Is workplace spirituality associated with business ethics?

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the potential association between spirituality and business ethics in a hotel workplace. Design/methodology/approach – A scenario-based quantitative approach was used to collect data from 165 practicing professionals in the hotel industry. Findings – The results show that spirituality, as measured by the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), did not correlate significantly with measures of ethical perception, ethical judgment, ethical intention or perceived moral intensity. There was, however, evidence to suggest that spirituality may be able to contribute incrementally to future research. Research limitations/implications – This study demonstrates that the dynamic associations between spirituality and ethics may produce different outcomes in different industry settings. Practical implications – If hotel companies focus on developing ethical standards, the effects on the business ethics of managers could be considerably greater than relying on the spirituality of managers or the encouragement of expression of spirituality in the workplace. Originality/value – Although the relationship between spirituality and ethics seems to be sensible, the empirical assessments on how managers’ workplace spirituality relate to their business ethics is notably lacking. The present study sought to fill this gap in literature.

The what, why, and how of spirituality in the workplace revisited: a 14-year update and extension

“…On the other hand, however, Ayoun, Rowe, and Yassine (2015) could identify no relationship between spirituality and ethical perception, ethical judgment, ethical intention, or perceived moral intensity in a sample of 165 professionals in the hotel industry. These authors suggest that their null findings may be indicative of differential outcomes by industry for the effects of spirituality on ethics (Ayoun, Rowe, and Yassine 2015). Clearly, additional research will be necessary to determine the existence, strength, and differential effects of this relationship across industries.…”

“…Although as outlined above, the early evidence examining a possible connection between workplace spirituality and ethical behaviors in the workplace has been mixed (e.g. Lowery, Duesing, and Beadles 2014;Ayoun, Rowe, and Yassine 2015), the role of ethical leadership for facilitating workplace spirituality should be examined more closely by future research.…”

Workplace Spirituality in Indian Organisations: Construction of Reliable and Valid Measurement Scale

“…Therefore, the fundamental imperative is to make organisations more consistent with individual values and psychology. However, many authors have cited that there is a lack of consensus in defining workplace spirituality posing a significant impediment for achieving a concrete understanding of workplace spirituality (Saas 2000, Baker 2015. Fry (2003) in his paper has highlighted the fact that, "workplace spirituality is a new topic in organisational literature which is having a limited theoretical development".…”

“…Saas (2000) has explicitly stated that, "the emerging body of academic literature on spirituality in organisations exhibits more breadth than the depth. At the same time, substantive efforts are expected from researchers for developing empirical measurement tools on workplace spirituality that may provide sufficient evidence to support workplace effectiveness" (Baker 2015). Through this paper we have tried to propose a definition and to develop the discrete dimensions of workplace spirituality.…”

Seeking for a relevant and contextual approach to economic development, an entrepreneurship model for Africa

“…Other studies that have linked spirituality and employee performance include Ashmos and Duchon(2000),Garcia-Zamor (2003),Giacalne and Jukiewicz (2003), and Fox et al (2018). It is worth noting, however, that the effect of spirituality at work is not always rosy Ayoun, Rowe and Yassine (2015). found no correlation between the level of spirituality and ethical perception, ethical judgement, or moral intensity.…”