid the bias of professional panel respondents and to reflect characteristics of the national population in the United States. Screening questions narrowed the sample to full-time workers aged 18 or older in for-profit firms. Surveys were administered at two time periods three weeks apart. The time lag was introduced to minimize potential common method bias from collecting data from the same source (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Respondents had to complete both surveys to

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earn rewards, equivalent to $1–2 per survey. The independent and dependent variables used to test our model were collected at different times. In the first survey, participants responded to workplace regulatory focus items and servant leadership items for the workplace and place of worship. In the second survey, participants responded to outcome variables and control variables. We dropped 110 cases from our sample because these respondents were either self- employed (therefore, they did not have direct supervisors in their workplace) or did not indicate any association with a place of worship. This left us with 912 cases for analysis. The sample includes individuals from over 50 different religious denominations. However, a vast majority were affiliated with Christian denominations, with approximately 26 percent indicating Evangelical Protestant, 24 percent Catholic, 18 percent Mainline Protestant denominations, and 5 percent Black Protestant tradition. Eleven percent of the sample indicated an affiliation with another religion, while the rest did not indicate an affiliation. Unless otherwise specified, measures used in this study are based on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. We treated servant leadership, regulatory focus, entrepreneurial behavior, and CWB as latent variables to control for measurement errors.

Time 1 measures Servant leadership We measured servant leadership using four items common to Ehrhart (2004) and Liden et al. (2008) measures of the construct: Humility, Inclusiveness, Focused on Development, and Community-Oriented. These four items constitute a core moral identity that is primary not in the sense of being comprehensive but in being central to what it means to be a servant leader (e.g., Sun, 2013). These items were: – In my organization (place of worship), leaders make us feel like we are working with them not for them. – In my organization (place of worship), employees’ (members’) initiative and input play a major role in identifying and selecting the new opportunities (ministries) we pursue. – In my organization (place or worship), our leaders make the personal development of employees (members) a priority. – The leaders where I work (worship) encourage employees (members) to be involved in community service and volunteer activities outside of work (our place of worship). The alpha coefficients were .80 and .84 for workplace and place of worship servant leadership scales, respectively. Because the wording of servant leadership items makes only a general reference to leaders, the resulting variable is applicable across religious traditions.

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Work regulatory focus (WRF) We used Neubert et al.’s (2008) 18-item Work Regulatory Focus (WRF) scale to measure regulatory foci in a work environment. Nine survey items emphasizing growth, development, and achievement constitute a promotion focused regulatory mindset (α = .86). A sample item was “At work, I am motivated by my hopes and aspirations.” Nine other items emphasizing security, duty, and avoidance of loss comprise a prevention focused regulatory mindset (α= .90). A sample item was “At work, I focus my attention on completing my assigned responsibilities”.

Spiritual discipline Prayer and scripture reading are the two markers of spiritual discipline tested in our analysis. We selected these items to measure spiritual discipline because they are private religious practices that span religions. These devotional practices are longstanding measures of personal religious commitment (Stark & Glock, 1968). The two items in our survey were “About how often do you spend time alone praying outside of religious services?” (from 1 = never to 6 = several times a day) and “Outside of attending religious services, about how often do you read the Bible, Koran, Torah, or other sacred book?” (from 1 = never to 9 = several times a week or more often). These items are standard in respected national surveys such as the General Social Survey (Smith et al., 2015). We rescaled the second item from a 9-point to a 6-point scale to be consistent with the first item in forming a total score (Dawes, 2008). The alpha coefficient for the combined scale was .81.

Time 2 measures Entrepreneurial behavior An 11-item scale created by Pearce et al. (1997) assesses entrepreneurial behavior within the workplace. Sample items were “I boldly move ahead with a promising new approach when others might be more cautious” and “I devote time to helping others find ways to improve our products and services” (α = .89).

Counterproductive work behavior A 9-item scale adapted from Bennett and Robinson (2000) measures organizationally directed deviant behavior in the workplace. Respondents indicated the frequency of

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their behavior from 1 = never to 5 = very often. Items included, “Used an illegal drug or consumed alcohol on the job” and “Put little effort into my work” (α = .86).

Analysis To control for the complex covariance among variables and measurement errors, we tested our hypotheses with structural equation modeling, where all variables were latent. We began with bootstrap estimates to test total effects (Hypotheses 1 and 2), and direct and indirect effects of workplace and place of worship servant leadership on entrepreneurial behavior and CWB (Hypotheses 3 and 4). The bootstrap method provided bias-corrected confidence intervals to test total, direct, and indirect effects (Edwards & Lambert, 2007). The distribution of the responses to our hypothesized moderator, spiritual discipline, approximated a bimodal pattern; therefore, we split the sample by median into high and low spiritual discipline groups and conducted multi-group structural equation modeling to test Hypotheses 5 and 6 (Sauer & Dick, 1993). All the analyses were conducted with Mplus 7.11 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012).

Results Preliminary analysis and common methods variance Because the responses on independent variables (servant leadership at a workplace and servant leadership at a place of worship), mediators (promotion and prevention focus), and moderator (spiritual discipline) were collected at the same time, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to ensure these constructs were distinct from one another and that the 5-factor measurement model yielded adequate fit. We then compared the fit of the 5-factor baseline measurement model against alternative models. The results suggest that the 5-factor baseline model fit these data well (χ2 = 270.36, df = 94, p