Call for Papers:
Holistic and Quantum-Inspired Education for Management, Spirituality, and Religion
Open Access: Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion
Guest editors:
Kathryn Pavlovich (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Stacie Chappell (University Canada West, Canada)
Introduction
Education is undergoing a fundamental transformation. While technological advances continue to expand access and reshape pedagogy, the deeper challenge is cultivating distinctly human capacities such as creativity, intuition, ethical stewardship, and spiritual discernment, rather than optimizing machine-like productivity alone (Senge, 1990). In parallel, workplace scholarship shows a sustained turn toward spirituality, meaning, and virtue in management, reflecting a broader search for purpose and flourishing within organizational life (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Fry, 2003; MacIntyre, 1981; Mitroff & Denton, 1999).
We propose a holistic, quantum‑inspired educational paradigm-not as a literal import of physics into pedagogy, but as a generative metaphor and method for thinking about interconnection, uncertainty, complementarity, and co‑creative emergence (Wheatley, 1992/2006; Laszlo, 2020; Laszlo & Tsao, 2020; Pavlovich, 2020; Porter‑O'Grady & Malloch, 2015). This paradigm recognizes that learners and leaders are embedded in nested, living systems whose dynamics are relational and nonlinear. Thus learning is less a linear transfer of information and more a process of pattern sensing, meaning‑making, and world‑making enacted with others.
A quantum‑inspired lens foregrounds four shifts. The first is from separateness to entanglement (relationality). Identity, knowledge, and value are constituted in relationship. Educational practice becomes an ecology of mutual influence-among families, educators, organizations, and communities as co‑educators-nurturing the whole person across mental, physical, spiritual, relational, and ethical domains (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Eichler& Billsberry, 2023). The second is from certainty to indeterminacy (generative uncertainty). Ambiguity is not a defect to eliminate but a field of possibility in which insight and ethical imagination can arise. We invite pedagogies that help students stay with the unknown-cultivating presence, reflective poise, and the capacity to act with wisdom when outcomes are not predetermined. The third quantum shift moves from either/or to complementarity (both/and knowing). Analysis and intuition, rigor and reverence, objectivity and subjectivity become complementary, not competing, modes of inquiry. This harmonization aligns with legacy wisdom traditions and contemporary learning sciences and leadership research (Fry, 2003; Van Dierendonck, 2011). Finally, from delivery to emergence (co‑creation). Learning communities are generative fields in which new patterns of understanding and practice emerge through collaboration. Educators shift from content deliverers to field stewards, designing conditions for insight, ethical reflection, and collective sensemaking.
We invite theoretical, empirical, and practice‑oriented contributions that:
- Articulate quantum‑inspired metaphors and models for leadership and learning without reductionism or scientism, including conceptual bridges to systems thinking, virtue ethics, and wisdom traditions.
- Examine contemplative and transcendent practices in management education (e.g., compassion training, silence, rituals of gratitude, nature‑based learning) and their effects on creativity, judgment, and ethical decision‑making.
- Design and evaluate curricular innovations that cultivate AACC capacities and demonstrate outcomes beyond performance metrics (e.g., prosocial impact, wellbeing, dignity, ecological stewardship).
- Explore methodological pluralism (mixed methods, longitudinal fieldwork, neurophenomenology, design‑based research, first‑person/autoethnographic accounts) suited to studying emergence and inner development.
- Showcase organizational cases where executive education has shifted cultures toward meaning, virtue, and shared flourishing-highlighting boundary‑spanning partnerships among families, communities, and institutions.
We seek work that is intellectually rigorous and spiritually literate-empirically grounded, conceptually robust, and narratively compelling-advancing a pedagogy of wholeness for the complexities of contemporary organizational life.
Key submission details and dates
Submissions will be evaluated through a double-blind review process on: fit, theoretical contribution, methodological clarity, practical implications, and writing quality.
The submission package should include abstracts: 1–2 pages with (i) research question, (ii) theoretical focus (iii) pedagogical approach, (iv) method/type of contribution, (v) 3–5 key references.
Please follow APA 7th edition; figures/tables permissions policy; language expectations. Formatting: 12-pt Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing; 6,000–8,000 words including references, notes, and appendices. A one page abstract is due direct to guest editors by 30 May 2026; with final submissions due 31 October. The submission link is: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rmsr The work must be original and not under review elsewhere. They will be double-blind reviewed and should explicitly connect to JMSR's scope. Where applicable, include evidence of ethical approval and informed consent. Submission must be via JMSR's ScholarOne Special Issue title.
For further information please contact both the guest editors:
References
Ashmos, D. P., & Duchon, D. (2000). Spirituality at work: A conceptualization and measure. Journal of Management Inquiry, 9(2), 134–145.
Dane, E., & Pratt, M. G. (2007). Exploring intuition and its role in managerial decision making. Academy of Management Review, 32(1), 33–54.
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.
Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 693–727.
Jung-Beeman, M., et al. (2004). Neural activity when people solve problems with insight. PLoS Biology, 2(4), e97.
Laszlo, C. (2020). Quantum management: the practices and science of flourishing enterprise. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 17(4), 301-315.
Laszlo, C., & Tsao, C. (2020). Quantum leadership: New consciousness in business. Stanford University Press.
MacIntyre, A. (1981). After virtue: A study in moral theory. University of Notre Dame Press.
Mintzberg, H. (2004). Managers, not MBAs. Berrett-Koehler.
Mitroff, I. I., & Denton, E. A. (1999). A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion, and values in the workplace. Jossey-Bass.
Pavlovich, K. (2020). Quantum empathy: An alternative narrative for global transcendence. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 17(4), 333–347.
Pavlovich, K. & Roche, M. (2024). Organising food systems through ecologies of care: A relational approach. Journal of Business Ethics,193,459–469.
Porter-O'Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2015). Quantum leadership: Building better partnerships for sustainable health (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday/Currency.
Van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228-1261
Wheatley, M. J. (1992/2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.
Kind regards Kathryn and Stacie
Kathryn Pavlovich (PhD) | Professor| Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship| Waikato Management School | University of Waikato | Private Bag 3105 | Hamilton 3240 | New Zealand | kathryn.pavlovich@waikato.ac.nz | mob +6421446745