How is Corporate Social Responsibility Related to Spirituality and Work Essay Example

approach that encourages creativity, sense of belonging and personal fulfillment. Therefore, the debate lies on whether the relationship between corporate social responsibility and spirituality at the workplace is convergence or divergence.
Most research studies assume that spirituality at workplace and CSR nourishes the moral climate and behavior in any organizational setting thereby sustaining social responsibility. At the very roots of these concepts, there exists a divergence on the purpose they intend to pursue. Spirituality is innate and deals with the development of personality and self-inquiry and strives for an ultimate concern for nature, God, humanity, the self and the good or the combination of these. Conversely, CSR deals with the market and business model and their connection to human relationships and the management of these business models in respect to the needs of all the stakeholders rights and both the short-term and long-term impacts of the business activities in the social and natural environment. Therefore, SAW is personal and inward looking while CSR is organizational and outward looking. Although both concepts are primarily different, it does not imply that they are a divergence in nature.

Fry(2005) argues that the purpose of spiritual leadership in any organization ids to create a vision and value congruence among the individuals and enhance empowerment and teamwork to foster high levels of commitment and productivity in the organizational operations. Additionally, he argues that spiritual leadership predicts CSR. He advances his argument by observing that spiritual leadership is transformative where formal and bureaucratized standards utilize a vision based approach that enhances CSR. However, he completes his arguments by noting that spiritual leadership is essential but offers an incomplete solution to the ever changing

organizational structures in today’s world.

Spirituality is best practiced at home and enhanced at the workplace. With such a culture there are various benefits arising from it. These include a deeper appreciation of individual’s beliefs and enhanced interconnectedness between the self and others. However, from an organizational viewpoint, once spirituality is embraced there are expectations that a change in behavior and redesigning of the norms and values to a more holistic state. As a result, the new appreciation for others triggers strategic thinking and is thus integrated into the organization culture leading to the establishment of inspiring organizational beliefs and customs that are based on integrity, authenticity and community awareness. As Takala and Pallab (2000) observes, CSR is firstly involved in raising the moral cognizance of individuals by enhancing a culture that embraces self-other connectedness giving rise to a spirited CSR. Therefore, the spirited CSR contributes to the ultimate good of a society and surpasses the triviality of the short-term profitability obligations to embrace an actual care for the society involved.

According to Bubna-litic (2009), spirituality and Corporate Social Responsibility are vital elements in the management literature of the 21st century. He concurs that both concepts are interpenetrating worlds that share a rejection of a rationalistic, modernist, and technology based ideology in embracing a sensitive, sensible and a world-view relationship. Therefore, basing on his argument, CSR approach for business and market leads to a web of relationships that relies on our trust in the integrity of others. Additionally, both SAW and CSR are convergent as both concepts are beyond the scope of what is good for organizations thereby enchanting a multi-layered world that exhibits connectedness in the

individual, organizational, social and natural relationships.

Discussion

According to Fry (2005) workplace spirituality has generated effective employment outcomes in that individuals exhibit increased joy, peace, and serenity as well as job satisfaction at the workplace. Additionally, there is mounting evidence that employees who work for organizations that practice spirituality in leadership is viewed as more committed and ethical and more humane thereby increasing productivity in the workplace. These organizations base their strategies on a well-established framework that enhances the prevalence of certain virtues by employees at the workplace and in turn embraces CSR policies that reflect on their spiritually motivated. These organizations will come up with policies that are meant to protect the stakeholders and the community around them by ensuring that their operations are not only geared towards making profits by also giving back to the society that has sustained them for a long timer. The management policy embraced thus will tend to overlook at the profit motive and inspire certain traits as a result of the spirituality in leadership techniques embraced by the organization. Additionally, transcendence and value congruence that is element of workplace spirituality are integrated into the organizational culture thereby providing a framework for which organizations can base the social responsibility policies. Moreover, research has shown that the more the congruence values across levels of organizations, the more the employees will experience a transcendence in their work. Furthermore, if the organizational culture reflects the general word view shift from materialistic to altruistic values that are more idealistic and spiritual the individuals will tend to have more compactness, joy and a greater sense of connection (Fry, 2005).

The effectiveness of any organization depends on effective

leadership in achieving vision and value congruency in its key areas of operation that include strategic, empowered team and personal (Fry, 2005).Spiritual leadership thus becomes vital while explicating the ethical and spiritual well-being of individuals in the organization at a personal level as well as promoting corporate social responsibility at the strategic and team empowered levels. The business code of ethics is influential in exploring how an organization carries its operation. Thus, focusing on leadership ethics is in line with the overall code of ethics that define the business operations for a particular organization. The leadership ethics is based on three pillars as argued by Fry (2005).These include the leader’s moral characters, his ethical legitimacy on the values and vision that he advocates for in the organization and the morality of choices and decision-making process that the leader engages. Thus, for a good leader, one should embrace positive ethics and once in a while agree to be subjected to assessment to evaluate their leadership skills. Personal leadership is the most trivial form of leadership that both the leader and his followers must subscribe to. It is at this level of personal leadership that one has to embrace spiritualism where research points that there is a need to embrace traits for professional well-being and development of leaders at this level. These include knowing oneself, respecting others, being trustworthy and embracing spiritual practices such as prayers and meditation, yoga and reading spiritual literature. However, it is important to note that beliefs in religion are different from the spiritual well-being of a person. Additionally, personal leadership once developed shapes the organizational leadership which accounts for the strategic and

team empowerment towards a well preserved corporate social responsibility. Failure in the development of personal leadership leads to disregarding of others and thus derails CSR.

The convergence of CSR and SAW implies that organizations need to integrate a connectedness framework in their policies to ensure that both concepts are put into consideration to achieve better performance and results in their operations. Additionally, it is important that companies put more focus on the moral and spiritual conscience of their employees’ than just subscribing to mere compliance as observed by Bubna-litic(2009).However, it is important to note that personal will is the basic framework for which workplace spirituality and morality can be based. Once the self-ego is eradicated and, individuals start viewing the role of other, organizations can then start embracing CSR as they will engage in practices that favor not only their self-goals but also promote the well-being of others who may or not be involved directly in running the organization’s operations. Additionally, as observed by studies made by Bubna-litic(2009) and others, it is essential to note that both CSR and SAW are not only convergent but complimentary. Therefore, self-consciousness is the basic framework for these models that necessitates group consciousness thereby making the transition process to remain natural and authentic in that any organization embracing the two concepts stands at a better position of achieving the corporate goals of the 21st century that are beyond profits maximization.

Although the authors cited in this paper have used different approaches to conducting their research and argue the case for SAW and CSR, there some things that are missing in their literature. Most people agree that CSR is vital for any

organization, but few critique its connectedness to SAW. For instance, linking spiritualism to religion views it as a delusional concept introduced in the corporate world to avoid facing the reality. In that aspect, scholars like Karl Max argue that religion is for the oppressed creature and thus in my understanding the concept of spiritualism in management may not address the problems at hand but give people a leeway to conceal their fears and oppressive conditions at the workplace (Bubna-Litic, 2009).  Moreover, if spirituality is embraced in organizations, it may be imposed forcefully to the employees and thereby violating their rights and beliefs. For instance, manipulation of employees may be observed in such a scenario and thus, curtail their ability to perform well and instead of regarding others they start creating enmity between them and the management leading to reduced productivity. Therefore, the existing literature from the authors cited here has a weakness in failing to address the consequences of spiritualism in the negative end as they tend to overlook spiritualism as the most basic tool for which CSR can be explained. However, the literature presented by the authors shapes my position on that both CSR and SAW are vital in the management of the organization and as the 21st century conduct of business changes to a more CSR based firms it is important that spirituality at workplace be embraced to generate better rewards for the CSR strategies.

Conclusion

Corporate social responsibility ensures that organizations take care of its action in promoting and improving the quality life of its shareholders who are within and outside the business environment. It ensures that they base their operations in improving the

lives of these shareholders as well as their environment. Spiritualism in work is vital in ensuring that personal development is enhanced towards embracing values and visions that promote the well-being of and individual as well as recognizing the others. It is also vital in leadership in that once the leader recognizes the values of others he will gear his effort towards CSR. Thus in a business setting the existing literature has shown that both CSR and SAW are convergent and complementary, and therefore it is important that they are acknowledged in the organizations’ management process. Moreover, the literature has pointed out that spirituality in work can be used to enhance self-consciousness which prompts group consciousness that allows organizations to embrace CSR strategies that will improve and sustain the lives of the various groups that are directly or indirectly affected by the organization’s operations. The most basic thing to note is that spirituality and work are controversial but has enhanced CSR perspectives in various ways making it a strong framework in management studies and especially on matters connecting to the personal and others development process that are highly correlated to CSR. However, there is need to focus on the negative consequences of SAW at the workplace and determine whether these disadvantages may outweigh its role in shaping CSR. Although there exists no exact model to endorse spirituality at work or spirited CSR it is important to adopt positive and holistic standpoints when embracing spiritual values that shape consciousness to help necessitate a common conscious that defines CSR in the most effective and reliable manner.

References

1. Adams, D. W., & Csiernik, R. (2002). Seeking the lost spirit: Understanding
   

spirituality and restoring it to the workplace. Employee Assistance Quarterly, 17(1), 31-44.