Links between Workplace Spirituality,
Job-Related Attitudes, and Value Fit in a
Non-Profit Agency
Kimberly T. Schneider, Eros DeSouza, & Renee N. Durst
Illinois State University
Midwestern Psychological Association (2014) Symposium on
Bringing the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality into Community Psychology
Spirituality at Work: Overview
• A growing area of interest in the U.S.
• “A source of meaning and purpose in life, providing a sense of
interconnectedness, and a sense of feeling connected with one’s
self, others, and the universe” (Mitroff & Denton, 1999)
• Academy of Management has an interest group on spirituality
• Some MBA programs offer courses on spirituality for leaders
• Some propose that employees may seek spiritual connections at work, in
part to substitute for decline in more traditional community groups
(Ashmos & Duchon, 2000)
• Distinction between overt and covert expressions of spirituality at work
• Tombaugh et al. (2011) argued that both constructs may influence behavior at
work, either via attitudes & behaviors witnessed by coworkers (overt) or
attitudes not publicly demonstrated (covert).
The Study of Workplace Spirituality
• Mitroff & Denton (1999) suggest 4 organizational orientations
toward religion & spirituality:
• Religion-based organization
• Evolutionary organization: evolve from religious identification to nondenominational and values-based
• Recovering organization: build spirituality & focused on recovery
• Values-based organization: not associated w/religion or spirituality
• Level of Analysis
• Can examine spirituality at both individual & organizational levels
Benefits of Workplace Spirituality
• Sense of belonging and connectedness
• Spiritualty may strengthen connections among like-minded
employees
• Offers sense of belonging & connectedness to fellow coworkers, and
may buffer from ostracism (Wesselmann & Williams, 2010)
• Links with job-related attitudes and behaviors
• Correlations among spirituality & job satisfaction among diverse
samples (nurses, grad students, Catholic health system
employees)
• Most of these studies focused on global job satisfaction, less is
known about various job satisfaction facets
Person-organization ‘fit’
• Current study focused on a non-profit social service agency
with a spiritual mission.
• Raises questions about ‘fit’ between employees & the agency
• We expect individual differences in importance of spirituality at
work and in life
• Given the agency’s mission, some employees may feel more
supported by such a climate than others
• Importance of perceived ‘fit’
• We expect that employees who felt they did not have to
compromise their basic values in doing their work will ‘fit’ better
with such an agency
•  this may translate to more positive job attitudes
Hypotheses
• H1: Individual perceptions of the importance of spirituality at
work will be significantly related to satisfaction with work,
with coworkers, with supervision, and with the agency.
• H2: Employees who value the agency’s service-related and
community-support functions will report more positive job
attitudes than employees who do not hold such values.
• H3: Importance of workplace spirituality will be related to
work having a greater contribution to general meaning in life.
• H4: Employees’ perceptions of the match/fit between
coworkers’ values and the agency’s mission will moderate
relationships between the importance of spirituality at work
and facets of job satisfaction.
Method
• Setting: Nonprofit social service agency in the Midwest
• Christian-based organization historically linked to a religious foundation;
founded as a ‘faith-based orphanage’
• Not run by a specific church or denomination
• Mission statement, “…embodies Christian principles to help families and
children develop the hope, courage, and love they need to become whole
and healthy.”
• “God” is referenced in 3 of 6 agency values
• Respect: ”Humankind, created in God’s image, has inherent value…”
• Teamwork: “We are called to be in relationship with God and with one
another…”
• Stewardship: “Our funds, property, and human resources are given to us in trust
from God...”
• Services include residential treatment of children & adolescents, special
education, foster care, adoption services.
• Sample
• One-hundred ninety-two employees participated voluntarily
• out of 300 employees (64% response rate)
• 77% female respondents (reflects employee population)
• Majority worked full-time (88%) in non-supervisory positions
(73%) including residential treatment staff, therapists,
caseworkers, and teachers.
• Procedure
• Online survey emailed to all agency employees
• Voluntary participation & confidential responses
• No one from the agency had access to data, only feedback reports
our team prepared
• Measures
• We used the agency’s pre-existing Employee Opinion Survey (EOS),
administered online
• The EOS included measures of
•
•
•
•
Satisfaction with work (7 items)
Satisfaction with coworkers (3 items)
Satisfaction with supervision (6 items)
Satisfaction with the agency in general (1 item)
• Six items from Mitroff & Denton’s (1999) spirituality measure
• 1 item – “Choose (from among 12 job attributes) the 3 that provide the most
meaning & purpose in your job”
• Options of interest to us:
• “Being associated with a good organization”
• “Providing community service”
• 2 items – “rate the importance of spirituality in your life” and “rate the
importance of spirituality at work” (not at all important – very important)
• 3 items –
• To what extent does work contributes to general meaning in your life?
• How frequently you feel forced to compromise your values while at work?
• To what extent do your coworkers’ values match those of the agency?
Results:
• Hypothesis 1: Individual perceptions of the importance of
spirituality at work will be significantly related to satisfaction with
work, with coworkers, with supervision, and with the agency.
• Significant correlations between employees’ perceptions of
the importance of workplace spirituality with all job attitudes
• Perceived spirituality as more important…
•
•
•
•
Reported higher sat w/supervision (r = .15, p = .03)
Reported higher sat w/coworkers (r = .15, p = .02)
Reported higher sat w/work itself (r = .12, p = .04)
Reported higher sat w/the agency (r = .17, p = .01)
• Spirituality assessments may be domain-specific – the
correlations between job attitudes & spirituality in general (as
opposed to ‘at work’) were non-significant
• Hypothesis 2: Employees who value the agency’s service-related
and community-support functions will report more positive job
attitudes than employees who do not hold such values.
• Focused on forced-choice item of top 3 dimensions that give
most meaning & purpose on the job
• Created groups based on whether they chose ‘being associated
with a good organization’ or not
Satisfaction
Dimension
Mean (SD) for
those selecting
‘Good
Organization’
Mean (SD) for
those not
selecting ‘Good
Organization’
t
df
d
Supervision
2.34 (.33)
2.19 (.37)
2.69**
183
.43
Coworker
3.43 (.37)
3.25 (.42)
2.86**
186
.45
Work
3.38 (.37)
3.23 (.42)
2.27*
179
.38
Agency
3.63 (.52)
3.30 (.63)
3.47***
190
.57
• Hypothesis 3: Importance of workplace spirituality will be related
to work having a greater contribution to general meaning in life.
• Correlation between these 2 variables was significant,
r = .29, p = .001
• Hypothesis 4: Employees’ perceptions of the match/fit between
coworkers’ values and the agency’s mission will moderate
relationships between the importance of spirituality at work and
facets of job satisfaction.
Hierarchical regression to test the moderator:
1. Employees’ ratings of the importance of spirituality at work
2. Perceptions of coworkers’ values
3. Interaction terms
The ‘value match’ moderated the relationship between the
importance of workplace spirituality and sat w/supervision
(F (1, 176) = 4.89, Δ R2 = .02, p =.03)
Those who perceive low
value match (between
coworkers & the agency)

sat w/supervision was
lower for those who view
workplace spirituality as
more important
16
Supervision Satisfaction
14
12
10
8
Low Value Match
6
High Value Match
4
2
0
Low Spirituality
High Spirituality
Importance of Spirituality at Work
Implications
• For some employees, workplace spirituality is an important
contributor to meaningfulness and contributes to a healthy
working climate.
• In our sample, workplace spirituality was significantly &
positively related to facets of job satisfaction
• And employees’ perceptions of their coworkers’ values matching
those of the organization were important predictors of their own
satisfaction
• Employees at this agency distinguished between the importance
of workplace spirituality and spirituality in life in general
• …and that was reflected in relationships with job satisfaction
•  may reflect good person-job fit in this social service agency
• Previous research on person-job fit has focused on dimensions related
to performance rewards, training & development, & teamwork (Bretz &
Judge, 1994) but not aspects of spirituality.
• Workplace spirituality as a possible barrier to burnout?
• Used as a buffer for stress – especially for employees who feel their
spiritual values are supported by their organization
• Organizational context is important to keep in mind. Spirituality is
difficult to study within organizations!