Spirals of Spirituality: A Qualitative Study Exploring Dynamic Patterns of Spirituality in Turkish Organizations

This paper explores organizational spirituality, uncovers it as spiralling dynamics of both positive and negative potentialities, and proposes how leaders can shape these dynamics to improve the human conditions at the workplace. Based on case study of five Turkish organizations and drawing on the emerging discourse on spirituality in organizations literature, this study provides a deeper understanding of how dynamic patterns of spirituality operate in organizations. Insights from participant observation, organizational data, and semi-structured interviews yield three key themes of organizational spirituality: reflexivity, connectivity, and responsibility. Each of these themes has been found to be connected to upward spirals (inspiration, engagement, and calling) and downward spirals (incivility, silence, and fatigue). The study provides a detailed and holistic account of the individual and organizational processes through which spirituality is enacted both positively and negatively, exploring its dynamic and dualistic nature, as embodied in the fabric of everyday life and culture

Is it ok to care? How compassion falters and is courageously accomplished in the midst of uncertainty

This article elaborates the organizational literature’s process theory of compassion – an empathic response to suffering – which falls short of adequately explaining why and how compassion unfolds readily in some workplace situations or settings but not in others. We address this shortcoming by calling attention to the basic uncertainty of suffering and compassion, demonstrating that this uncertainty tends to be particularly pronounced in organizational settings, and presenting propositions that explain how such uncertainty inhibits the compassion process. We then argue that understanding the accomplishment of compassion in the midst of uncertainty necessitates regarding compassion as an enactment of courage, and we incorporate insights from the organizational literature on everyday courageous action into compassion theory. We conclude with a discussion of implications in which we underscore the importance of organizational support for the expression of suffering and the doing of compassion, and we also consider directions for future research