Thanks for sending this
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz
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Dear Colleagues,
I am doing an in-depth literature review on the field of workplace spirituality and just finished reading a JMSR article by Andre Delbecq (2009) titled Spirituality and Business: One Scholar's Perspective. This is a wonderful review of how Andre came to be involved in the field of workplace spirituality and his sense of the evolution of MSR. As the MSR Executive Board makes plans to apply for AOM Division status, I thought Andre's words might be inspiring. The following is from the conclusion of his article.
Warm Blessings, Judi
Each of us wishing to address this topic bears the burden of deepening our own spiritual journey. In my Roman Catholic tradition, one path is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Flemming 1996). Under a gifted guide I engaged the exercises in a three‐month retreat. There is no question in my mind that this was as important as my entire year and a half of Sabbatical studies, and that continued contemplative/meditative practice must be a sine qua non for my own scholarship. Spiritual midgets make poor teachers and researchers of spirituality. One immediately senses among many of our colleagues who have undertaken work associated with the study of spirituality a depth of personal spiritual growth and maturity that has accompanied their scholarly efforts.
I would also caution patience. There is both external criticism and internal self‐criticism within the Management, Spirituality and Religion interest group regarding the pace of evolving quality scholarship. Let me assure you that all growth is subject to the limitations of time. Having been part of the early efforts to connect the behavioral sciences to management studies, I know that it was at least a decade before "organizational behavior" was itself modestly established as a body of knowledge separate from psychology and sociology. The Management Consulting Division in its early days was subject to sharp criticism as it sought to be a bridge effort between theory and practice. Perhaps a sign of maturity is that just this year the Terry Award for Best Management Book was given to Andrew Van de Ven's magnum opus, Engaged Scholarship. But even within these established divisions, maturity is not a terminal achievement but rather a continuum of emerging new knowledge. So it will take time for this new and complex interdisciplinary nexus of spirituality and management to develop.
Finally, I want to end on a note of encouragement for young scholars. When I became Dean of the Leavey School of Business there was a wise Italian trustee who commented: "Delbecq, there was a time to be in Rome, a time to be part of the British Empire, and this is the time to be in Silicon Valley." What he was saying was that there are moments in history and circumstance where being an early participant leaves special room for exciting and memorable achievement. I am the Eighth Dean of Fellows of the Academy of Management, and when I look around the room when the Fellows gather I see many individuals whose singularity of contribution is associated with being pioneers in new areas of scholarship. Their careers are memorable because they took the risk to be co‐creators of new and unfolding knowledge within management studies.
This is not to encourage inappropriate ambition, but rather to indicate an opportunity of special service to our profession. We stand at the beginning of another historical moment. At the end of decades of exclusive preoccupation with the material we are invited to re‐examine how spirit can once more be understood and integrated into our discipline. For those of you who are tugged by the potential of this movement, you have the choice to be part of a transformative journey. Will you engage the adventure, be willing to enter into the struggles that are always associated with new efforts, and therefore be a contributor to a period of exciting scholarship and teaching? Your choice will shape not only your personal biography but also the history of our field of knowledge.
I don't believe the spiritual genie will be stuffed back into the secular vase. Yes, there are tensions in addressing spirituality and management and there will be scrutiny. What is naïve and destructive will be properly rejected, and what is healthy and contributory to organizational life will survive. I see this dialog between professional, social, humanistic and spiritual dimensions of management as a positive historical current worth joining. It is a rapprochement managers in our world are seeking and I encourage you to be part of its unfolding.
I close paraphrasing Abraham Joshua Heschel:
It is our stake in human history,
It is our challenge and test.
How strange it will be if we go
astray on this perilous errand.