Relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment in the oil and gas industry / Mohd Afifie Mohd Alwi, Nurhani Anwar and Ahmad Haziq Ismail

The notion of spirituality in organization has sparked a considerable amount of interest since the last decade with scarcity of research on the particular topic in the Malaysian setting. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational commitment in the oil and gas industry as well as to assess the moderating role of religiousness among leaders. The research also attempts to investigate the perception of employees towards organizational commitment from different demographic factors. The research adopts Fry's (2003) causal model of spiritual leadership whereby four elements of vision, altruistic love, calling/meaning and membership have been considered for empirical study. A questionnaire survey was conducted in selected oil and gas companies in Terengganu using mainly quota sampling method. Data were gathered from 203 respondents for hypothesis testing. Descriptive statistics were reported, followed by reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, T -test, multiple regression, Kruskal-Wallis and partial correlation analysis. Findings showed that all of the elements of spiritual leadership have significant relationships with organizational commitment whereby altruistic love appears to have the highest strength of correlation. Further inclusion of religiousness as a moderator weakens the relationship between the variables of the study. Differences in race among the respondents contribute to the significance of perception towards organizational commitment. Thus, the study suggests that companies in the oil and gas industry should consider nurturing spiritual leaders for increased commitment while also placing emphasis on other extrinsic rewards. Future research might consider other elements of spirituality or different construct of religiousness in a varied working environment

A HOLISTIC MODEL OF EMPLOYEE’S UNDERSTANDING IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract. As a country with a majority of Muslim population and recognizes Islam as the official religion, Malaysia is indeed has a large number of Islamic-based organizations offering shariah-compliant products and services. However, such organizations have been receiving criticism from the client and the public on the aspect of management executed by employee. They claimed that the execution of duties among the employee in the Islamic organization does not reflect the nature of the organization itself. The rapid development of such an organization requires a solid understanding among the employee in charge of the task entrusted. However, previous studies have found that the understanding of employee in carrying out their duties in the Islamic organization is quite unsatisfactory. Therefore, this study takes the initiative to study the understanding of the employee in the implementation of Islamic management in Islamic organization. The study was conducted using the qualitative method. The sample of this study consisted of 11 executives in three Islamic organizations. Among the organizations are Islamic Banking, Takaful and Islamic Property Management Company. The location of the study involved selected organizations in three states of the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia namely Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang. The study is expected to produce a holistic model of employee understanding in the management of an Islamic organization. The model involves several phases that aim to ensure that employee understanding covers all aspects such as goals, implementation and impact.Key words: employee understanding, Islamic management, Islamic organisation, Malaysia

A Qualitative Approach Towards the Understanding of Managerial Employees in Islamic Organizations

The critique on the failure of Islamic organizations to represent the Islamic nature has been pointed towards employees' competency in understanding the Islamic concept. Hence, this study seeks to delve into the understanding of the employee in Islamic organizations regarding the concept, implementation and challenges in such organizations by employing the qualitative method. The study involves three Islamic organizations namely Islamic Banking, Takaful and Islamic Property Management Company located in three states of the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia i.e. Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang. Managerial employees from the three organizations were interviewed and the outcomes were triangulated with the experts. The findings show understanding among managerial employees in Islamic organizations is appropriate but there are still more that need to be improved