Family Firms as Incubators for Spirituality in the Workplace: Factors That Nurture Spiritual Businesses

Abstract

This paper proposes that family firms typically possess specific cultural characteristics that stimulate the development of spirituality in the workplace more than those of non-family firms. We briefly list the trends that have led to a growing appreciation of spirituality in organizations, and provide a description of the characteristics of spiritual businesses. We offer an analysis of the connections between the cultural characteristics of family firms, and the characteristics of spiritual businesses. In the last section we provide the analysis of two different case studies of family firms, the first one as an example of incubator for spirituality in the workplace, and the second one as a clear example of a spiritual business. We propose suggestions for further research.

Keywords:

• Family firms
• Entrepreneurship
• Spiritual business