Recruiting the Soul: Spiritual Labor As Organizational Practice

Critically examining spirituality in the workplace offers a way forward in understanding the potential for both domination and liberation in organizations. To this end, our aim is to further develop McGuire’s (2010) concept of spiritual labor by developing a framework for studying the practice of spiritual labor in organizations. We summarize key themes in the spirituality in management and leadership literature and critique essentialist definitions of spirituality and the lack of recognition for the potential exploitation of spirituality. Further, we expand the theoretical foundation and conceptualization of spiritual labor by elaborating on the processes of discourse, identity construction, and organizational identification. We then propose a method for studying spiritual labor as an organizational practice.