The iconicity of celebrity and the spiritual impulse

Celebrity has a powerful material presence in contemporary consumer culture but its surface aesthetic resonates with the promise of deeper meanings. This Marketplace Icon contribution speculates on the iconicity of celebrity from a spiritual perspective. The social value or authenticity of contemporary celebrity, and the social processes through which it emerges, are matters of debate amongst researchers and competing approaches include field theory, functionalism, and anthropologically inflected accounts of the latent need for ritual, myth and spiritual fulfillment evinced by celebrity “worship.” We focus on the latter area as a partial explanation of the phenomenon whereby so many consumers seem so enchanted by images of, and stories about, individuals with whom they, or we, often have little in common. We speculate that the powerful presence of celebrity in Western consumer culture to some extent reflects and exploits a latent need for myths of redemption through the iconic character of many, though by no means all, manifestations of celebrity consumption.     

Spirituality and corporate social responsibility: an empirical narrative from the Balinese tourism industry

The emerging body of knowledge has indicated the positive relationship between spirituality and corporate social responsibility (CSR), yet our understanding of how spirituality can play a role in CSR in general, and in tourism in particular, remains limited. This research takes a qualitative case study approach to the role of spirituality-inspired CSR by providing an empirical investigation of tourism businesses in Bali, Indonesia, where the Hindu based Tri Hita Karana philosophy drives its cultural identity. A total of 20 qualitative interviews and two focus groups were conducted with Bali tourism stakeholders including businesses, government, community and NGOs. The findings show that spirituality plays an important role in CSR in Balinese tourism in three dimensions, namely (1) as a key element of the broader social and cultural context to create a conducive external environment for CSR; (2) as a CSR driver to inspire business leaders; and (3) as a complement to CSR governance, though with limitations. This research contributes to the literature by providing an empirical narrative that demonstrates strong multi-layered links between spirituality and CSR and the implications for tourism destinations in spirituality-oriented cultures.     

The Relevance of Responsibility to Ethical Business Decisions

This paper addresses researchers’ call for integrating workplace spirituality with organizational literature. This paper points out that self-interest transcendence is a common aspect in the workplace spirituality concept that emerged in the last decade and also in four OB concepts – transformational leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, organizational support, and procedural justice – that emerged in OB about two decades ago. Based on this common aspect of self-interest transcendence and the temporal precedence of these four OB concepts’ emergence, it indicates that these four OB concepts constitute a precursor of workplace spirituality. It places workplace spirituality in the larger context of OB␣and outlines the associated research and practice implications. The author also holds a lien on the position of professor at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, India.     

The Intrinsic,Instrumental and Spiritual Values of Natural Area Visitors and the General Public: A Comparative Study

Theory suggests that tourists who hold higher levels of environmental concern are more likely to have an interest in natural places and their conservation, and be more likely to engage in activities that are environmentally sustainable. This study assessed environmental concern by measuring and comparing the intrinsic, non-use, use, spiritual and recreation values of nature-based tourists, members of a recreational conservation group and the general public. The results showed that members of each sample could be grouped into four clusters, each holding a unique combination of the values. For some clusters, spirituality and intrinsic value were positively associated, yet for others, the two values appeared to exist in different conceptual domains. One cluster placed particular importance on bequest and existence values and one cluster valued natural places mainly for recreation. The results indicated that while many people are clearly interested in natural areas, they are influenced in different ways by a range of values. The study provides information about specific values that will help to better understand visitors to natural places and assist in the management and conservation of those places.     

Employee workplace spirituality and pro-environmental behavior in the hotel industry

Pro-environmental behaviors in the workplace are less investigated than those in the public and private spheres. With this in mind, and through the values framework of workplace spirituality (WPS), synthesizing the theories of connectedness and organizational citizenship, the current study proposed a theoretical model to gauge the influence of WPS, a relatively new area of inquiry in organizational research and a neglected field in tourism and hospitality, on hotel employees’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE). In this framework, the emerging concept of connectedness to nature (CNS) – a strong cognitive and affective predictor of pro-environmental behavior – was depicted as a mediator, and the construct of environmental awareness (EA) was deemed a moderator. The intended model received support through empirical testing, and results confirmed that WPS is significantly associated with employees’ OCBE, and CNS indirectly affects the relationship between WPS and OCBE, while EA functions as a booster. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed, and a series of contributory managerial implications were described accordingly.     

国外精神型领导研究前沿探析

精神型领导理论是目前国内外学术界领导研究领域的一个前沿主题。它反映了在当前企业组织结构加速变革的情境下,组织寻求通过内在激励员工使其获得体验和发挥自我以实现个体、群体或组织绩效方面的不断提升。本文分别从概念界定、维度结构以及模型分析三个方面对国外精神型领导的相关文献进行了归纳总结,并对目前该领域研究的局限进行了分析,明确了未来研究的方向。     

Perceptions of Workplace Spirituality among Professionals and Executives

As a new century begins, it is becoming increasingly clear that workers are experiencing a fundamental change of business world values, a change of paradigms as radical as the Age of Information. Corporate America and its employees are responding to a call for a deeper sense of purpose, a more significant sense of faith, and a renewed commitment to spirituality. This paper reports research that focuses on the relationship among the 3 key stakeholders in this new emphasis on spirituality: individual, organization, and work unit. Significant correlations were found to exist among 3 factors of spirituality and among 11 variables that were submeasures of the factors.     

Spirituality In (and Out) of the Classroom: A Pragmatic Approach

This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section, I discuss “what is spirituality?” and in the section that follows, I examine some of the implications of my definition to the teaching of spirituality in an undergraduate business ethics course. For the purposes of this paper, spirituality is defined as the planned experience (the inner feeling) of blending integrity and integration through 1 – acceptance (of the past), 2 – commitment (to the future), 3 – reasonable choice, 4 – mindful action, and 5 –continuous dialog (both internal and external). This definition is a work-in-progress and offered mainly as a point of departure rather than a final destination.     

职场精神力的研究进展与展望

自20世纪90年代后,管理学者对职场精神力的研究逐渐涌现。职场精神力是员工在认同了工作、团体以及组织的价值意义后,进而超越自我并与之产生一种互联感的内心体验。近年来很多西方学者辨析和测量了职场精神力的概念,对其形成原因与作用效应进行了探究与检验。不少研究证实了个体职场精神力对个体及组织所带来的积极意义。然而该研究领域也存在大量问题悬而未决,在中国文化背景下的本土研究更是阙如。鉴于此,文章对职场精神力的研究进展进行了回顾,对未来研究进行了展望并提出了研究建议。     

企业慈善行为测量及其对员工职场精神力的影响

针对现有企业慈善行为测量单一化、短期化与外部化的局限以及从内部员工视角研究慈善战略价值的欠缺,开展了两个关联研究。在研究一中,采用归纳法开发并检验了一份包含内外部慈善的日常性企业慈善行为量表。结果显示,企业慈善行为具有一阶双因素结构,由外部慈善行为与内部慈善行为因素构成。该量表信效度较好,可用于实证研究。在研究二中,检验了企业慈善行为对员工职场精神力的影响,结果显示内外部慈善均对员工职场精神力有积极作用,其中内部慈善行为作用更强。员工的"与组织价值观一致"相对"团体感"和"工作意义"被企业慈善行为解释的程度最高,表明企业慈善行为受到了员工高度的价值认同。