Tuomo Peltonen

Spirituality in Organizational Cultures

This and the following chapter looks into the ways in which spirituality and religion interact with the social and cultural structures of organizational life. Spirituality can be viewed as an element of the dynamics of organizational culture following Martin’s scheme of integrated, differentiated and fragmented cultures. While spiritual and religious cliques can form into subcultures or challenge the dominant corporate ideology as a counterculture, cases of formal religious values in organizational mission statements and strategic plans are fewer. Religion has a deep and enduring influence on national and regional cultural contexts, as attested by the taxonomies of cultural groups in international management. Huntington’s thesis on civilizational differences is largely based on the role of differing religious and theological traditions. Russia is a case in point in the sense that the theological and philosophical heritage from Byzantine Orthodoxy sets it apart from Western Europe and its experience of Catholicism and Reformation. Finally, the whole modern civilization could be seen as a gradual drift away from classical spiritual worldview of the Middle Ages, and toward secularized anthropocentrism and materialism.

Spiritual and Religious Communities as Models of Organizing

Taking a more direct inspiration from the practice of organizing monastic life, this chapter scrutinizes the rules and conventions of Christian convents as an example of how religious beliefs and principles translate into secular institutional structures and governance styles. The first example comes from a Finnish Orthodox nunnery , whereas the second case reviews the meaning of St Benedict’s Rule in light of deeper metaphysical-theological questions. Monastic life is hierarchically organized, reflecting the idea of the centrality of submission to God . Monks and nuns train in humility and in surrendering of one’s autonomous will by engaging in tasks that call for extreme obedience to the authority of the spiritual elder. Tasks are often menial and monotonous, although this also enables silent prayer and meditation . Leadership of a monastery or nunnery is a mixture of authoritarian and caring styles. Behind the seemingly contradictory approaches is the pursuit of deification.

Science, Religion and Spirituality

Religion and spirituality is often contrasted with the scientific method and academic objectivity, also in organizational studies. However, as this chapter demonstrates, the linkages across religion and natural science are more complex than what the mainstream thinking assumes. Many notable scientists such as Isaac Newton have been motivated by theological or occult beliefs in their attempts to uncover the secrets and laws of the nature. Universities evolved from monastic schools and still embody religious symbolism. It can be argued that the scientific method is limited when it comes to the more fundamental questions. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the transcendental beliefs underlining the scientific theories of management and organizing , and a look into the original meaning of theoria in the ancient Greek philosophy as a metaphysical-theological alternative to the modernist pursuit of scientific knowledge .

Spirituality as a Phenomenon and Challenge of Science

Religion and spirituality has a long history as a topic of various human sciences . This chapter briefly reviews some of the main currents in the psychology and sociology of religion . In psychology, we discuss the classical pragmatist formulation of William James , and explore the role of spirituality in the work of Maslow . In addition, we discuss the influential theory of Allport regarding the internal and external forms of religiousness. Psychology in general has been an important force in advancing a more experiential understanding of religion . In sociology, the rationalization thesis of Weber has been a critical source of understanding modernity as secularization . More recently, however, religious scholars like Heelas have argued for a more fragmented societal development, with subjective spirituality gaining ground. This view is supported by the advances in the theory of post-secular society , propagated by esteemed scholars like Habermas. Religion is to be taken seriously as an experience and as a social form.

Spiritual Leadership I: Ethics, Sacrifice and Martyrdom

In this and the following chapter, the discussion shifts insofar as we will engage with more traditional leadership themes, and strive to develop them further by taking advantage of metaphysical-theological frame of reference. This chapter concentrates on the meaning of sacrifice and martyrdom in leadership. Martyrs are central figures in religious movements, but the idea of an ultimate sacrifice is rather alien to contemporary ideas about organizational leadership. This chapter discusses the role of martyrs in creating a morally inspired followership through organizational and political examples of ultimate courage, using Hirschman’s scheme of voice , exit and loyalty . Treatment leads to contemplate on the deeper philosophical-theological meaning of sacrifice through the notion of magnanimity in Aquinas’s theory of virtues. Martyrdom as a manifestation of magnanimity is a secular virtue that paves way for higher, “theological” virtues.

Introduction: Making Sense of Spirituality and Religion in Organizing

Despite the recent explosion in the scholarly works on spirituality and religion in organizations, the field is theoretically underdeveloped. This introductory chapter introduces a threefold meta-theoretical classification to help make sense of the variety of different understandings of spirituality and religion in organizing and managing. Scientific-rational, social-cultural and metaphysical-theological perspectives each view spirituality and religion from distinctive philosophical and ontological-epistemological position. It is argued that the third perspective, metaphysical-theological paradigm , has received a limited attention in discussions, and it is one of the aims of this book to introduce and explore its usefulness in understanding and appreciating spirituality and religiousness in organizing and managing.

The Challenge and Promise of Spirituality in Organizing and Leading

Despite its apparent usefulness in areas like well-being at work and leadership ethics, religion and spirituality should not be reduced to its manifest functions, or even to it social or experiential dimensions. However, it is challenging to introduce a metaphysical-theological stance in the context of increasing rationalization of the worlds of work and commerce. Leaning on Sorokin ’s prophecy of the coming decline of materialistic modernity, the chapter discusses the type of changes required at societal, organizational and individual levels to pave way for a spiritual paradigm . For individual leadership development, the chapter takes cue from Jung ’s notion that religion is a valid frame of reference in the pursuit of wisdom in the mid-life transition. Also, Plato ’s description of the education of philosopher-kings is complemented with his actual curriculum of lifelong learning at the Academy . Seeking spiritual enlightenment calls for a profound change in how we think about leadership and education.

Spiritual Leadership II: Charisma and Good Atmosphere

Charisma has its origin in religious thought as a divine gift , although it has been heavily secularized in the later sociological and leadership theories. What is today understood as charismatic, magnetic personality and direct appeal to the emotions of the followers should be seen as one of the many possible forms of using one’s divine gifts. The chapter outlines a more collective notion of “charismatic states,” which make possible the emergence of energized, positive modes of coexistence. In the later part, we discuss an understanding of charisma that draws from the metaphysical traditions in spiritual Christianity , most of all from the notion of “energies” in the mystical tradition of Orthodox theology and spirituality . Overall, the argument is that the modern ideas of charisma as presented in the leadership literature fall short of addressing the deeper religious nature of charisma, including its apparent embodied dimensions.

With a little help from the lens: using photography to experience and represent organisations ethnographically

There is a long history of using researcher-generated photography to complement verbal descriptions of culture in ethnographic research. In the recent discussions, photos are no longer treated as authentic or accurate descriptions of the field, but are instead understood as particular representations of organisational life. As manufactured visual artefacts, photos reflect the conditions surrounding their production within ethnographic practice, but at the same time their ethnographicness is contingent on the shifting interpretations and uses of images in scholarly representations. The purpose of this paper is to add to the emerging body of performative visual ethnography by re-reading and narrating a set of photos of university organisation taken originally as a part of another field research project. By presenting the photos depicting the organisation from the viewpoint of a cosmopolitan academic, and complementing the images with critical narratives about some of the personal experiences of living and working under a regime of intensifying control and managerialism, a multi-modal representation of ‘how it feels being there’ is offered. The challenge of photographic ethnography is to retain the specific sensitivities related to the visual format while at the same time being able to spin an accompanied narrative that enables a creative dialogue between the pictures and the words.

Ethics and Organizations. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, 1998

In the TV series Frasier, the main character, a psychiatrist, offers a fine example of moral conscience. Whenever he is about to violate the professional ethics of psychologists, he gets stomach-aches. In one episode, for example, Frasier is about to start an affair with a client’s ex-girlfriend, but suddenly realizes that this would mean breaching the code. With stomach twists as a physical symptom of the potential immorality, he withdraws from any further involvement. If the matter of professional and business ethics were that simple, there would be no need for books such as this one, written by a collection of British organization theorists. However, ethical codes have the propensity to relieve managers from more thorough ethical reflection, while the actual activities of their firms continue to cause harm to employees, customers and the natural environment. The editor, Martin Parker from Keele University, and the contributors have taken on the critical task of intervening into the expanding debate on ethics in firms and organizations. Instead of starting from philosophical expertise or, alternatively, from business practitioner ’law of the jungle’ pragmatics, the book provides a more cautious and sociological account of moralities and ethicalities as they are practised in organizational life. This enterprise is informed by various ’postmodern’ turns in social theory, the writings of Zygmunt Bauman being perhaps the main points of reference. Bauman’s critique of modern ethics as objectification of an individual sense of responsibility is an understandable choice, and is well suited to attacking the contradictions of the business world and rational organizations as ethically engineered, but morally corrupt, sites of action. The task of many of the writers is to suggest tactics and perspectives on ethical behaviour that acknowledge the tendency to use moral discourse as a rationalization device, while still making space for promoting a more responsible, moderated approach towards the Other in business life. The first chapter by philosopher Tom Sorell takes a somewhat pessimistic view on the potential to influence attitudes of businessmen and women. For him, ethics has had relatively little influence in economic life compared to, for example, the state of affairs in medicine. Sorell seems to me to be stretching the gulf between academics and practitioners too far, given that the thrust of recent organization theory has been to study how management is accomplished in everyday situations and discourse. The remaining chapters offer more nuances in the sense that they admit the impact of moral values in the constitution of organizational relations, stressing at the same time that management studies often understand ethical rules as equal to authorial codes and norms. This stance is accompanied with poststructuralist caution about the extent to which the actor is identical with the assumptions of ethicists. For example, Rolland Munro emphasizes in his chapter that ethics could be better understood as another ’technology’ that lets individuals be accountable to themselves, thus constructing a sense of subjectivity. He criticizes Bauman’s haste in introducing a humanistic ’moral impulse’ to counter ethically engineered bureaucracies. Munro reminds us that all encounters with others are mediated by cultural meanings and practices, and that some of the ethical problems are inherited not only from modernist attempts on social closure, but also from the philosophy of will emphasizing conscious acts.