Discussion: View Thread

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Illinois</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business</st1:placename></st1:place>

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus <st1:address w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on">Box</st1:street> 5580</st1:address>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Normal</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">IL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">61790-5580</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

(309) 438-3468

<st1:personname w:st="on">msheep@ilstu.edu</st1:personname>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

MSR colleagues,

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

Colleagues,

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Management</st1:placename></st1:place> in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

<st1:placename w:st="on">Tarleton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> - <st1:place w:st="on">Central Texas</st1:place>

<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">1901 South Clear Creek Road</st1:address></st1:street>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Killeen</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">76549</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

254-519-5476

Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly. 14, 693-727.

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Illinois</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business</st1:placename></st1:place>

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus <st1:address w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on">Box</st1:street> 5580</st1:address>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Normal</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">IL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">61790-5580</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

(309) 438-3468

<st1:personname w:st="on">msheep@ilstu.edu</st1:personname>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

MSR colleagues,

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

Colleagues,

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Management</st1:placename></st1:place> in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

<st1:placename w:st="on">Tarleton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> - <st1:place w:st="on">Central Texas</st1:place>

<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">1901 South Clear Creek Road</st1:address></st1:street>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Killeen</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">76549</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

254-519-5476

Jody,

Thanks so much for your response.  I will certainly post my comments to the LDRNET list serve if you think that would contribute to a helpful discussion.

I have read your cites and like them very much.  I will also revisit them in light of the current discussion.  I've attempted to contribute some perspective to the spirituality research conversation, as well, in the following:

Sheep, M. L. 2006. Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations.  Journal of Business Ethics, 66: 357–375.

Sheep, M. L. 2004.  Nailing Down Gossamer: A Valid Measure of the Person-Organization Fit of Workplace Spirituality.  <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Management</st1:placename></st1:place> Proceedings, B1-B6.

However, my concerns still stand that neither of us have gotten to the level of a "second order" spirituality construct/concept, but are instead setting forth dimensional indicators/proxies/consequent behaviors and attitudes that we are arguing belong to the domain of spiritual experience.  That may be good enough for present research (and perhaps all we can do for now).  However, others might well ask (and we should be prepared to answer) how these concepts are discriminant from extant constructs that have not been conceptualized as "spiritual" (e.g., growth needs strength, need for affiliation, meaningfulness in work, perceived organizational support/belongingness, the affective component of social/org identification and commitment, the study of emotion itself, etc.).  In other words, tacking the "spiritual" label on a concept must be justified as to how it is different from more prosaic equivalents (or is it?).  The burden of proof lies with us as spirituality researchers to make that connection explicit rather than nominal.  What do all of these things have in common that make them "spiritual"?  I think therein lies our future convergence for social scientific purposes, if convergence is possible (or desired).

Of course, it would be possible for me to hold a personal belief that all human phenomena are essentially spiritual, but many would argue (understandably) that would be making a metaphysical statement in the realm of philosophy, not empirical science.  I appreciated the response of Tom Slocombe earlier to this discussion, as well, because I think he certainly offers a different perspective on this.  I'm not sure a physiological demonstration is the route I would personally want to go, but I certainly appreciate the agreement that an experience of spirituality may lie behind our expressions of spirituality (the latter of which is what I believe our conceptualizations have tapped thus far). 

Great discussion!  I hope this is constructive to the research stream, and I look forward to hearing further comments/ideas.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:14 PM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

 

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

 

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

 

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

 

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

 

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

Illinois State University

College of Business

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus Box 5580

Normal, IL 61790-5580

(309) 438-3468

msheep@ilstu.edu

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

 

 

MSR colleagues,

 

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

 

Colleagues,

 

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in OB, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the Academy of Management in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

 

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

 

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

 

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

Tarleton State University - Central Texas

1901 South Clear Creek Road

Killeen, Texas 76549

254-519-5476

 

Jody,

Yikes, there I go again.  I apologize for using an admittedly obscure term without definition.  A second-order construct describes a higher-order factor that encompasses or is indicated by lower-order factors in confirmatory factor analysis (Gerbing & Anderson, 1984.  On the meaning of within-factor correlated measurement errors.  Journal of Consumer Research, 11: 572ff-some great bedtime reading, huh?). 

In other words, it is a latent variable with other variables (each of which has its own scale items) as factors that all load significantly. 

However, for those not into confirmatory factor analysis (and I can well understand if you are not), it simply means that we should be able to demonstrate that all of these "dimensions" that we talk about as belonging to spirituality ought to load onto a single factor that we, by a conceptual domain definition of its dimensions, would call "spirituality."  If they do not all load significantly onto that factor (and in the same direction), then we do not have dimensions that belong to the same construct.  We could not say that they all describe what we are currently conceptualizing as "spirituality."  They would be loading onto some other concept and thus behaving in a different manner.  However, if they all do load significantly, then we at least have a statistical demonstration that we are barking up the right tree in our dimensionalization of spirituality (this is not an argument for comprehensiveness but for consistency).

Of course, that is a very quantitative approach, which I understand well (and have a great deal of empathy with) those who are somewhat discomfited by such an approach.  However, my take has always been that quantitative analysis is a very partial test of any concept or theory.  However, if the concept cannot even withstand any sort of quantitative testing, however partial, then how is it that we argue that a more complex rendering of a concept should hold water to any greater extent? 

My two cents (from a dedicated qualitative researcher who happens also to appreciate efforts at multiparadigm, including quantitative, research).

Mathew

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 11:09 AM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Jody,

Thanks so much for your response.  I will certainly post my comments to the LDRNET list serve if you think that would contribute to a helpful discussion.

 

I have read your cites and like them very much.  I will also revisit them in light of the current discussion.  I've attempted to contribute some perspective to the spirituality research conversation, as well, in the following:

 

Sheep, M. L. 2006. Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations.  Journal of Business Ethics, 66: 357–375.

 

Sheep, M. L. 2004.  Nailing Down Gossamer: A Valid Measure of the Person-Organization Fit of Workplace Spirituality.  Academy of Management Proceedings, B1-B6.

 

However, my concerns still stand that neither of us have gotten to the level of a "second order" spirituality construct/concept, but are instead setting forth dimensional indicators/proxies/consequent behaviors and attitudes that we are arguing belong to the domain of spiritual experience.  That may be good enough for present research (and perhaps all we can do for now).  However, others might well ask (and we should be prepared to answer) how these concepts are discriminant from extant constructs that have not been conceptualized as "spiritual" (e.g., growth needs strength, need for affiliation, meaningfulness in work, perceived organizational support/belongingness, the affective component of social/org identification and commitment, the study of emotion itself, etc.).  In other words, tacking the "spiritual" label on a concept must be justified as to how it is different from more prosaic equivalents (or is it?).  The burden of proof lies with us as spirituality researchers to make that connection explicit rather than nominal.  What do all of these things have in common that make them "spiritual"?  I think therein lies our future convergence for social scientific purposes, if convergence is possible (or desired).

 

Of course, it would be possible for me to hold a personal belief that all human phenomena are essentially spiritual, but many would argue (understandably) that would be making a metaphysical statement in the realm of philosophy, not empirical science.  I appreciated the response of Tom Slocombe earlier to this discussion, as well, because I think he certainly offers a different perspective on this.  I'm not sure a physiological demonstration is the route I would personally want to go, but I certainly appreciate the agreement that an experience of spirituality may lie behind our expressions of spirituality (the latter of which is what I believe our conceptualizations have tapped thus far). 

 

Great discussion!  I hope this is constructive to the research stream, and I look forward to hearing further comments/ideas.

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.          

Assistant Professor

Illinois State University

College of Business

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus Box 5580

Normal, IL 61790-5580

(309) 438-3468

mathew.sheep@ilstu.edu

 

---

From: Management, Spirituality & Religion [mailto:MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Dr. Fry
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:56 PM
To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Mathew,

 

All your points are well taken. I hope you will post them on the LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU list serve so that the OB, POS, and PLD people can have an opportunity to respond.

 

I also agree that we need to address the domain of study. We have attempted to do this for our on work spiritual leadership in the three studies cited below. In  it are definitions of spirituality and workplace spirituality as well as spiritual leadership. We have also developed and validated measures to test our causal model of spiritual leadership in a number of organizational settings. There is also a special issue on spiritual leadership published in the October 2005 issue of The Leadership Quarterly. It found that a theme comprised of three universal spiritual needs emerged in terms of what is required for workplace spirituality - an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by calling or transcendence of self within the context of a community based on the values of altruistic love.  Satisfying these spiritual needs in the workplace positively influences human health and psychological well-being and forms the foundation for a new spiritual leadership paradigm. By tapping into these basic and essential needs, spiritual leaders produce the follower trust, intrinsic motivation, and commitment that is necessary to simultaneously optimize organizational performance and human well-being in learning organizations. This is the fundamental proposition that should be tested in future research – that this type of leadership, organizational paradigm, and outcome is necessary for organizations to achieve performance excellence in the 21^st century.

 

Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly. 14, 693-727.

 

 

Fry, L. W. (2005). Toward a Theory of Ethical and Spiritual Well-being, and Corporate Social Responsibility Through Spiritual Leadership in Giacalone, R.A., Jurkiewicz, C.L., & Dunn, C., (Eds.). Positive Psychology in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 47-83.

Fry L.W. &Vitucci S. & Cedillo, M. (2005). Spiritual Leadership and Army Transformation: Theory, Measurement, and Establishing a Baseline. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 835-862.

 

 

These and our other work on spiritual leadership can be accessed and downloadedfrom our International Institute for Spiritual Leadership and my school websites:

 

http://www.iispiritualleadership.com/index.htm

 

http://www.tarleton.edu/~fry/

 

Perhaps some of this, at least to some extent, adresses the "nitty-grity" issues you raise.

Louis W. (Jody) Fry
Professor of Management
Tarleton State University - Central Texas
1901 South Clear Creek Road
Killeen, Texas 76549
254-519-5476

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:14 PM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

 

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

 

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

 

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

 

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

 

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

Illinois State University

College of Business

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus Box 5580

Normal, IL 61790-5580

(309) 438-3468

msheep@ilstu.edu

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

 

 

MSR colleagues,

 

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

 

Colleagues,

 

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in OB, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the Academy of Management in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

 

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

 

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

 

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

Tarleton State University - Central Texas

1901 South Clear Creek Road

Killeen, Texas 76549

254-519-5476

 

Matthew:  thanks for that little tutorial on factor analysis (seriously).  And I know I may be opening a huge Pandora's box here but...as many philosophers of knowledge have written (not the least of which is, in our area, Burrell & Morgan, 1979), concepts with/from different ontologies  and epistemologies require different methodologies (and presumably, different methods of analysis).  Can we demensionalize every social construct?  What kind of explanatory power do we lose when we try?

I am reminded of the Preface to the December, 1979 issue of ASQ (one of the first org studies journals to devote an issue to qualitative methodologies) guest edited by Lou Pondy.  He describes an exchange between two people over qualitative/quantitative analyses.  Very funny.  Sorry, I can't be more specific than that.  If anyone has access to ASQ online maybe they can post the dialogue.

Fitz

Jody,

Yikes, there I go again.  I apologize for using an admittedly obscure term without definition.  A second-order construct describes a higher-order factor that encompasses or is indicated by lower-order factors in confirmatory factor analysis (Gerbing & Anderson, 1984.  On the meaning of within-factor correlated measurement errors.  Journal of Consumer Research, 11: 572ff-some great bedtime reading, huh?). 

In other words, it is a latent variable with other variables (each of which has its own scale items) as factors that all load significantly. 

However, for those not into confirmatory factor analysis (and I can well understand if you are not), it simply means that we should be able to demonstrate that all of these "dimensions" that we talk about as belonging to spirituality ought to load onto a single factor that we, by a conceptual domain definition of its dimensions, would call "spirituality."  If they do not all load significantly onto that factor (and in the same direction), then we do not have dimensions that belong to the same construct.  We could not say that they all describe what we are currently conceptualizing as "spirituality."  They would be loading onto some other concept and thus behaving in a different manner.  However, if they all do load significantly, then we at least have a statistical demonstration that we are barking up the right tree in our dimensionalization of spirituality (this is not an argument for comprehensiveness but for consistency).

Of course, that is a very quantitative approach, which I understand well (and have a great deal of empathy with) those who are somewhat discomfited by such an approach.  However, my take has always been that quantitative analysis is a very partial test of any concept or theory.  However, if the concept cannot even withstand any sort of quantitative testing, however partial, then how is it that we argue that a more complex rendering of a concept should hold water to any greater extent? 

My two cents (from a dedicated qualitative researcher who happens also to appreciate efforts at multiparadigm, including quantitative, research).

Mathew

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 11:09 AM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

 

Jody,

Thanks so much for your response.  I will certainly post my comments to the LDRNET list serve if you think that would contribute to a helpful discussion.

 

I have read your cites and like them very much.  I will also revisit them in light of the current discussion.  I've attempted to contribute some perspective to the spirituality research conversation, as well, in the following:

 

Sheep, M. L. 2006. Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations.  Journal of Business Ethics, 66: 357–375.

 

Sheep, M. L. 2004.  Nailing Down Gossamer: A Valid Measure of the Person-Organization Fit of Workplace Spirituality.  <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Management</st1:placename></st1:place> Proceedings, B1-B6.

 

However, my concerns still stand that neither of us have gotten to the level of a "second order" spirituality construct/concept, but are instead setting forth dimensional indicators/proxies/consequent behaviors and attitudes that we are arguing belong to the domain of spiritual experience.  That may be good enough for present research (and perhaps all we can do for now).  However, others might well ask (and we should be prepared to answer) how these concepts are discriminant from extant constructs that have not been conceptualized as "spiritual" (e.g., growth needs strength, need for affiliation, meaningfulness in work, perceived organizational support/belongingness, the affective component of social/org identification and commitment, the study of emotion itself, etc.).  In other words, tacking the "spiritual" label on a concept must be justified as to how it is different from more prosaic equivalents (or is it?).  The burden of proof lies with us as spirituality researchers to make that connection explicit rather than nominal.  What do all of these things have in common that make them "spiritual"?  I think therein lies our future convergence for social scientific purposes, if convergence is possible (or desired).

 

Of course, it would be possible for me to hold a personal belief that all human phenomena are essentially spiritual, but many would argue (understandably) that would be making a metaphysical statement in the realm of philosophy, not empirical science.  I appreciated the response of Tom Slocombe earlier to this discussion, as well, because I think he certainly offers a different perspective on this.  I'm not sure a physiological demonstration is the route I would personally want to go, but I certainly appreciate the agreement that an experience of spirituality may lie behind our expressions of spirituality (the latter of which is what I believe our conceptualizations have tapped thus far). 

 

Great discussion!  I hope this is constructive to the research stream, and I look forward to hearing further comments/ideas.

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.          

Assistant Professor

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Illinois</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business</st1:placename></st1:place>

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus <st1:address w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on">Box</st1:street> 5580</st1:address>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Normal</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">IL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">61790-5580</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

(309) 438-3468

mathew.sheep@ilstu.edu

 

---

From: <st1:personname w:st="on">Management, Spirituality & Religion</st1:personname> [mailto:MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Dr. Fry
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:56 PM
To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

 

Mathew,

 

All your points are well taken. I hope you will post them on the LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU list serve so that the <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD people can have an opportunity to respond.

 

I also agree that we need to address the domain of study. We have attempted to do this for our on work spiritual leadership in the three studies cited below. In  it are definitions of spirituality and workplace spirituality as well as spiritual leadership. We have also developed and validated measures to test our causal model of spiritual leadership in a number of organizational settings. There is also a special issue on spiritual leadership published in the October 2005 issue of The Leadership Quarterly. It found that a theme comprised of three universal spiritual needs emerged in terms of what is required for workplace spirituality - an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by calling or transcendence of self within the context of a community based on the values of altruistic love.  Satisfying these spiritual needs in the workplace positively influences human health and psychological well-being and forms the foundation for a new spiritual leadership paradigm. By tapping into these basic and essential needs, spiritual leaders produce the follower trust, intrinsic motivation, and commitment that is necessary to simultaneously optimize organizational performance and human well-being in learning organizations. This is the fundamental proposition that should be tested in future research – that this type of leadership, organizational paradigm, and outcome is necessary for organizations to achieve performance excellence in the 21^st century.

 

Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly. 14, 693-727.

 

 

Fry, L. W. (2005). Toward a Theory of Ethical and Spiritual Well-being, and Corporate Social Responsibility Through Spiritual Leadership in Giacalone, R.A., Jurkiewicz, C.L., & Dunn, C., (Eds.). Positive Psychology in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Greenwich</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">CT</st1:state></st1:place>: Information Age Publishing, 47-83.

Fry L.W. &Vitucci S. & Cedillo, M. (2005). Spiritual Leadership and Army Transformation: Theory, Measurement, and Establishing a Baseline. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 835-862.

 

 

These and our other work on spiritual leadership can be accessed and downloadedfrom our International Institute for Spiritual Leadership and my school websites:

 

http://www.iispiritualleadership.com/index.htm

 

http://www.tarleton.edu/~fry/

 

Perhaps some of this, at least to some extent, adresses the "nitty-grity" issues you raise.

Louis W. (Jody) Fry
Professor of Management
<st1:placename w:st="on">Tarleton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> - <st1:place w:st="on">Central Texas</st1:place>
<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">1901 South Clear Creek Road</st1:address></st1:street>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Killeen</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">76549</st1:postalcode></st1:place>
254-519-5476

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:14 PM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

 

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

 

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

 

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

 

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

 

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

 

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Illinois</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business</st1:placename></st1:place>

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus <st1:address w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on">Box</st1:street> 5580</st1:address>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Normal</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">IL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">61790-5580</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

(309) 438-3468

msheep@ilstu.edu

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">PLD</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Theory</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Building</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

 

 

MSR colleagues,

 

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

 

Colleagues,

 

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Management</st1:placename></st1:place> in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place>, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

 

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

 

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

 

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

<st1:placename w:st="on">Tarleton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> - <st1:place w:st="on">Central Texas</st1:place>

<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">1901 South Clear Creek Road</st1:address></st1:street>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Killeen</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">76549</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

254-519-5476

 

Fitz,

Ah, what a landmark issue of ASQ that was!  It reads like a Hall of Fame now-Weick, Pettigrew, Mintzberg, Van Maanen, and others.  I'm not sure to which humorous exchange in the preface you may be referring, but here is one that I found: 

"The data we collect and act upon in everyday life are of the same sort a qualitative researcher explicitly attempts to gather and record.  Such data are symbolic, contextually embedded, cryptic, and reflexive, standing for nothing so much as their readiness or stubbornness to yield to a meaningful interpretation and response.  When crossing a street, for example, the sight of a ten-ton truck bearing down on us leads to an immediate and presumably prudent action.  We do not stop to first ask how fast the truck is traveling, from where did it come, how often does this occur, or what is the driver's intention.  We move.  Our study of the truck involves little more than a quick scan, a glance up the road which reveals to most of us a menacing symbol of such power that a speedy, undeliberated response is mandatory.  It is the aim of qualitative researchers to identify such symbols and, as a way of assessing their meaning, to re cord the pattern of these responses these symbols elicit."   (Van Maanan, J. 1979.  Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational research:  A preface.  Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4): 521).

Is this the one, or were you thinking of another one?  Thanks for bringing attention to this ASQ issue!

Mathew

Matthew:  thanks for that little tutorial on factor analysis (seriously).  And I know I may be opening a huge Pandora's box here but...as many philosophers of knowledge have written (not the least of which is, in our area, Burrell & Morgan, 1979), concepts with/from different ontologies  and epistemologies require different methodologies (and presumably, different methods of analysis).  Can we demensionalize every social construct?  What kind of explanatory power do we lose when we try?

I am reminded of the Preface to the December, 1979 issue of ASQ (one of the first org studies journals to devote an issue to qualitative methodologies) guest edited by Lou Pondy.  He describes an exchange between two people over qualitative/quantitative analyses.  Very funny.  Sorry, I can't be more specific than that.  If anyone has access to ASQ online maybe they can post the dialogue.

Fitz

Jody,

Yikes, there I go again.  I apologize for using an admittedly obscure term without definition.  A second-order construct describes a higher-order factor that encompasses or is indicated by lower-order factors in confirmatory factor analysis (Gerbing & Anderson, 1984.  On the meaning of within-factor correlated measurement errors.  Journal of Consumer Research, 11: 572ff-some great bedtime reading, huh?). 

In other words, it is a latent variable with other variables (each of which has its own scale items) as factors that all load significantly. 

However, for those not into confirmatory factor analysis (and I can well understand if you are not), it simply means that we should be able to demonstrate that all of these "dimensions" that we talk about as belonging to spirituality ought to load onto a single factor that we, by a conceptual domain definition of its dimensions, would call "spirituality."  If they do not all load significantly onto that factor (and in the same direction), then we do not have dimensions that belong to the same construct.  We could not say that they all describe what we are currently conceptualizing as "spirituality."  They would be loading onto some other concept and thus behaving in a different manner.  However, if they all do load significantly, then we at least have a statistical demonstration that we are barking up the right tree in our dimensionalization of spirituality (this is not an argument for comprehensiveness but for consistency).

Of course, that is a very quantitative approach, which I understand well (and have a great deal of empathy with) those who are somewhat discomfited by such an approach.  However, my take has always been that quantitative analysis is a very partial test of any concept or theory.  However, if the concept cannot even withstand any sort of quantitative testing, however partial, then how is it that we argue that a more complex rendering of a concept should hold water to any greater extent? 

My two cents (from a dedicated qualitative researcher who happens also to appreciate efforts at multiparadigm, including quantitative, research).

Mathew

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 11:09 AM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Jody,

Thanks so much for your response.  I will certainly post my comments to the LDRNET list serve if you think that would contribute to a helpful discussion.

 

I have read your cites and like them very much.  I will also revisit them in light of the current discussion.  I've attempted to contribute some perspective to the spirituality research conversation, as well, in the following:

 

Sheep, M. L. 2006. Nurturing the Whole Person: The Ethics of Workplace Spirituality in a Society of Organizations.  Journal of Business Ethics, 66: 357–375.

 

Sheep, M. L. 2004.  Nailing Down Gossamer: A Valid Measure of the Person-Organization Fit of Workplace Spirituality.  Academy of Management Proceedings, B1-B6.

 

However, my concerns still stand that neither of us have gotten to the level of a "second order" spirituality construct/concept, but are instead setting forth dimensional indicators/proxies/consequent behaviors and attitudes that we are arguing belong to the domain of spiritual experience.  That may be good enough for present research (and perhaps all we can do for now).  However, others might well ask (and we should be prepared to answer) how these concepts are discriminant from extant constructs that have not been conceptualized as "spiritual" (e.g., growth needs strength, need for affiliation, meaningfulness in work, perceived organizational support/belongingness, the affective component of social/org identification and commitment, the study of emotion itself, etc.).  In other words, tacking the "spiritual" label on a concept must be justified as to how it is different from more prosaic equivalents (or is it?).  The burden of proof lies with us as spirituality researchers to make that connection explicit rather than nominal.  What do all of these things have in common that make them "spiritual"?  I think therein lies our future convergence for social scientific purposes, if convergence is possible (or desired).

 

Of course, it would be possible for me to hold a personal belief that all human phenomena are essentially spiritual, but many would argue (understandably) that would be making a metaphysical statement in the realm of philosophy, not empirical science.  I appreciated the response of Tom Slocombe earlier to this discussion, as well, because I think he certainly offers a different perspective on this.  I'm not sure a physiological demonstration is the route I would personally want to go, but I certainly appreciate the agreement that an experience of spirituality may lie behind our expressions of spirituality (the latter of which is what I believe our conceptualizations have tapped thus far). 

 

Great discussion!  I hope this is constructive to the research stream, and I look forward to hearing further comments/ideas.

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.          

Assistant Professor

Illinois State University

College of Business

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus Box 5580

Normal, IL 61790-5580

(309) 438-3468

mathew.sheep@ilstu.edu

 

---

From: Management, Spirituality & Religion [mailto:MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Dr. Fry
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:56 PM
To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Mathew,

 

All your points are well taken. I hope you will post them on the LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU list serve so that the OB, POS, and PLD people can have an opportunity to respond.

 

I also agree that we need to address the domain of study. We have attempted to do this for our on work spiritual leadership in the three studies cited below. In  it are definitions of spirituality and workplace spirituality as well as spiritual leadership. We have also developed and validated measures to test our causal model of spiritual leadership in a number of organizational settings. There is also a special issue on spiritual leadership published in the October 2005 issue of The Leadership Quarterly. It found that a theme comprised of three universal spiritual needs emerged in terms of what is required for workplace spirituality - an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by calling or transcendence of self within the context of a community based on the values of altruistic love.  Satisfying these spiritual needs in the workplace positively influences human health and psychological well-being and forms the foundation for a new spiritual leadership paradigm. By tapping into these basic and essential needs, spiritual leaders produce the follower trust, intrinsic motivation, and commitment that is necessary to simultaneously optimize organizational performance and human well-being in learning organizations. This is the fundamental proposition that should be tested in future research – that this type of leadership, organizational paradigm, and outcome is necessary for organizations to achieve performance excellence in the 21^st century.

 

Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly. 14, 693-727.

 

 

Fry, L. W. (2005). Toward a Theory of Ethical and Spiritual Well-being, and Corporate Social Responsibility Through Spiritual Leadership in Giacalone, R.A., Jurkiewicz, C.L., & Dunn, C., (Eds.). Positive Psychology in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, 47-83.

Fry L.W. &Vitucci S. & Cedillo, M. (2005). Spiritual Leadership and Army Transformation: Theory, Measurement, and Establishing a Baseline. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 835-862.

 

 

These and our other work on spiritual leadership can be accessed and downloadedfrom our International Institute for Spiritual Leadership and my school websites:

 

http://www.iispiritualleadership.com/index.htm

 

http://www.tarleton.edu/~fry/

 

Perhaps some of this, at least to some extent, adresses the "nitty-grity" issues you raise.

Louis W. (Jody) Fry
Professor of Management
Tarleton State University - Central Texas
1901 South Clear Creek Road
Killeen, Texas 76549
254-519-5476

----- Original Message -----

From: Mathew Sheep

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:14 PM

Subject: Re: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

 

Jody,

I'm certainly not taking the "devil's advocate" position, and I am neither agnostic nor atheist.  However, I would like to become part of the "spirited exchange" because you raise some fundamental (by that, I do not mean fundamentalist) questions with which we are likely all wrestling in one way or another, privately or publicly.

 

1.  The fact that so many disciplines have been in a parallel (sometimes, but rarely communicatively, intersecting) development of a spiritual component of their field.  Psychology, sociology, communication, leadership studies, etc., all have their adherents who suspect that we can no longer ignore the variance that may be explained by spiritual perspectives/variables/accounts.  What do these developmental fields have in common?  How are they different?  Can we talk?

 

2.  What criterion variables are most lacking in specification due to their neglect of the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD?  And how are we to characterize/conceptualize this "spiritual component" that is missing?  Therein is the hurdle over which few have jumped in harmony or synchronization.  All "scales" have at some point been met with raised eyebrows skeptical that such a reductionist approach could possibly tap into the richness and vitality of "spirituality."  But unless we find some way to cut through the fog of what we mean by "richness" and provide lotion for all the hand-wringing, the development of a spirituality concept that has wide consensus as belonging in the advance of our discipline will continue to be stunted. 

 

3.  I have run up against what I might call a conceptual dilemma when I try to articulate to people what the domain of study of "spirituality in the workplace" actually is.  In my own articles, I have described that it entails (as currently conceptualized) at least four dimensions:  an inward integration of life and work, work as a source of meaningfulness, transcendence toward a larger community or whole, and nurturing of inward growth/development. 

 

In your e-mail, you listed: meaning in job characteristics, hope, optimism, community, altruism.  All wonderful things!  However, upon reflection, I would not characterize any of these (including those I listed myself) as defining a concept of "spirituality" itself.  Instead, they may be (at best) symptoms, indicators, or proxy variables of spirituality.  But what is this thing called spirituality that might be behind these consequent behaviors, attitudes, or phenomena?  Moreover, how do any of these descriptors or "dimensions" go beyond what other literatures have already developed (e.g., meaning in work, community, personal growth/development are hardly new to the management body of literature). 

 

4.  A related issue is the question:  When we say that we all have a spiritual component to our being, or that we are spiritual beings by nature-and that this component can explain a significant amount of variance in human behavior in organizations-what on earth do we actually mean by that?  Are we making an essentialist statement?  Could we be invoking an onto-theological (as Heidegger would have put it) or metaphysical paradigm of the workplace?  If so, fine-let's talk about it and unapologetically articulate a sound philosophical basis for it, and continue to talk about humans as spiritual beings explaining all sorts of variance. 

 

By contrast, if not, fine-let's establish a rationale whereby we can envision a spirituality that can have no metaphysical essence (and thus, explicate why we nevertheless want to invoke the spirituality term to account for variances of various sorts).

 

These are the nitty-gritty (wow, I'm showing my age in that one) issues that no one really seems to want to confront head-on, and we thereby end up gingerly dancing around them-which may be the wisest approach for the moment.  However, my belief is that until we do articulate these positions rather straightforwardly (and, no doubt, have a very "spirited" and open debate of the countervailing positions on either end of the spectrum), workplace spirituality will be prevented from getting off the ground as a compelling paradigm because we are not really all talking about the same concept when we say "spirituality."

 

Whoa!  I can hear the groans.  I am in no way suggesting that everyone should have the same experience of spirituality, or somehow to be forced into accepting one "approved" version of spirituality (such would be dogmatism at its worst).  However, in order to make any academic headway (and that's the world of our audience), I am suggesting from an academic standpoint that we should be able to come up with a transcendent concept of spirituality that would articulate its position unambiguously within the Discourses of philosophy of science-its philosophical assumptions.

 

I hope that the above observations are taken in the spirit they are intended-not as an attack on spirituality at all-but as a call to confront the more difficult questions, without which we may continue (however inadvertently) to marginalize the possibilities.    And I don't think any of us really want the outcomes of spirituality research to be minimal.

All the best,

Mathew

 

Mathew L. Sheep, Ph.D.           (no, I don't think I am the "sheep in wolf's clothing" to which Jody referred)

Assistant Professor

Illinois State University

College of Business

Management and Quantitative Methods

Campus Box 5580

Normal, IL 61790-5580

(309) 438-3468

msheep@ilstu.edu

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Date: Fri 6 Oct 14:55:18 EDT 2006

From: "Dr. Fry" <fry@TARLETON.EDU> Add To Address Book | This is Spam

Subject: Need for spirituality in OB, POS, and PLD Theory Building and Research

To: MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU

 

 

MSR colleagues,

 

I just posted the challenge below on the leadership network listserve

LDRNET-L . To subscribe to their list and join in the fun go to

http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/

 

Colleagues,

 

I've been talking to Cindy McCauley about doing a letter exchange in The

Leadership Quarterly on the need for a spiritual component in leadership

theory and research. One tentative title is " A sheep in wolf's clothing:

The need for spirituality and a higher power in OB, Positive Organizational

Scholarship (POS), and Positive Leadership Development (PLD) theory building

and research." The basic premise would be that these areas in many ways are

really emulating the Management, Spirituality, and Religion Interest group

of the Academy of Management in that they are basically studying the same

phenomena or subject matter ( e.g., meaning in job characteristics, hope,

optimism, community, altruism). I would argue that these areas/fields will

never truly be able to explain much variance in criterion variables until

the spiritual component of  OB, POS, and PLD is acknowledged and

incorporated into their theoretical models.

 

However, Cindy and I haven't been able to find an atheist, agnostic, or

devil's advocate to take the opposing position. If your are interested in

engaging in a "spirited exchange" on this topic, please contact me

fry@tarleton.edu .

 

I'd also like to throw this out for comment to all of you on the network.

 

Louis W. (Jody) Fry

Professor of Management

Tarleton State University - Central Texas

1901 South Clear Creek Road

Killeen, Texas 76549

254-519-5476

 

I think you are right on two counts: 1) we need a definition of spirituality 

and 2) we need valid means of assessment. 

Hi Don,

Regarding the need for a definition, I'm not asserting that we need only one definition. But without specifying an operational definition for the research, I doubt that what we do will be anything more than speculative philosophizing <grin>. And regarding valid assessment, if it's not "valid" it is also merely speculative, if not outright "invalid." There are lots of us willing to give our opinions about all of this (including me ... see below). I just don't see much good research other than a few good qualitative studies (my own specialty and bias), but those are technically "anecdotal" and should not be generalized, as some tend to do.

BTW, I'm certainly open to learning of good quantitative studies that I am not aware of. So I'm open to suggestions!

My personal speculation, just for fun, is increasingly that there is a small positive, but statistically insignificant, correlation between spirituality and any X management factor; and there are some instances where there is a very real difference for some individuals.

...Dean

Don,

I have so much appreciated this exchange on the MSR listserve because it has helped me sort through some issues (with the benefit of feedback of others) that have been weighing rather heavily on my mind about spirituality research recently.  While all of the conversation has been fascinating to me, your response below has helped me in the most profound way.  While you may not have intended it to be especially profound, I sat up and took notice of your comment: 

"We may not need "a" definition of spirituality; we may instead need many definitions of its many meanings. It may be that the term "spirituality" is a rather sloppy, messy umbrella term that covers several smaller, more coherent concepts that are more useful to investigate."

To me, that is so helpful because it offers all of us a way forward as a "both/and" statement rather than an "either/or" proposition.  It accommodates both the highly quantitative approaches that we have discussed (validated measurement scales, factor analysis, and causal models) as well as the more qualitative approaches that tap the complexity and diversity of spirituality rather than its reduction to a few dimensions.  For whatever it is worth, I think you are precisely hitting the target when you say that spirituality is a "messy umbrella term" and that our reductions have thus far more likely produced "smaller, more coherent concepts" that we have yet to name something more focused than "workplace spirituality." 

If we all ponder how we might implement your statement above, I think we would begin to move forward with greater research efficiency as well as effectiveness. Thank you again. 

Mathew

BTW, I'm certainly open to learning of good quantitative studies that I am not aware of. So I'm open to suggestions!