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The question of whether the Spiritual Self affects workplace behavior and performance, not just job attitudes, bears directly on the business case for workplace spirituality. This study seeks to extend prior research by examining the relationship between meaningful work, a component of workplace spirituality, and worker motivation. The study pioneered an experimental method focused on measurable performance outcomes. Temporal order was controlled, allowing causality to be established. The study demonstrates workers who connect a self-transcendent purpose to otherwise mundane tasks are both more productive and satisfied. The empirical evidence for workplace spirituality is compelling and points towards future research directions.
WORKPLACE SPIRITUALITY AND THE MOTIVATIONAL IMPACT OF MEANING
William James (1890) described a mechanism he observed at work in human beings which governed perceptions about every facet of life, including work. If it were altered, a person would become alienatus a se, or alienated from themselves. James labeled this mechanism the Spiritual Self:
It is what welcomes or rejects. It presides over the perception of sensations, and by giving or withholding its assent it influences the movements they tend to arouse. It is the home of interest,-not the pleasant or the painful, not even pleasure or pain, as such, but that within us to which pleasure and pain, the pleasant and the painful, speak. It is the source of effort and attention, and the place from which appear to emanate the fiats of the will. (p. 297-298)
Today, spirituality is recognized as a powerful source of identity. The open expression of spirituality can be found in popular television series, movies, and books. It is a source of basic life principles and assumptions about reality, and is a major determinant of behavior (Mitroff & Denton, 1999b; Guillory, 2000). Spirituality therefore becomes an essential subject for organizational study. To fail to acknowledge its presence and significance to organizational life may be naive.
Over the past 25 years, workplace spirituality has become an extremely popular topic, remarkable to the point its growth rate has itself become a focus of discussion and study (McKee, 2003). It has emerged as a significant scholarly and business movement (Conlin, 1999; Garcia-Zamor, 2003). Workplace spirituality has been christened a new business paradigm (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Laabs, 1995), and described as "the...