From Emotions to Spirituality: “Spiritual Labor” as the Commodification, Codification, and Regulation of Organizational Members’ Spirituality

Abstract

Though spirituality is often considered a private matter, this study employs the construct of spiritual labor to examine how spirituality might be managed, manipulated, and/or manufactured in organizations. Modeled on the construct of emotional labor, spiritual labor is defined as the commodification, codification, and regulation of organizational members’ spirituality. Thematic analysis of documents and interviews with parochial boarding school faculty/staff illustrate how the codification of spirituality occurred both overtly in official documents and more subtly in undocumented institutional norms. The regulation of spiritual expectations included normative pressure from both colleagues and administrators. Spiritual labor often led to dissonance and a sense of hypocrisy. Members who highly identified with the organization experienced less dissonance. Implications for issues such as job satisfaction, socialization, and organizational identity are discussed.