Workplace spirituality and organizational commitment: an empirical study

Purpose – The paper aims to study the impact of five dimensions of workplace spirituality (team’s sense of community, alignment with organizational values, sense of contribution to society, enjoyment at work, opportunities for inner life) on affective, normative and continuance commitment. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 361 individuals from 154 organizations were interviewed. Correlations, regressions and cluster analyses were carried out. Findings – The five spirituality dimensions explain 48, 16 and 7 per cent of the unique variance of, respectively, the affective, normative and continuance forms of commitment. The findings suggest that when people experience workplace spirituality, they feel more affectively attached to their organizations, experience a sense of obligation/loyalty towards them, and feel less instrumentally committed. Research limitations/implications – Dependent and independent variables were collected from the same source, simultaneously. This can produce the risk of common method variance, leading to an inflation of statistical relationships. Future studies may use a double source method. A longitudinal research design may also be suitable. Practical implications – By improving spirituality climates, managers can promote organizational commitment and, thus, individual and organizational performance. It is likely that this occurs because people react reciprocally towards an organization that satisfies their spiritual needs, allows them to experience a sense of psychological safety, makes them feel that they are valued as human beings and that they deserve respectful treatment, and allows them to experience senses of purpose, self-determination, enjoyment and belonging. Originality/value – The paper contributes by filling a gap in the organization and management literature, in which empirical studies on organizational spirituality have been scarce until now.