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Hello MSR colleagues,

There was a brief discussion about the notion of soul on this list last year; Emma Bell, Cathy Driscoll and I have been working on an analysis of the term's use in three companies, and have now had a paper accepted for publication in the Sage journal Organization. If the title and abstract below look interesting to you, I'd be happy to email the proofs of the paper [please don't reply to this email as it goes to the whole list; email me at scott.taylor@exeter.ac.uk]. All good wishes, scott

Varieties of organizational soul: The ethics of belief in organizations

This article argues that the expression of religious beliefs within organizations, often made manifest

through the notion of soul, provides insight into the ethics of organization in postsecular society.

Using examples to illustrate the discursive representation of organizational soul in three US-based

multinational companies, we argue that religious organizational beliefs must be located within

cultural and material contexts of practice in order to fully appreciate their ethical implications.

We show how the use of soul is a contemporary reiteration of the 19th century religious

attitude that William James termed 'healthy-mindedness'. We suggest that this variety of religious

experience is limiting through its neglect of the social and political contexts of ethical thought and

action and the definition of evil or harm as external to the believer and the organization. Drawing

on a pragmatist perspective, we critique this approach to belief-led business and propose that

the Jamesian notion of a 'sick soul' constitutes a more robust ethical framework for belief-led

businesses by encouraging ethical skepticism concerning the nature of organizational activities.

We conclude by exploring what our analysis means for the development of postsecular critical

organization theory.

Emma Bell, University of Exeter; Scott Taylor, University of Exeter; Cathy Driscoll, St Mary's University

Scott Taylor (Dr), senior lecturer in leadership studies

Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PU, UK

scott.taylor@exeter.ac.uk; +44 (0)1392 722569