The Role of Embedded Individual Values, Belief and Attitudes and Spiritual Capital in Shaping Everyday Postsecular Organizational Culture

Date01 March 2016
Published date01 March 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12065
The Role of Embedded Individual Values,
Belief and Attitudes and Spiritual Capital
in Shaping Everyday Postsecular
Organizational Culture
Peter Stokes2,Christopher Baker1and Jessica Lichy3
1Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester, Chester, UK;
2University of Chester Business School, University of Chester, Chester, UK;
3IDRAC, Université Professionelle Internationale, Lyon, France
This paper investigates the values, beliefs and attitudes (VBA) held by individual employees within business
environments which motivate and shape behavior in the workplace, and the extent to which VBA reveal roots and
drivers linked to spiritual capital (and associated capitals). Building on early authorial work (Baker,Stokes, Lichy,
Atherton, 2011), and referring to literature from theology and religion, as well as business organization and
management, the paper discusses the critical and dialectical relationship between different forms of capital (for
example, social, human, economic), modernistic, ‘hard’ cultures and issues of managerialism and alternative
critical, ‘soft’frameworks and sources of ethics and values – and their impact on the business setting. It will do this
primarily by proposing a new typological model showing the dynamic and potentially progressive interplay
between spiritual, human, bridging and linking forms of social capital within corporate and public settings and
explores their implications for management. This typological model is derived from original research using
in-depth semi-structured interviews from three different organizations in North West England and North Wales, to
determine the extent to which notions of the postsecular and spiritual capital may operate in workplaces.
Keywords: values; beliefs; attitudes; (VBA); social capital; postsecular; spiritual capital
Introduction
The primary aim of this paper is to consider the signifi-
cant ways in which the values, beliefs and attitudes
(VBA) of individuals shape the material expression and
the ethos of corporate business settings. We suggest that
while VBA is often occluded from public view (for
reasons of both personal reticence and modesty, but also
the perceived edict against the public expression of reli-
gious or spiritual belief in the workplace), it nevertheless
can have a powerful and significant effect in democra-
tizing and humanizing the corporate setting by motivat-
ing actions in relation to the public fabric of a particular
work context.
Thus, the practical implementation of VBA may be
both subversive of, and conduciveto, the espoused ethos
of the official corporate setting. It is a vital expression of
spiritual capital that creates and amplifies existing levels
of business social capital (especially in terms of increas-
ing levels of trust both within and across business-client
relationships, reinforcing progressive normative behav-
iors and creating and sustaining social and collaborative
networks by which individual workers feel they ‘belong’
and have a valuable contribution to make). This context
produces the following research question:
In which ways are the facets, dimensions and impacts
of VBA and spiritual capital manifested and
operationalized in the context of everyday business
situations?
Literature review
Values, beliefs and attitudes in organizations:
normative and everyday perceptions
The thrust of this research resonates the words of Andre
Malraux’s poignant assertion made over fifty years ago
Correspondence: Chris Baker, Department of Theology and Religious
Studies, University of Chester, Chester CH1 4BJ, UK Chris.Baker@
chester.ac.uk
DOI: 10.1111/emre.12065
© 2015 European Academy of Management
European Management Review, Vol. 13, (201 )
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