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

Abstract

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

The Role of the Distributor Network in the Persistence of Legal and Ethical Problems of Multi-level Marketing Companies

“…Some MLMs have been criticized for their particular and strong organizational cultures, their strong socialization of members, and how they present themselves as means for personal and societal salvation (Bromley 1998;Cahn 2006;Groß 2010;Krige 2012;Pratt and Rosa 2003). 21,22 From our point of view, the risk of MLMs acting as total institutions mainly lies in how the DN educates, socializes, and motivates (indoctrinates) distributors (relation R5 in Fig.…”

“…Besides the ethical problem of unfulfilled (material) promises (see above), a few researchers have pointed out that the strong corporate socialization might turn MLMs into 'total institutions' (Pratt 2000a, p. 59). In this case, companies colonize every aspect of members' lives: their current relationships, their world-view, and their hopes for their future (see also Groß 2010;Lips-Wiersma et al 2009). …”

“…As research has illustrated, however, the circumstances under which distributors sell products and recruit others are heavily influenced by the DN, relation R5. Research (Friedner 2015;Groß 2008Groß , 2010 and reports by former distributors (Andrews 2001;Scheibeler 2004) Schwarz 2001, 2002). 4 Thus, though headquarters may have set up rules against earning misrepresentations (and thus seek to regulate relation 1 in Fig.…”

“…Bromley (1998) calls them 'quasi-religious corporations' as they do not merely offer a job, but promise to solve problems that are part and parcel of living in a differentiated, modern society. These MLMs represent themselves as a cure-all, i.e., a means to combine work and family, strive for a greater good, and create a better society at the same time (Cahn 2006;Droney 2016;Groß 2010;Gu 2004;Pratt 2000a;Pratt and Rosa 2003).…”

“…31 Whereas other authors have described and explained several advantages of the industry (Albaum and Peterson 2011;Brodie et al 2004;Crittenden and Albaum 2015), this article focuses on its problems: since their very beginnings in the 1920s of the last century, the industry has had to face and deal with problematic behavior on the individual distributor as well as the company level (e.g., see Biggart's historical overview chapter 2, 1989). These problems include that (1) some MLM companies operate as de facto pyramid schemes (Juth-Gavasso 1985; Keep and Vander Nat 2014;Koehn 2001;Vander Nat and Keep, 2002;Walsh 1999b), (2) income opportunities are misrepresented (Groß and Jung 2009;Herbig and Yelkurm 1997;Koehn 2001;Taylor 2014;Walsh 1999a), (3) customers are harmed by exaggerated and/or illegal product claims (Koehn 2001), (4) distributors misuse their friends and family members to earn money (Bloch 1996;Koehn 2001;Lan 2002;Walsh 1999a), and (5) that some MLMs have cult-like organizational cultures (Bromley 1998;Groß 2010) that restrict their members' ability to reflect on the (ethical) quality of the company's business practices.…”