Dear colleagues
Below is a call for abstracts for an AOM symposium on spiritual and religious perspectives on management education. For further information, please contact co-organisers Kathryn Pavlovich (kathryn.pavlovich@waikato ac.nz) and Stacie Chappell (
Stacie.Chappell@viu.ca)
Call for submissions for 2025 AOM symposium:
Spiritual and religious perspectives on management education
Introduction
Given the increasingly complex challenges facing humanity in relation to environmental, social, ethical and geopolitical concerns, restoring the social license on how business and business schools should operate becomes essential (Singhal, Davis & Voss, 2024). Bansal et al. (2024) suggest we live within an 'ecological fallacy' as the evolution of management has shifted from benefits to society to benefits for the firm. Thus, as Wickert and Muzio (2024) argue, management research and education needs "to reinvent itself in light of the urgent ecological threats posed by the crossing of multiple planetary boundaries." While the dominant worldview underlying management education has shifted from classic economic views, the movement remains insufficient (Eichler & Billsberry, 2023; Stough et al., 2022), and we need to purposefully design business school education to better equip students to think beyond self-interest to engage in impactful societal outcomes (Easter, Ceulemans & Lynn, 2022; Singhal et al, 2024).
Our focus in this symposium is on how spiritual and religious practices may inform a more integrated approach to management practice, research and education. While pioneers in the field of Management, Spirituality, and Religion (MSR) started this movement over twenty years ago (see Bento, 2000; Biberman et al., 1998; Delbecq, 2000; Lips-Wiersma, 2004; Pavlovich, 2010; Pavlovich & Krahnke, 2008), these courses are still considered risky for educators to undertake and often are siloed from the dominant discourse within the broader program. There remains a general reluctance to publicly acknowledge religion and spirituality within organizational life as it challenges fundamental beliefs regarding the rationality of science (Pavlovich & Markman, 2020). This 'elephant in the room', and the fact that religion is commonly stigmatized by our scientific community, are the main reasons why we are featuring the papers in this symposium.
We encourage contributions that are radical, edgy and controversial. You may have a manuscript that was considered "too interdisciplinary" for traditional journals, but has a good story to tell. We would love to consider it for our symposium. Our scope is broad – theoretical, empirical, essays and description – as long as the manuscripts are informed by scholarship. Suggested topics of interest could include:
- Scholarship on the teaching of spirituality and/or religion
- Case studies of MSR practices applied in the classroom
- Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning
- First person forms of teaching and learning
- Bringing the MSR self into the classroom
- MSR and organisational development
In the first instance, please contact the organisers: Kathryn Pavlovich (University of Waikato Management School, New Zealand) and Stacie Chappell (Vancouver Island University, Canada). Three page abstracts are due 1 December, sent to both editors.
References
Bansal, P., Durand, R., Kreutzer, M., Kunisch, S. & McGahan, A. (2024). Strategy can no longer ignore planetary boundaries: A call for tackling strategy's ecological fallacy. Journal of Management Studies, doi:10.1111/joms.13088.
Bento, R. F. (2000). The little inn at the crossroads: A spiritual approach to the design of a leadership course. Journal of Management Education, 24(5), 650-661.
Biberman, J., Whitty, M., King, S., & Neal, J. A. (1999). Innovative management training: Combining the wisdom of East and West. Chinmaya Management Review, 3(1), 5-13.
Delbecq, A. L. (2000). Spirituality for business leadership: Reporting on a pilot course f or MBAs and
Easter, S. Ceulemans, K. & Lynn, M. (2022). Moving beyond Sisyphus: Pursuing sustainability in a business-as-usual world. Business & Society, 6(14), 924-963.
Eichler, M., & Billsberry, J. (2023). There's nothing as practical as understanding the nature of theory: A phenomenographic study of management educators' implicit theories of theory. Management Learning, 54(2), 244-266.
Lips-Wiersma, M. (2004). Furthering management and spirituality education through the use of paradox. Journal of Management Education, 28(1), 119-133.
Pavlovich, K., & Krahnke, K. (2008). Art,'knowing' and management education. Journal of Human Values, 14(1), 23-30.
Pavlovich, K. (2010). Educating for conscious awareness. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 7(3), 193-208.
Pavlovich, K. & Markman, G. (2020). Introduction to spirituality, entrepreneurship and social change. In K. Pavlovich and G. Markman (Eds.,) spirituality, entrepreneurship and social change (pp. 1-20). World Scientific, Singapore.
Singhal, D., Davis, M. & Voss, H. (2023). Rethinking business school education: A call for epistemic humility through reflexivity. Business & Society, 63(7), 1507-1512.
Stough, T., Ceulemans, K., Craps, M., Van Liedekerke, L., & Cappuyns, V. (2022). To shift a paradigm or not: worldviews at play in responsible management education literature. Journal of Management Development, 41(3), 133-146.
Wickert, C. & Muzio, D. (2024). What is the strategy of strategy to tackle climate change? Journal of Management Studies, doi:10.1111/joms.13114.
warmly Kathryn
Kathryn Pavlovich (PhD) | Professor| Director of Post Graduate Studies | Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship| Waikato Management School | University of Waikato | Private Bag 3105 | Hamilton 3240 | New Zealand | kathryn.pavlovich@waikato.ac.nz | mob +6421446745
Editor-in-Chief: Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion
