Workplace spirituality as a source for competitive advantage: an empirical study

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to theorize and empirically examines the role of perceived spirituality in developing organization competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a quantitative approach, where the structural equation modeling approached was applied to analyze a unique dataset collected from 550 health-care staff in two international hospitals in Iran. Findings The results show that although the workplace spirituality (WS) can indirectly enhance the development of competitive advantages by affecting the level of organizational commitment; however, the direct relationship of WS and competitive advantage has a higher path coefficient than its indirect one. Also, interestingly, it is found that, although WS affects the three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continuance and normative commitment), but only WS by mediating role of affective commitment can affect the competitive advantage at understudied hospitals. Originality/value This study makes important theoretical contributions by conceptualizing and validating the effect of WS on the development of organization competitive advantage. As such, the authors explicate the commitment-related paths through which WS can affect organization overall performance.

The effects of spiritual expression at work during the COVID-19 crisis: evidence from a private hospital

“…As stated above, our research extends the work of Tombaugh et al (2011), Albuquerque et al (2014 and Saadatyar et al (2020) by examining spiritual expression in the context of health-care professionals during COVID-19. We empirically tested whether practicing spirituality at work had an impact on organizational commitment in a range of health-care personnel, including doctors, nurses, physicians, administrators, managers and cleaning staff, during a severe crisis.…”

“…nursing) in an organization, with less emphasis on including all kinds of roles and generating a holistic picture. For more detail, see the studies on primary health-care services in Portugal, Finland and among nursing staff in Mashhad city (Albuquerque et al , 2014; Lampinen et al , 2018; Saadatyar et al , 2020).…”

“…Various studies have shown positive effects of spirituality at work on commitment (Saadatyar et al , 2020). For instance, Chelliah et al (2018) found evidence that workplace spirituality is linked to affective, normative and continuance commitment, while Campbell and Hwa (2014) only found positive effects on two forms of commitment – namely affective and normative – while continuance commitment was negatively related to commitment (Campbell and Hwa, 2014; Rego and Pina E Cunha, 2008).…”

“…According to recent studies, spirituality at work has a positive effect on a variety of personal outcomes, such as job satisfaction (Milliman et al, 2003), lower stress levels (Altaf and Awan, 2011), career satisfaction, job involvement (Milliman et al, 2003), social recognition, social cohesion and self-esteem (Bhaskar and Mishra, 2019;Hitt et al, 1994), as well as participation and inclusiveness (Kolodinsky et al, 2008). On the organizational level, spirituality at work increases productivity (Fry, 2003), reduces turnover (Hong, 2012) and improves the competitiveness of the company (Hitt et al, 1994;Saadatyar et al, 2020).…”

Achieving competitive advantage through spiritual capital, innovation work behavior, and organizational learning

“…Udriyah et al (2019) found that innovation can improve compe titive advantages. Saadatyar et al (2020) confirmed that spirituality improves competitive advantages be cause spirituality increases organization commit ment, which is essential for competitive advantag es. Mathew et al (2018) affirmed that spirituality increases job satisfaction and, in the end, im proves the competitive advantages.…”