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http://jmi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/11/4/359
JOURNAL
10.1177/1056492602238843
MANAGEMENT
/
Ashforth,
WORK
December
AND
Vaidyanath
OF
2002
RELIGION
INQUIRY
/
ESSAYS
The authors argue that the secular and the sacred should be viewed not as mutually exclusive but as interpenetrated. As the conventional anchors for spiritual strivings loosen
their grip, many work organizations appear increasingly willing to play the role of secular
religion. Secular religions offer transcendence through edifying cosmologies that address
fundamental questions about identity and meaning, without necessarily invoking a
supernatural power. Normative controls are used to instill faith in the often distant ends
of the organization and to sacralize the means through which the ends are pursued.
Founders may become deities of sorts; key insiders may become clergy; jobs, callings;
institutionalized processes, rituals; and failings, sins. However, because a secular religion is only a claim to a system of meaning, it should inspire not only wonder but wariness. The authors conclude that a certain ironic distance from such a religion may be
healthy for the individual.
I needed to become a fanatic by making a personal
commitment to something which went beyond me. I
liked that requirement, that attitude, the fact that people were saying, Listen were trying to do better and
were trying to do very well; now its up to you to
define what very well means. That was very neat,
very motivating. I was like a mussel in search of its
rock, and my rock was the fact that I had a requirement
which went beyond me. It was the possibility of living
what I really am in my flesh and bones, of sublimating
the whole lot and of presenting it to this God, this
instant God, this God within me, who was not something cold, remote, and inaccessible; it was a very concrete vision which mobilized the whole lot and made
it meaningful.
A manager, describing why he joined his current
employer (Aubert, 1995, p. 164)
AUTHORS NOTE: We are indebted to Mary Ann Glynn, Barbara Keats, Balaji Koka, Glen Kreiner, and Warren Van Egmond for
their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of the article.
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INQUIRY, Vol. 11 No. 4, December 2002 359-370
DOI: 10.1177/1056492602238843
2002 Sage Publications
359
Downloaded from http://jmi.sagepub.com by Oscar Amat on November 19, 2007
2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
360
361
organized religion. To the true believers, their workplace is their temple, and their work, their calling. As
in organized religions, the cosmologies that support
secular religions are potent forces for mobilizing the
membership.
Can Secular Religions
Become Organized Religions?
Stark (1981) described how several secular organizations that provided therapy evolved into full-blown
religions as their existential reach increasingly
exceeded their grasp (e.g., Scientology). Might some
work organizations go the same way? Yes, if the questions they ask transcend naturalistic means of inquiry
or if the goals they pursue are so distal that they
require a major leap of faith on the part of members.
However, it seems very unlikely that many work
organizations would tread this path because they
would also be treading on the toesthe core competencies and institutionalized social validationof the
major religions. It is far more likely that a spiritually
inclined organization would simply incorporate the
tenets of an existing organized religion. Mitroff and
Denton (1999), for example, described religion-based
organizations (pp. 57-75) that deliberately import a
given organized religion as a foundation for organizing and operating their affairs.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF
THE SACRED-SECULAR DIVIDE
Through the ages, there has been a strong link
between the prevalent social and religious philosophies and the conception of work. We will focus on the
history of Europe because it informed the development of Western societies.
A millennium ago, European societies were typically divided into three distinct classes: the clergy,
aristocracy, and peasantry. The sacred pervaded all
corners of society, although religious observance at
the individual level was not widespread (Stark &
Finke, 2000). The Pope and Roman Catholic Church
were very powerful; even monarchies were bound by
the dictates of the clergy (Knowles & Obolensky,
1979). The most important field of study was theology,
the study of God. Manual labor was stigmatized, a
kind of punishment for the original sin purportedly
committed by Adam and Eve (Tilgher, 1958): In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
362
unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (Genesis
3:19).
The Roman Catholic Church continued to dominate Western European societies until various reform
movementscollectively known as the Reformationarose in the 1500s (Friedell, 1930). Disaffection
with the church was fueled by suspicions of corruption and duplicity, restraint of social and scientific
thought, intolerance of dissent, and national resentments (Hale, 2000). Perhaps the most consequential
reformer was Martin Luther, a member of the clergy
who was skeptical about papal and ecclesiastical
authority. Luther believed that all Christians should
be permitted to interpret the scripture for themselves
and that work of all kinds should command spiritual
dignity (Tilgher, 1958). His revolt in 1517 helped
foment questioning of the prevailing religious and
social philosophies, encouraged scientific and social
thought to evolve more independently of church doctrine, and helped give moral sanction to hard work
and profit making. The Reformation gave birth to
Protestantism (Hale, 2000; Thomson, 1963), which
rejected papal authority and viewed faith as the path
to personal salvation. Some denominations also
viewed hard work as a path to salvation or viewed
prosperity as a sign of salvation, thus facilitating the
growth of capitalism and materialism (Weber, 1958).
Furthermore, the rise of intellectual questioning
and scientific inquiry fueled the Age of Reason in the
18th century, also known as the Enlightenment: The
growing understanding of natural phenomena capable of scientific exploration restricted the areas of the
unknown in which Gods power was seen to be at
work (Pettegree, 2001, p. 308). The separation of
church and state also increased gradually and became
codified in some state constitutions. The sacred was
becoming increasingly differentiated from the secular.
Finally, the late 18th and the 19th centuries spurred
a rethinking of the means of production, leading to a
shift from craftsmanship to the use of machinery and
mass production (Garraty & Gay, 1972). This Industrial Revolution helped fuel a sense of possibility and
loosen the assumptions of tradition. New and increasingly complex organizational structures emerged,
supported by greater freedom of movement and
choice, and scientific and technological investigation.
As society itself became more complex, subsystems
emerged and expanded to deal with critical issues,
such as health (medicine), education (schools), and
social regulation (law). Many of the subsystems were
363
genetic imprint of their common origin, much as offspring bear the imprint of their parents. Examples
include Halls (1998) description of the religious roots
of the bureaucratic form among economic, political,
and social institutions in the United States and Albert
and Whettens (1985) discussion of how modern universities evolved from monasteries and still retain
many religious trappings (e.g., tenure/ordination,
academic regalia).
Perhaps, then, the secular and sacred should be
viewed not as independent and mutually exclusive
but as similar and interpenetrated in some fundamental ways (Demerath & Schmitt, 1998; Marty, 1989). Perhaps families, communities, work organizations, and
so on have sacred overtones, just as organized religions have secular overtones, from balancing budgets
to cleaning pews (e.g., Kunkel, 1998; Wuthnow, 1994).
And perhaps a common denominator of the secular
and sacred, a root construct of the primitive fusion, is
spiritualityin particular, spiritual strivings for a personal connection to something subjectively meaningful. One of the main contentions in the literature about
spirituality at work is that many individuals are less
willing to put their spiritual strivings on hold while at
work. For example, Emmons (1999) argued that spirituality is not an isolated, compartmentalized set of
beliefs and practices; rather, it is an integral part of
daily life (p. 90). Just as the religious impulse is finding a home in secular domains, spirituality need not be
confined to houses of religion.
364
includes choices about strategies and goals, structures, technologies, budgets, information systems,
recruitment criteria, socialization practices, appraisal
and reward systems, physical settings, and so on.
Symbolic management includes the use of mission
statements, stories and myths, traditions and rituals,
distinctive language and metaphors, heroes, the framing of events and histories, and so forth. In particular,
cosmologies are often anchored to historical narratives regarding the vision, values, and beliefs of the
founders; the adversities faced and vanquished during the organizations life span (thereby vindicating
the cosmology); and the organizations distinctive
identity.
Cosmologies also extol the value of the individual,
linking seemingly mundane tasks to the vision of the
organization and instilling faith that the mundane
efforts will lead, ultimately, to hallowed ground.
Emmons (1999) concluded from his review of motivation and spirituality that even the ultimate can
appear in daily goals in matters that may appear, at
least on the surface, to be insignificant or quite ordinary (p. 96) and that a trade-off exists between the
manageability and the meaningfulness of goals
between the proximal and distalsuch that psychological and physical well-being are maximized by a
judicious blend.
How can such grand schemes be fashioned from
typically humble origins? The answer lies in (a) the
raw hunger of many individuals for transcendence,
identity, meaning, control, and belonging and thus
their susceptibility to edifying cosmologies; and (b)
the inevitable ambiguity, complexity, dynamism, and
equifinality (i.e., multiple paths to a given goal) that
surround organizational action, providing ample
license for constructing a social reality to suit the preferred cosmology (Weick, 1995). Meaning, in short, is
found where it is sought; it is not so much discovered as projected. As Emmons (1999) put it,
Much of the power of a spiritual or religious lifestyle
comes from the human ability to sanctify secular
objects (Pargament, 1997). To sanctify means to make
holy . . . to set apart from the ordinary or mundane and
to dedicate to a particular purpose or use. (p. 107)
365
SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED?
A secular religion, as noted, provides a system of
beliefs and practices tied to fundamental questions
about meaning and ones role in the world. As such, a
secular religionlike any religionprovides a basis
for valuing and therefore for morality and behavior.
Secular religions are thus powerful things.
On one hand, this power can be a wonderful force
for addressing existential desires for transcendence
and the basic motives of identity, meaning, control,
and belonging. Simply striving for the spiritual has
been found to predict subjective well-being (Emmons,
1999). At higher levels of analysis, secular religions
help forge a sense of community and unity of purpose
and galvanize collective action and often ethical
behavior and good societal citizenship.
On the other hand, there is ample cause for concern.
First, members faiththeir belief in things unseen
may be misplaced. Because religions attempt to provide answers to ultimate questions, the answers are
usually not amenable to empirical disconfirmation.
Thus, religion is not an entity, but a claim (Greil,
1996, p. 49)a claim that the underlying cosmology is
true. Groups can sustain those claims better than individuals. In collectively enacting the sacralized processes, members both normalize the processes (making the otherwise strange seem commonplace and
reassuring) and affirm for one another the correctness of the ends (Stark & Finke, 2000; cf. plausibility
structures, Berger, 1967). It is as if they infer, Look at
our shared devotion; surely, we cant all be wrong.
Religious claims are supported, in sum, by social vali-
366
disappointment which follows every idolatrous reliance on something finite (p. 355). For example,
research on turnover and retirement indicates that
individuals often have a very difficult time exiting
roles and organizations with which they strongly
identify (Ashforth, 2001).
Finally, religions may induce individuals to forfeit
an important counterweight to the force of the underlying cosmology. Strong cosmologies function like
strong situations (Mischel, 1977), where consensus on
the right way to think, feel, and act may severely
cramp an individuals independence (Kunda, 1992).
The more sacralized the means are, the less latitude
there is for experimentation, personalization, and
adaptation. A strong cosmology, in presenting a dense
lattice of meaning and order, and perhaps a prefabricated self, may co-opt the individual. Thus, individuals may lose their circumspection regarding
cosmologies that may be wrong, destructive,
manipulated cynically, myopic, or resistant to needed
change (Aubert, 1995; Schwartz, 1987).
It is important to note, however, that religions differ
widely in their tolerance of diverse beliefs and practices. For example, Ammerman and Roofs (1995)
edited book discusses how some congregations shape
the local form of worship and community outreach;
what is sacralized is the fact of worship and outreach
rather than one specific form. Thus, a strong cosmology may encourage conformity on the ends (mission,
values) without discouraging individuality on the
means (cf. creative individualism, Schein, 1970).
In summary, secular workplace religions should
inspire awewhich Websters Third New International
Dictionary (1993) defines as reverent wonder with a
touch of fear. A secular religion provides a system of
deep meaning and connection (hence the wonder) but
is not necessarily open to its own limitations (hence
the fear). Like a moth drawn to a candle, the individual needs to maintain a certain ironic distance from the
cosmology that undergirds the religion, no matter
how seductive its flame may be.
367
CONCLUSION
The notion of work organizations as secular religions suggests many possibilities for research. In particular, organized religions provide numerous
sacralized phenomena that have provocative parallels
to work organizations. For example, to what extent
368
NOTES
1. This favoritism toward spirituality at work over religion at work suggests a curious paradox: If spirituality is
thought to be a personalized search for transcendence, how
can spiritual strivings (Emmons, 1999) be realized within
a n i n s t i t ut i o n al i ze d s e t t i n g w i t h o u t b e c o m i n g
religionized? Is there a place for the highly personal and
idiosyncratic in work organizations? Perhaps the reason
that so many are unnerved by the idea of juxtaposing work
and spirituality is because of an implicitand, we think,
well-foundedsuspicion that spiritual strivings may be coopted by the organization (Ashforth & Pratt, in press).
2. It should be noted that organized religions are also subject to the winds of a religious economy (Stark & Finke,
2000, p. 193) of sorts, where they compete for members and
support.
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