Decoration, self-transcendence, and spiritual expression: stakeholder cooperation and the creation of joint value in the workplace

Abstract

This paper explores recent empirical findings that highlight the importance of decoration, particularly in forms that may be described as a kind of spirituality or spiritual expression, and the significance these findings have for thinking about how stakeholders cooperate to create value. We highlight how this phenomenon may become important for thinking about organizations – especially how spirituality may play a role in fostering stakeholder relations that generate more value for all those involved as well as limit transaction costs. Given our focus in exploring this phenomenon and highlighting decoration’s relevance, we focus on its core findings, outline connections to the spirituality and stakeholder theory literatures, and note promising directions for future research.

Keywords:

• religion
• management
• spirituality
• decoration
• stakeholder

Notes

1. We use the term “sacred” here in a secular manner consistent with the literature in moral psychology where sacred objects, beings, and principles can be a source of unity and division (cf. Haidt 2007, Atran et al. 2007, Rosso et al. 2010). Sacredness captures the collective identity, history, and shared values of a people in a manner that commands respect, awe, and admiration.

2. This can be thought of as a form of religious coping – a way of deriving spiritual support in difficult circumstances, particularly circumstances requiring high amounts of restraint and self-control (see Pargament et al. 2005 for an extended discussion).

3. Out-group threats can take many forms from competition for resources or market share to direct physical threats such as terrorist attacks referenced in the opening section.

4. Simply meaning ordinary or “everyday.”

5. Along with tenuous, highly contingent cooperative alliances and exchanges with dissimilar groups.

6. Although this phenomenon is referred to as “ethnic” marking, it applies to any human group. We are simply staying true to the traditional usage of the term “ethnic marker.”

7. It might be the case that some of these activities are completely independent of anything that firms or managers value. It could also be the case that leaders curate (deliberately or not) these behaviors in order to directly serve organizational goals.

8. This was an important control because some people object to Halloween on religious grounds – those likely to decorate their homes for Halloween might be unlikely to decorate them for Christmas and vice versa.

9. It should be noted that these decorative practices probably lie at a midway point on the spirituality or meaningfulness continuum; although the decorations are not sacred, the acts of decoration are ritualistic and meaningful, and employees consider it a critical component of their culture.