The Conceptual Model of Spiritual Leadership and Spirit at Work as

Organizational and Individual Capabilities in Supporting

Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction

Amelia Naim Indrajaya

, Shirley Yeung

, Wiwik Mardawiyah Daryanto

and Cut Sjahrifa

Sekolah Tinggi Manajemen IPMI, Jakarta, Indonesia

Gratia Christian College, Hong Kong

Keywords: Spirit at Work, Spiritual Leadership, Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Competitive Advantage.

Abstract: This conceptual model of spiritual leadership and spirit at work is aimed to integrate workplace spirituality

in a resource-based view strategic management approach, where organizational capabilities is in the form of

Spiritual Leadership and individual capabilities is in the form of Spirit at work. Both are supporting

Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction as a competitive advantage. It starts with a vast

exploration on Strategic Management and the Resource Based View approach from the Management

perspective, and Psychology aspect through the work in Managerial Psychology and through the spiritual

and theological perspective which influences the individual resources and capabilities. The multiple origins

are possible in the Strategic management field which is intertwined with many other fields, and through the

heterogeneous Resource Based View approach toward competitive advantage. The significance of the study

is to show that workplace spirituality matters in a resource-based view strategic management approach

where the intangible resource and capabilities show the valuable, rare, inimitable and organized (VRIO)

traits. Once managed properly it has the potential to be a sustainable competitive advantage policy.

1 INTRODUCTION

The broadness of issue under the field of strategic

management can be seen by research with the origin

of managerial psychology and other social sciences,

as what we found in this research of Spirit at Work

(SW). SW could be seen as intangible capabilities in

RBV framework toward competitive advantages

(Barney and Wright, 1998). In addition to that, SW

is also originated from the workplace spirituality and

managerial psychology study. In this conceptual

research, the creation of sustainable competitive

advantage will be seen through the heterogeneous

view of RBV and its implication toward the

organizational commitment and job satisfaction of

the service industry. This literature review would

also share the two other origins of Workplace

Spirituality as the framework of Spirit at Work.

First, the Theological background with the various

Religious Work Ethic as the origin of workplace

spirituality research (Benefiel and Fry, 2011; Geigle

et al., 2013), and second, the Psychological

background through Managerial Psychology.

Barney has developed a resource-based theory on

how an organization can sustain competitive

advantage using people as critical resources (Barney,

1991; Barney, 1997). Barney et al., (2007) posited

that human capital is one of the intangible resources

that can meet the above specification. It is

inimitable, firm-specific and socially complex.

Research evidence from companies have shown that

the people-centered practices have a strong relation

with higher profits and significantly lower employee

turnover (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007).

Resource-based model is used in a particular way

within a firm to form the basis of competitive

advantage (Hitt et al., 2012). Most scholars

acknowledge that resources by themselves cannot be

a source of competitive advantage. Therefore, the

building blocks of corporate strategy are not

products and markets, but the process of businesses

are the source of competitive advantage. For

example, computer hardware would be a competitive

advantage only if it is bundled with an

organization’s commitment to customer service

which enables the execution of excellent customer

Indrajaya, A., Yeung, S., Daryanto, W. and Sjahrifa, C.

The Conceptual Model of Spiritual Leadership and Spirit at Work as Organizational and Individual Capabilities in Supporting Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction.

DOI: 10.5220/0008489901630167

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM Untar 2018), pages 163-167

ISBN: 978-989-758-363-6

163

service (Ray et al., 2004). Human resource with its

human capital becomes an important issue in this

resource based view approach, rather than focusing

only on problem coping strategies, the people

centered practices focused more on the human

capital and require a more positive approach on the

work force such as implementing a transcendence

spirituality in the workplace (Robertson and Liu,

2011). The spiritual approach in the workplace, for

example, serves as the valuable, rare, difficult to

imitate resources which define the core

competencies of the firms. Strategic value of these

intangible spiritual capabilities comes from their

rarity (Barney et al., 2007; Stead and Stead, 2014).

Whereas most organizations understand that

sustainability can improve their profits,

organizations with a deep understanding and

commitment to the sacredness of work, its people,

the stakeholders, the environment and even the

universe, are rare (Jurkiewicz and Giacalone, 2004).

This research will focus on a snap shot portrait of

how spirit at work is implemented as intangible

resource capabilities to produce competitive

advantage in the RBV framework. The religious

root is seen from two major religious ethics of Islam

and Protestant business ethics. The two are selected

since both represent the two highest numbers of

religious adherents in the world (El Garah et al.,

2012; Hunter, 2007). The psychological root is seen

from the studies of Spiritual intelligences which

have emerged into the managerial psychology area.

All these three major subjects of origin, namely:

Management, Theology and Psychology had

supported the growth of research on workplace

spirituality. Even though the notion of spirituality is

relatively new, but there have been more than 300

titles in the 1990s (Garcia-Zamor, 2003) on the

general subject of workplace spirituality.

Researchers agree in one important issue that

spirituality seems to be an important source of

organizational competitiveness by its impact toward

performance and organizational commitment

(Arménio Rego and Pina e Cunha, 2008)

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Researchers from the MIT Sloan Management

Review and the Boston Consulting Group found that

leading firms in the sustainability revolution, such as

Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, New Belgium

Brewing, and Procter and Gamble, place a very high

value on spirituality. Even though spiritual slogans

and jargon can be posted as corporate values on the

wall, the real spiritual value of nature and

humankind cannot be touched or displayed, but it

can certainly be experienced, and the impact can be

felt when the spirit exists.

Firms strongly believed

that spirituality, even though intangible, will

improve their long-term competitiveness (Neal,

2013).

There is sufficient evidence supporting the

relationship between spirit at work, personality,

personal and work outcomes. Kinjerski had

successfully conducted empirical relationship

between spirit at work toward organizational

commitment and job satisfaction. The measurements

had

been tested and were proven significant

(Kinjerski, 2013).

The spiritual leadership construct developed by

Fry and Whittington (2005) extended the spiritual

leadership theory by exploring the concept of well-

being, human health, character ethics, positive

psychology, spiritual leadership and other new

development in spirituality in the workplace. Fry

(2003) proposes a model of spiritual leadership

which would have a certain qualities of

implementing the spiritual leadership at work (Fry

and Altman, 2013). Leaders create a vision wherein

organization members experience a sense of calling

in that their life has meaning and makes a difference.

Establishing a social/organizational culture based on

the altruistic loves of leaders will show leaders with

genuine care, concern, and appreciation for both self

and others, thereby producing a sense of

membership and feeling of being understood and

appreciated. Spiritual Leadership talks about

motivation which includes the forces, either external

or internal to a person, which arouses enthusiasm

and persistence to pursue a certain course of action.

Motivation in the workplace results when leaders

create an environment that brings out the best in

people as they achieve and receive individual, group,

and system-wide rewards. It refers to those desires

that, coupled with expectation of reward contingent

on performance, cause the individual to exert effort

above minimum levels, be spontaneous, and exhibit

exploratory/cooperative behaviors (Stead & Stead,

2014).

Spiritual leadership theory can be viewed in part

as a response to the call for a more holistic

leadership that helps to integrate the four

fundamental arenas that define the essence of human

existence in the workplace—the body (physical),

mind (logical/rational thought), heart (emotions;

feelings), and spirit (Fry, 2003). Such a call that

perhaps requires a new organizational paradigm that

no longer views the study of the humanistic,

ICEBM Untar 2018 - International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Business Management (ICEBM) Untar

164

spiritual, and natural as separate and independent

domains; a worldview that regards spirituality at

work in general and spiritual leadership in particular

as vital components for building theory and testing

propositions concerning purposeful humanistic

systems and their effectiveness (Fry & Altman,

2013).

Rojas (2002) conducted a study to extract from

the literature review the theoretical foundations for a

relational-ideopraxis framework of independent

spirituality assessment scale. The measurement is

intended to measure individual spirituality regardless

of denominational, religious or ideological

preference and it is based on thirteen relational

modes extracted from the vast arrays of spiritual

literatures. The independent variables used in this

assessment scale are fulfillment of self, self-

determination, self-control, discovery of self,

enrichment of self, transactional, transformational,

transfiguration, partnership, small group,

organizational, movements and ideo-praxis. This

study on individual spirituality came up with a

reliable measurement tool based on a sound

empirical quantitative study.

In order to measure the competitive advantage of

the implementation spirit at work in the company

working situation, this research would use

Organizational Commitment as a construct which is

well accepted and well known toward increasing

performance, especially in the service industry

(Barney, 2001). Organizational commitment is

showing an individual’s commitment to an

organization is his or her bond or attachment to that

organization (Klein et al., 2009). Although

organizational commitment has different bases,

affective commitment is our primary interest

because it is based in desire, not felt obligations or

constraints (Meyer et al., 1993; Meyer & Allen,

1997). Affective commitment is self-determined

and, therefore, influenced by individual beliefs and

motivations more than other forms of commitment.

In turn, affective commitment is associated with

higher levels of individual performance and

satisfaction and lower levels of turnover and

turnover intentions (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran,

2005).

In addition to organizational commitment the

popular construct which could be used as a proxy

toward performance is the Job Satisfaction (JS)

construct. Spector (1997) stated that job satisfaction

as the extent in which a person like their job, a very

simple definition but job satisfaction influences

people’s attitude towards their jobs and various

aspects of their jobs. Job satisfaction is affected by

personal and organizational factors, which cause an

emotional reaction affecting organizational

commitment (RT Mowday et al., 1979). The

consequences of job satisfaction include better

performance and a reduction in withdrawal and

counter-productive behaviors (Morrison, 2008).

Since job satisfaction involves employees’ affections

or emotions, it influences an organization’s well-

being with regard to job productivity, employee

turnover, absenteeism and life satisfaction (Roodt et

al., 2002). Motivated employees are crucial to an

organization’s success, and therefore understanding

people in their jobs and what motivates them could

be a driving force in strengthening organizational

commitment (Schein, 1990).

3 RESEARCH METHODS

This conceptual paper is developing a theoretical

framework through the Resource Based View

approach. Individual Capabilities and Organizational

Capabilities are seen through the competitive

advantage model toward performance which is seen

through job satisfaction and organizational

commitment as the proxy of performance. Literature

review and descriptive and interpretive analysis of

the Workplace Spirituality framework is thoroughly

explored to propose a conceptual model of the

importance of Spiritual Leadership, Individual

Spirituality, and Spirit at Work as a competitive

advantage in a model of Service Industry.

4 RESEARCH AND

DISCUSSIONS

The literature review shows that the area of

workplace spirituality as an emerging concept has a

rich origin from the Management, Psychology and

Theology roots. The organizational capabilities in

the workplace spirituality research can be seen

through the Spiritual Leadership as the climate of

the organization to support individual capabilities.

Individual resources in the form of Individual

Spirituality then would be the intervening factor to

influence individual capabilities through Spirit at

Work. This whole model of organizational resources

in the form of spiritual leadership moderated by

individual resources in the form of individual

spirituality then would influence the individual

capability in the form of Spirit at Work. Together it

creates a model of resource based view approach

The Conceptual Model of Spiritual Leadership and Spirit at Work as Organizational and Individual Capabilities in Supporting

Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction

165

toward competitive advantages. Organizational

Commitment and Job Satisfaction are seen as the

proxies for Competitive Advantage in a Model of

ever changing high competitive industry (Figure 1).

The framework in figure 1 shows a promising

concept of spirit at work, and how potentially it will

influence a memorable service from the heart, a

nature which is believed to be giving a high impact

toward service excellence. Nevertheless, further

empirical research is needed to test the relationship

between the constructs. The explanatory approach

through the quantitative analysis will provide clearer

evidence to the concept. Additional exploratory

approach would

also be beneficial to capture the

qualitative study of spirit at work.

The significance of the study lies in the effort to

explore the potential of spirit at work as a tangible

capabilities which has the valuable, rare, inimitable

approach and once it is organized (VRIO) it

becomes a sustainable competitive advantage

approach in a resource based view framework.

5 CONCLUSION

Spirit at work is a promising concept especially in

the service industry area where sincere service has to

come from the bottom of the heart through the

spiritual aspect. Future research should be delved

deeper in this area, both quantitatively and

qualitatively. The nature of Spirit at Work shows the

potential of high value, rarity, in-imitability and if

organized well will provide a strong competitive

advantage in the ever-changing world of high rivalry

in business.

The research shows that workplace spirituality

matters in a strategic management resource-based

view approach. The limitation of the research lies in

the limited availability of current studies in this area

and the limited conceptual approach. Further

empirical study should be conducted both

quantitative and qualitatively. More researchers

should be involved to be able to develop this concept

of workplace spirituality

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APPENDIX

Figure 1: The Conceptual Model.

The Conceptual Model of Spiritual Leadership and Spirit at Work as Organizational and Individual Capabilities in Supporting

Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction

167