Values, Beliefs and Attitudes in the Era of LateCapitalism: A Consideration of the Re-Emergence and RePositioning of Faith and Spirituality as Spiritual Capital in
the Workplace.
Chris Baker, Peter Stokes, Jessica Lichy, John Atherton, Danny Moss
University of Chester, United Kingdom and IDRAC, France
Abstract
The purpose of this current study is to explore notions of the post-secular and spiritual
capital, and to suggest possible ways in which these key ideas, which have emerged with
increasing force during the course of the current century, might provide new avenues for
future research concerning the significant relationship between faith, spirituality, ethics and
business practice. These new avenues will include a cross-cultural study of comparative
attitudes concerning the role and contribution of spiritual capital (which we later more
specifically define in terms of values, beliefs and attitudes) towards shaping business ethos
and practice in France and Britain. As we map the processes leading to the de-secularisation
of public life, we acknowledge that business practice is the product of sets of individual and
collective rationales: some are likely to be sympathetic to ideas of spiritual capital and its
strategic potential, others are likely to be sceptical in equal measure, whilst perhaps a third
section comes to these questions with an open but critical mind.
Cet article a pour but dans un premier temps d’étudier les notions de ‘post-sécularité’ et de
capital spirituel. Y est étudié l’intérêt porté au sacré et les notions liées à ce thème (foi,
spiritualité, éthique au travail), d'une l'importance croissante en ce début de siècle. Nous
faisons également état des orientations de recherche à venir, portant sur les interrelations entre
spiritualité, foi, éthique et pratique des affaires. Dans un deuxième temps, l'article développe
les résultats d'une enquête comprendra une étude comparant en France et en Grande
Bretagne les diverses interprétations
du rôle
et
de
la
contribution
de
capital spirituel (valeurs, croyances et attitudes) dans la formulation de philosophies de
travail. Mettant en évidence les processus ayant conduit à la désécularisation de la vie civile,
nous n'oublions pas que la pratique des affaires est le produit conjoint de rationalités
collectives et individuelles : alors que certaines sont susceptibles d'être sensibles à la notion
de capital spirituel, d'autres sont résoluments sceptiques. Enfin, nous entrevoyons une
troisième voie appréhendant ces notions avec un esprit ouvert et néanmoins critique.
The re-emergence of religion and spirituality in the 21st century in the West – a
postsecular paradigm?
As this article is being written, UK media and public attention continues to focus on a standoff between the Occupy protesters, and St Paul’s Cathedral and the City of London authorities
who are considering legal proceedings to remove the tented village created in front of the
cathedral. There are two important dimensions to this ongoing event which are highly
pertinent to the issues raised by this paper. First, the Occupy protest is part of a current global
series of high-profile sit-ins and occupations outside symbolic centres of global capitalism
and elsewhere (London, New York, Frankfurt, Vancouver), protesting at the austerity and
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poverty faced by many ordinary citizens in the wake of the current banking crisis. Attention in
particular is focussed on the highly unequal structures of pay and reward offered by present
models of capitalism, which appear to epitomise a culture of greed, individualism and
unaccountability. This is particularly true in respect of investment banking whose systems of
transactions and rewards appear to involve unacceptably high levels of risk and complexity,
risks which then have to be underwritten by ordinary tax payers. Moderate media coverage is
recognising that these groups of protesters, whilst appearing as yet to have no coherent set of
arguments for reform to the current system of capitalism, are nevertheless expressing a
legitimate sense of disquiet, anxiety and powerlessness in the face of particularly destructive
and unaccountable banking and business practices. Questions are therefore inevitably being
raised (and possibly in more intense ways due to the setting in front of St Pauls and the public
disagreements, involving the resignation of senior clergy, over the issue of potentially violent
eviction of peaceful protestors) about not only some of the practices of banking and global
corporate business, but also the ethical and moral values that underpin them. A growing
consensus suggests that this talk of reform is likely to be politically unacceptable unless there
is a parallel debate about the sort of society we want to create in the first place, and what basis
or understanding of the human do we want to articulate (see for example, Sachs, 2011).
Second, a report produced by the St Paul’s Institute (a think-tank attached to the Cathedral)
was suppressed in the early days of the protest. The report surveyed 515 financial service
professionals (FSPs) working in the City of London, and was intended to ‘explore levels of
financial history knowledge by those working in the financial services sector [on the occasion
of the 25th anniversary of the Big Bang – or deregulation of the City] in London’. It also
aimed to provide ‘a detailed look at current perceptions of the ethical culture within City
organisations and their relationship with wider society’ (St Paul’s Institute, 2011: 8). A key
finding of the report was that 80% of those interviewed expressed either an unambiguous
belief in God, or defined themselves on a series of spiritual or agnostic positions: 41% stated
they believed in God, including 4% who said ‘I believe in God now but have not always done
so’; 21% said ‘I don’t know whether there is a God’; 11% said ‘I do not believe in a God but I
do believe in a higher power’, whilst 7% reflected ‘I do not believe in a God, but I am a
spiritual person’ (2011:18). This suggests levels of spiritual capital (as interpreted in terms of
values beliefs and attitudes) are higher than perhaps assumed in financial and business
communities in the West.
We will now turn our attention to the post-secular debate with reference to three interrelated
headings: The re-emergence of religion as a politically significant force; the ‘remoralisation’
of public life; and the importance of the wellbeing and flourishing debate.
The de-secularisation of public life
The first facet of postsecular theory relates to the way that key sociological and philosophical
theorists are re-writing, or at the very least, re-calibrating secularisation theory. This theory
emerged towards the latter half of the 20th century at a point where, under the impact of 300
years of Enlightenment thought and the physical upheavals of industrialisation, Western
religion appeared to have declined irrevocably in terms of intellectual credibility and social
cohesiveness. This led to a sharp distinction being drawn between the private and public
spheres, with religion’s influence being firmly relegated to the former (i.e. individual belief
and behaviour). The public realm, by contrast, was reserved as a supposedly neutral space in
which only statements and discourses assumed to carry intellectual assent by the majority, and
based on logical and rational argument, could be deemed admissible (see Rawls, 1971). Thus
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any appeal to ‘subjective’ or ‘transcendent’ sources of knowledge in respect of public
decision making was a threat to the stability of the political system. The public sphere thus
became secular by default. Thus Peter Berger in the mid-1960s could define secularisation as
a process ‘by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of
religious institutions and symbols’ (1973: 113). Similarly, Bryan Wilson applied the term to
‘the process by which religious institutions, actions and consciousness lose their social
significance’ (1982: 149).
Forty years on, and Berger is now using terms such as desecularisation to describe the
resurgence of ‘furious, supernaturalist, fundamentalist or conservative expressions of religion’
(1999: 6) in politics and public life. Jose Casanova (1994) meanwhile talks about the
deprivatisation of the public sphere, whereby religious traditions throughout the world are
refusing to accept the marginal and privatised role which theories of modernity had reserved
for them. Finally there is clear evidence of what Woodhead and Heelas call the ‘spiritual turn’
(2004) which defies the disenchantment (see Weber’s theory) many feel with the materialism
and scientific positivism bequeathed by modernity. The search for personal fulfilment for
many now encompasses both the material and the non-material; and happiness and wellbeing
are increasingly linked to rediscovered traditions of religion and spirituality which are taken
in eclectic forms rather than in their traditional totalities. This non-material searching is
expressed in, for example, increased attendance at regular services at cathedrals (up 7% in
2010 and up 37% since 2000)1 and the increased practice of pilgrimage, not only from the
devout, but those who express themselves as agnostic and seeking after truth. There is still a
major scepticism towards religious authority (as there is towards any authority - be it political
or scientific); but there are also clear signs that people want to feel re-enchanted once more; to
feel that they belong to wider web of connections with both human and non-human actors –
the landscape, the environment, the very universe itself.
Jurgen Habermas, meanwhile, refers to ‘a postsecular self-understanding of society as a
whole, in which the vigorous continuation of religion in a continually secularizing
environment must be reckoned with’ (2005: 26). This last observation is not describing the
replacement of secularisation within liberal democracies by a resurgent public expression of
religion. Rather, it suggests that on-going dynamics of secularisation (as process) and
secularism (as ideology) now compete within the public sphere with some unexpected
expressions of an emergent and confident religion.
The remoralising of public life
This leads on to a second dimension of the postsecular – namely the re-emergence of religion
as a significant player in public policy and political debate. We have already remarked on the
public/private split with regard to religion that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century
in the West. This division of labour was later underscored with the creation of the post-war
universal and comprehensive welfare state in Britain, in which ‘cradle to grave’ social
security was provided by the State. The State alone had the technical, financial and empirical
resources by which to treat the poverty and inequality of British society: targets could be set;
treatments organised and paid for; research deployed to justify the latest scientific and
technocratic resources in the fields of healthcare, education, housing and planning. This form
of political economy expressed the modernist utopia: expert driven, liberal, rational and
universal.
1
http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1243690/cathedralattendances2000to2010.pdf (accessed 20th
November, 2011)
3
The churches, which had been the main providers of social care, welfare and progressive
reform, were drastically excluded from the public policy arena, except perhaps in the areas of
education and palliative care. The last 10 years have seen a dramatic reversal of this secularist
dispensation. Religion has come ‘back in from the cold’ for a whole variety of complex and
overlapping reasons (see Atherton, Baker, Reader, 2011: 90), but not least because of the lack
of religious literacy possessed by government in respect of how to deal with increasingly
diverse populations for whom religion is a key part of their essential identity. However, there
is a growing consensus amongst many commentators and researchers that religion is useful
for not only the material goods it provides to civil society, but also immaterial goods – an
argument neatly summarised by two social scientists, Lowndes and Chapman.
They describe a threefold rationale as to why the State might choose to engage with faith
groups in respect of civil society and public life. The first is what they call the leadership
rationale which describes the local leadership and also leadership training that faith groups
provide for their local communities. The second is called the resources rationale and
describes the material goods that faith groups often provide for the local communities in
which they are located. These include volunteers, buildings, paid workers, training and
learning of transferable skills (and so on). Finally, and most significantly from this article’s
perspective, is what they refer to as the normative rationale. This refers to norms and values
that faith groups bring to the public policy table and which in the words of Lowndes and
Chapman will be ‘motivated by their theology’. It is perhaps worth relating their argument on
this point in further detail:
The distinctiveness of these motivations lies in the holistic nature of faith-based value
systems ... and the embeddedness of faith groups within communities. Harnessing and
supporting faith-based motivations for engagement can contribute to civil renewal
objectives while also expressing the more specific goal of re-moralising public life –
asserting the importance of debating and celebrating the values that underpin British
Society (Lowndes and Chapman, 2005: 27).
This recognition of the importance of normative values for the smooth and effective running
of public space will find resonance later on when we explore the potential importance of
norms in relation to the success and effectiveness of business and enterprise.
Happiness, wellbeing and political economy
The remoralising, or normativisation of public life leads to the third aspect of the postsecular
that is relevant to this debate. And that is the renewed emphasis on happiness and wellbeing,
and the importance of religion and spirituality in relation to these non-material goods. There is
now widespread realisation of high economic costs associated with the increased prevalence
of mental illness within the UK population alone. Meanwhile increases in unhappiness are
seen unambiguously as related to the current lifestyles we feel compelled to live; citizens are
required to work longer hours and commute ever further distances, and often for diminishing
returns as recession and austerity begin to bite – often referred to as the immiseration of the
middle class (Soja, 2000). There is a growing literature on the depressive nature of addiction
for those on very high disposable incomes, leading to feelings of emptiness and guilt
characterised as affluenza, or the downside of selfish capitalism (James, 2007). The
consequent pressure on individual and family life, which is often over-mortgaged in order to
maintain a ‘decent lifestyle’, leads to greater stress and increases the risk of breakdown and
depression. For those with no work, or on low wages, the pressures generated by prevailing
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consumerism and increasing inequality produces a sense of envy and dislocation, and of being
abandoned and stigmatised (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009; Wacquant, 2008). There is both a
government and business-oriented drive towards locating and therefore maximising the
potential for happiness and wellbeing in both the work place and society at large. To this end
the Prime Minister, David Cameron, has recently launched his Happiness Index which aims to
assess levels of contentment and satisfaction in the population in order to shape and monitor
the impact of government policy in the UK (see Office of National Statistics, Oct. 2011).
However, what has gone largely undetected within mainstream policy discussions is the way
several secular commentators have identified religion as an important predictor of not only
hedonic happiness (i.e. the emotional state of ‘feeling’ happy) but also eudaimonic wellbeing
(i.e. the ability to function effectively in the face of disaster and misfortune, including aspects
of resilience, self-esteem and supportive relationships). Thus one the most eminent
psychologists in America, Ed Diener concludes that ‘religious people are on the whole
happier than non-religious’ (Diener and Diener, 2008:14). This finding is specifically traced
to the unique features associated with religious upbringing or religious life, including the
values of comforting beliefs; the connection to something permanent and important (including
that which is greater than oneself or a transcendent reality); growing up religiously; and the
experience of ritual, including worship and religious.
Meanwhile, recent work outlining the role of religion and ethics in relation to economics
includes the work of global economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen. Stiglitz is
keen to give an account of moral economic growth; namely growth that is 1) sustainable in
the sense that it aims not only at increasing living standards today, but also for those
generations which will come after, 2) ensure that the benefits of growth are shared equitably
and 3) these two principles guiding economic growth create a more tolerant society informed
by social justice and solidarity (2005). His model of economic growth lies at the heart of what
French President Nicholas Sarkozy has called ‘a new form of capitalism based on moral
values’ (2008). Sen, meanwhile, underscores that it depends heavily on transactions and
payments that lie largely outside the markets, including welfare payments, education and
health care. These are aspects of human development that contribute greatly to the human
capital available to businesses and which are not based on private ownership and property
rights, but purely on citizenship. He therefore advocates the creation of an economy ‘based on
social values that we can defend ethically’ (2009).
The rise of spiritual and religious capital
This overview of the re-emergence of religion in political and economic life in the West (i.e.
the postsecular) brings us to the second plank in our argument in respect to exploring the
relationship between religion, spirituality and business practice. This is the idea of spiritual
capital, which, we suggest, is an important contributor to other forms of capital within
business, including both financial and human forms.
The emergence of the concept of spiritual capital owes its origins to the prevalence of social
capital theory as the major theoretical tool that has driven social policy within both the US
and Europe. Although there are several traditions of social capital theory (for example, James
Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu (see Baker and Miles Watson 2008 for extended discussion), it
is the tradition as developed by Robert Putman since the late 1990s which has dominated
political debate. This could be because his thesis is relatively simple to understand, is backed
5
up by impressive rafts of empirical data from a wide variety of sources, and proposes that
social capital is innate within networks, rather than individuals.
Putnam, through work carried out in Italy and the States, proposes that social capital is
generally in decline within Western economies. He suggests that ‘…social capital refers to
connections among individuals – social networks, and the norms of reciprocity and
trustworthiness that arise from them’ (Putnam, 2000: 19). More recently Putnam and others
have distinguished between bonding social capital which describes intra-group networking,
bridging social capital describing horizontal linkages to other groups, and linking social
capital describing vertical relationships to centres of resources and power. For this article we
shall be using definitions derived from a UK context based on qualitative research with
religious groups engaged in civil renewal and urban regeneration conducted by the William
Temple Foundation (WTF). These definitions see an inextricable link between religious and
spiritual capital, as aspects of human activity and experience that make an important
contribution to social capital.
WTF’s formulation of the term religious capital is ‘the practical contribution to local and
national life made by faith groups’ (Baker and Skinner, 2006:9). This is a more corporate and
communitarian in emphasis than, for example, Bourdieu’s definition which sees religious
capital as a resource which may serve an individual in a competition for status. Spiritual
capital on the other hand, ‘energises religious capital by providing a theological identity and
worshipping tradition, but also a value system, moral vision and a basis for faith’ (Baker and
Skinner, 2006:9). WTF’s definition of spiritual capital thus stresses the ‘why’ of faith-based
participation, not simply the ‘how’. The emphasis on the ‘why’ helps deepen the somewhat
functionalist discourse on faith groups’ contributions to civil society. It also draws attention to
the emerging research interests as to the role of secular or immanent forms of spirituality
(sometimes referred to as ‘secular spiritual’ capital) which are surfacing in disciplinary
discourses associated with health care, social care and planning (see Baker and Miles Watson,
2008; Gilbert, 2011; Holloway, 2005; Sandercock, 2010) and which refer to the importance of
acknowledging the motivational role of ethics, values and visions for change within
vocational and professional development.
Spiritual capital and business practice?
We are therefore now widening the definition of this motivational (or ‘why’) dimension of
spiritual capital derived from religious based settings, to raise questions as to the deeper
values and beliefs that individuals within business communities, and the communities
themselves, might possess. Thus a modified definition of spiritual capital for deployment as a
conceptual and analytical tool within the business environment reads thus:
Spiritual capital is the set of values, ethical standpoints and visions for change held by both
individuals, groups and institutions. It is shaped not only by systems and practices of belief,
but also by engagement with wider sets of relationships (broadly defined) and the sense of
meaning and purpose derived from work-based and other activities (sometimes referred to
as the ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ of a business). Spiritual capital is often the source of motivation for
other forms of capital (e.g. social capital and its emphasis on the importance of trust and
norms as the basis for conducting any form of progressive or enhancing human activity). It
includes the following features:
•Belief in including answering to higher or deeper moral orders, expressed in commitment to
such values as truth, self-knowledge, right action, and purpose in life including as wider
meanings (how beliefs inform values).
6
•Sense of being part of or connected to wider relationships extending to belief in wider
communities including nationally and internationally (where we fit in).
•The sense of a job as meaning and potential (what we do).
So far, we are suggesting that the emergence of the concept of the postsecular has opened up
a new series of ‘spaces’ by which to evaluate the salience of spiritual capital as a means of
redefining the importance of norms, values, attitudes and beliefs in public life. We now
address the specific ways in which our definition of spiritual capital potentially reflects
current shifts towards more ethical, sustainable and responsible forms of business
development and management.
The re-emergence and re-positioning of faith-based issues in the organization
The emergence of a heightened state of post secularism and spiritual capitalism across wider
society has created a series of interesting changes and effects within academic and practitioner
realms of business and management. However, as a consequence of the dominance and
influence of modernism and capitalism for much of the twentieth century, there has been a
tendency to paint organizational life, and especially corporate forms, as being pre-occupied
with a range of objectified performance metrics such as profit, turnover and market share. In
normative management discourse these are often termed the ‘hard’ aspects of the
organization. These dimensions and their effective management are vital in the running of any
operation but it is equally recognised that it is important to pay due attention to what are
called the ‘soft’ factors in business. These include human resources management, namely
motivation, vision setting, talent, and corporate culture management (Massa, 2011; Stokes,
2011). It is primarily within this latter ‘soft’ realm that the contemporaneously resurgent
issues and discussions of faith, spiritual capital and beliefs tend to be located.
Much of the debate has taken place through attempts to understand, encourage and engender
‘strong’ corporate cultures. Historically, business and management corporate cultures have
been highlighted as a crucial aspect of change management situations and they are extensively
commented on in general management and change literature (Mayo, 1946; Deal and Kennedy,
1982; Schein, 1990; Kono and Clegg, 1998; Johnson and Duberley, 2011). The notion of
‘managing (corporate/organizational) culture’ and, indeed, the very concept of ‘culture’
nevertheless remains complex. In its broadest sense, culture incorporates an extensive sphere
of influences and commentaries and extends to issues of taste and judgement, associated with
intellectual, artistic and social dimensions. In relation to organization and management,
culture is commonly linked to the values, beliefs, atmospheres, customs and practices, goals
and missions that operate in every organization (Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis, 2011: 263-298;
Stokes, 2011). Each individual and organization will possess particular nuances and patterns
of culture. In the predominant paradigm of mainstream and normative writings, corporate
culture is discussed as something that managers need to grasp, construct, guide and control so
that it can assist in the achievement of higher production, effectiveness and performativity. In
these literatures, behaviour that is perceived as ‘undesirable’, ‘bad’ or, alternatively
expressed, ‘resistance’ is addressed through proposals to manage, change and transform
corporate and organizational cultures. From this rationalistic perspective, individuals or
groups who act or comment against the culture are seen as resistant and problematic (Jermier,
Knights, and Nord, 1994; Ashcraft, 2005; Linstead, Fulop and Lilley, 2009: 93-122).
In contrast to normative and managerial approaches, critical management perspectives
challenge the view that culture is a fixed and delineated entity with clear boundaries that can
7
be controlled by managers. From a ‘critical approaches’ perspective, culture is more likely to
be viewed as an ephemeral, organic and socially constructed concept rather than an
ontologically solid and tangible object (Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis, 2011; Linstead, Fulop
and Lilley, 2009). From a critical perspective, culture in organizations is more likely to be
better portrayed as evolving patterns of behaviour, shifting power alliances, emergent
discourses, narratives and identities rather than being fixed in nature (Alvesson, 2002;
Badham, Garrety, Morrigan and Zanko, 2003; Parker 2000; Rhodes and Parker, 2008; Sköld
2009).
Within the realm of the academic discipline of organization and management studies, we have
already alluded to the growing commentary on topics that refer to the managerial and
modernistic representations of the ‘soft’ sides of management. As part of this search, the last
50 years or so has seen an increasing preoccupation with enhancing and promoting notions of
‘meaning’ and ‘identity’ in work lives through a wide range of topics including: faith, values,
religion, spirituality, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR), responsible
management, sustainability, well-being, values, compassion, commitment, work-life balance,
transformational leadership and business ethics (Elizur, 1996; Jaakson, 2010; Mostovicz,
Kakabadse, and Kakabadse, 2011; Opdebeeck and Habisch, 2011; Russell, 2001). It is beyond
the scope of the current paper to be able to present and scrutinise all these developments.
Suffice to say that one of the key unifying themes of many of these approaches is the
recognition that extant understandings of human behaviour at work are a ‘work-in-progress’
project rather than ‘complete and comprehensive’ in the current post-capitalist, post-colonial
and post-industrial developed economic contexts (Mele and Sanchez-Runde, 2011).
The contention of this paper, in paying attention in a more concerted manner to the concept of
values, beliefs and attitudes, is that in an apparent post-capitalist and post secular phase of
history it is important to examine and analyse the degree to which religious belief and faith is
playing a role in organizational life. Clearly, there will be a range of organizational settings in
which religion can be seen to play a central role. These might include for example, certain
charities such as Christian Aid or the Salvation Army. And indeed historically, it is significant
to indicate the establishment of worker villages and communities under the Quaker auspices
of, for example, Cadbury’s or other corporate collectives such as Port Sunlight under Lord
Leverhulme or Saltaire under Titus Salt. However, in most current British business
organizational settings, faith and religion are not generally topics that are brought into
discussions of development, identity and purpose. This may well contrast with other national
contexts – see for example the commentary by Payne (2010) on United States organizational
life. Equally, we should not overlook the kindred philanthropic work of the likes of George
Soros in Eastern Europe or Bill Gates in Africa. There is therefore scope to conduct research,
certainly in the UK that examines these under-explored aspects of organizational cultures.
This call for more studies and application reflects those appeals by a range of authors in
alternative English-speaking domains (see, for instance, Wong 2011) on the role of
spirituality in psychiatry training in Australia and Khasawneh (2011) in relation to higher
education institutions, and Smith and Malcolm (2010) in relation to spirituality in the National
Health Service.
Proposed methodology and future steps
This stage of the research is currently under development from the consideration of the
literature. The research plans to conduct interviews across a range of organizations, in the first
instance, in the UK and then in France. The research methodology will comprise semi8
structured interviews in identified companies. The interviews will seek to surface the
presence, role and operation of spiritual, faith and religious beliefs in contemporary
organizational life (Van Maanan, 1988, 2010; Maylor and Blackmon, 2005; Eriksson and
Kovalainen, 2008). The building of the interviewee databank will be achieved through a
combination of targeted companies and snowballing techniques based on personal
recommendation of one interviewee to another (Collis and Hussey, 2009:158).
Semi-structured interviews are deemed to be the most appropriate data collection method
because they are congruent with the interpretive approach in that they enable contributors to
‘tell their own story’, thereby enabling the interviewer to gain a more comprehensive
understanding of the participants’ ‘world’ (Bryman and Bell, 2003: 477; Barbour and
Schostak, 2005: 42-44; Polonsky and Waller, 2005: 131; Easterby-Smith et al. 2008, 88;
Gray, 2009: 373). The data will be analysed through intensive reading and re-reading in order
to allow prevalent themes and issues to emerge and crystallise. This process acknowledges
and embraces issues of reflexivity, recognising the reciprocal relation and impact of the
researcher on the researched.
With regard to issues of validity and reliability, the research will adopt normative protocols
for interview processes, encompassing use of the same questions for the semi-structured
questions and use of the same introductory questions and passages for the interviews which
took on a more unstructured nature. Interpretivism is the espoused methodological approach
of the research. It is also the intention of the project to work towards the possibility of
conducting this survey on a periodic basis.
Conclusion
This paper has sought to evaluate the re-emergence and new visibility of faith, religion and
spirituality in many aspects of public life in the West in terms of post secularism and spiritual
capital. It has then provided some further definition of the concept of spiritual capital in ways
that might be operationalized within business and work-based settings, by suggesting the
importance of values, beliefs and attitudes (VBA) as a motivating and developmental dynamic
within organisations, including its impact on structure, ethos and performance, as well as
ethics and CSR. Finally the paper has identified existing sources within business and
management studies which are already addressing the issues raised by this proposed area of
research, and has begun a discussion about some of the research methodologies that are
available for such a project. (5016 words)
9
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