The Elevation of Work: Pastoral Power and the New Age Work Ethic

Abstract

This paper seeks to establish the contours of the popular workplace spirituality discourse through analysis of academic and practitioner texts and accounts of organizational practice. We identify several themes, drawing attention to potential contradictions in the notions of meaning, measurement and community, which the discourse seeks to promote. In seeking to understand the means whereby it is embodied as a source of administrative power we draw on a range of historical and contemporary organizational examples, illustrating how pastoral power is reinforced through the construction of disciplinary technologies. We argue that the workplace spirituality discourse shares Weber's acceptance of the structural conditions of capitalism and seeks to resolve the dilemmas this creates for the individual through developing an inner sense of meaning and virtue. In this respect, it represents a revival of the Protestant ethic in a way that involves re-visioning the ambivalent relationship between self and organization. We conclude that the `social ethic' has given way to a New Age work ethic, which relies on the management of individual metaphysics as a source of organizational, as well as personal, transformation.

The role of CEO (auto-) biographies in the dissemination of neo-ascetic leadership styles

“…The latter in particular relates such metaphors to the increasing prevalence of religious discourse in organizations, seen as evidence of a movement towards 'spirituality at work', a "new work ethic" (Bell and Taylor 2003) or "neo-Protestant ethic" (Casey 1995). The majority of the literature is critical regarding the prevalence of such metaphors, seeing this as related to the "dark side" of transformational leadership models (Tourish 2011(Tourish , 2013).…”

Making Sense of Workplace Spirituality: Towards a New Methodology

“…If enough employees can be convinced that workplace spirituality is in their best interests, it will eventually gain momentum. This has led to concerns that it is yet another tool to be used by management to control the worker (see Ashforth and Pratt, 2003;Bell and Taylor, 2003;Driscoll and Wiebe, 2007;Fenwick and Lange, 1998;Tourish and Pinnington, 2002;Zhuravleva and Jones, 2006). Ashforth and Pratt (2003, p. 96) suggest that, "some -with or without good intentions -are using spiritual strivings to co-opt the individual."…”

“…Given the need for alternate approaches to the study of workplace spirituality and the criticism of mainstream approaches for overlooking alternative narratives and critical perspectives in the area of workplace spirituality (e.g., Bell and Taylor, 2003;Driscoll and Wiebe, 2007;Forray and Stork, 2002), it seems likely that, given the scope of the applicability of sensemaking, that it can offer an important contribution to an understanding of workplace spirituality. Yet few have made use of such a perspective and none have specifically applied the properties to an analysis of the processes individuals engage in when trying to understand and enact spirituality in the workplace.…”

Self, Soul and Management Learning: Constructing the Genre of the Spiritualized Manager

“…Bell & Taylor (2003) suggest that spirituality at work is perceived as a reaction to negative influences on organizational life, such as work-life imbalance, downsizing and workaholism. Boyle and Healy (2003) state that individual spirituality is one of the few remaining ways in which controlled work environments, where intense rationalization has deepened the crisis of modernity (Casey, 2004) can be resisted by employees.…”