The importance of interfaith dialog in the workplace for achieving organizational goals: a Kenyan case study

Abstract

Workplaces present divergent cultural conventions for engaging in work- and nonwork-related activities. However, when cultures in workplaces are mentioned, most people tend to think of cultures in the narrow sense of behavioral interaction, yet culture also includes variables of faith or religions. Therefore, just as people of different cultures may have the potential to clash when they come in contact, so would people of different faiths. Just like culture, diverse faiths have the potential of either enhancing or jeopardizing organizational cohesiveness and achievement of organizational goals. Interfaith dialog as practiced in some banking institutions in Kenya is a case in point. Diamond Trust Bank and Co-operative Bank of Kenya's workforce constitute Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, and as a practice, this workforce meets once a week to pray. This study assesses the effects of interfaith dialog in the workplace in achieving organizational goals. This research presents alternative frameworks for analyzing intercultural communication in the workplace based on the principles of faith. By providing a critique of existing models of language and intercultural communication in the workplace from an interfaith perspective, the aforementioned case could lead to presenting a scenario for the formulation/shaping of a theory of interfaith relations in intercultural workplaces.

Les lieux de travail présentent des conventions culturelles divergentes pour l'engagement dans des activités, soit au travail, soit en dehors. Souvent, les cultures au travail tendent à être réduites au sens étroit d'interactions comportementales. Or la culture inclut également des éléments variables de foi ou de religion. De même que des personnes de différentes cultures peuvent s'affronter, de la même façon le conflit peut surgir entre personnes différentes par la foi. Comme pour la culture, la diversité de foi peut favoriser ou mettre en danger la cohésion de l'organisation et la réalisation de ses objectifs. Le dialogue entre religions, pratiqué dans quelques institutions bancaires du Kenya, en est un exemple typique. Le personnel employé par la Banque Diamond Trust et par la Banque Coopérative du Kenya comprend chrétiens, musulmans et Hindous qui prient ensemble une fois par semaine. La présente étude évalue les effets du dialogue entre les religions dans la réalisation des objectifs de l'organisation. Cette recherche présente un cadre alternatif qui permet d'analyser la communication interculturelle au travail en se basant sur les principes de la foi. Le cas mentionné ci-dessus pourrait permettre d'élaborer une théorie des relations interreligieuses dans des lieux de travail interculturels.

Keywords:

• interfaith dialog
• intercultural communication
• the workplace
• prayer
• organizational goals

Acknowledgments

We thank the Centre for Research, Publication and Consultancy of Daystar University for financing this research. The paper was presented at the IALIC-2013 conference at Hong Kong Baptist University, and we would like to acknowledge a travel grant from IALIC, which made this presentation possible. We are also greatly indebted to the reviewers and editors who tirelessly read through several versions of our work and made valuable recommendations and suggestions for improvements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Agnes Lucy Lando obtained her Ph.D. in Social Communication from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. Currently she is a Senior Lecturer in the Communication Department of Daystar University, Kenya. She has published articles on communication, ethics, higher education in Africa, and on the idea of a Catholic University in the twenty-first century. Her publications have contributed to the growing scholarship on media ethics, higher education, media studies, and new media and communication theory in the African context and beyond. Currently, she is coediting The Impact of Communication and the Media on Ethnic Conflict, a book to be published by IGI-Global in 2015.

Linda Muthuri and Paul R. Odira are in their final year of their MA studies in Corporate Communication at Daystar University. They both have vast work experiences with Corporates, having worked with both the government and the private sector. Their ongoing theses examine the impact of culture and intercultural communication on organizations’ cohesion and service delivery.