Final paper dissertation writing

A Journey to Implement Spiritual Management in

the Work Place

Amelia Naim Indrajaya

Faculty of IPMI

Abstract

Human has been on their journey to seek the

meaning of life in their quest to answer the

ultimate question: What is my purpose in

life? Finding the noble purpose also runs in

the work place. Milliman et al (2003) has

noted that the important trend of business in

the twenty-first century is a focus on

employee spirituality in the workplace. This

literature review project tries to collect

the steps of finding the spiritual values in

the workplace, which leads to the often

misunderstood concept of Islamic Work Ethic

and the Islamic Management. The literatures

also share the difference between the

practice of Arab (Islamic) countries and the

real concept of Islamic Management. In order

to complete and support the understanding,

some journals are giving empirical support on

how Islamic values positively promote

performance of HRM, Marketing and boost up

innovations. The summary is limited to the

number of the journals. Future extensive

research should be conducted to further

understand how to implement the Spiritual

Management in the work place through the

Implementation of Islamic Work Ethic.

Background

Human has been on their journey to seek the meaning

of life in their quest to answer the ultimate questions:

What is the purpose in life? This has been the

questions also of workers in the United States, who feel

abused not only by their employers, but also by the

society that increases workers’ feelings of alienation

(Karen, 2000). The hunger for a holly purpose in life

had been shown by people’s desire for a stronger

integration of their spiritual and work identities. The

frequency of employee groups that meet regularly for2

A Journey to Implement Spiritual Management in the Work Place

religious study are increasing. Employees are trying to

find ways to cope with the ever changing business

situation. Global competition, down-sizing and

reengineering has urged the search for religious and

spiritual meaning in the workplace. Company has turned

from the more traditional business mentality of “power,

profit and takeovers” into a more caring mentality with

the high value of good coroporate governance and showing

a generous corporate social responsibility.

Starting from The Education System

In the education system more emphasis has been

forced to implement the spiritual leadership concept.

School leaders need to adopt an ethical approach to

decision-making. This revelation comes by learning from

the past failures of the Fortune 500 companies who had

violated the ethical conduct (Bush, 2010). The concept

of moral leadership has become increasingly significant

in the 21 st century. The critical focus of leadership

should be on the values, belief and ethics of leaders.

These can only happen with the support of the education

system which stresses the importance of spiritual

leadership (Woods, 2007).

In the paper titled Spiritual Leadership by Tony

Bush, he cited a research in a Leadership School in

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Iran. It focuses on the relation of school values and

their links to the students’ moral development. He

administered questionnaire to all the school managers

and substantial number of students. He achieved a

response rate of more than 95 %. The findings suggest

that there is a significant relationship between school

managers’ value systems and the students’ moral

development.

The importance of spirituality and moral has

brought a new trend to the business school with a high

emphasis on socializing the concept of work ethics.

Business leaders need to prepare for the customers in

the 21 st century. They are smart to understand which

company they need to support, based on good work ethics,

Good Corporate Governance and exemplary program of

Corporate Social Responsibility. Before we move on with

the literature review on Spritual Management, we need to

understand the definition of the concept.

What is Spirituality?

The application of spirituality in business and

workplace most of the time is not associated to any

religious tradition, but rather to personal values and

philosophy (de Klerk, 2005). Spirituality is often

described as a desire to find ultimate purpose in life,

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and the search for meaning in life as part of a journey

towards spiritual awareness.

Some business people are more comfortable to use the

word spirituality in the work environment. It is

focusing on how the values are applied and embodied.

Some people use the word values and ethics that others

would call spiritual.

The mapping of research in spirituality by Benefiel

(2003) pointed out that there are evidences from past

researches that spirituality correlates significantly

with firm performance. Some researchers had conducted a

more specific research on how spiritual management in

companies would benefit from reducing employee turnover

and then increasing the firm performance, while if firms

ignore the spiritual sides of employees it can be

exposed to high risk of loosing good employees and

having immoral atmosphere in the workplace (Lee et all,

2008). Studies had also shown that accommodating

religion and spirituality in the workplace provide

avenues for employees’ spiritual expression. Religious

and spiritual manifestations generally affect other

employees, employee safety and customers relations,

which in turn influence productivity and process (Karen,

2000).

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Religion and Spirituality

To understand spirituality we need to delve deeper

on the origin of the origin which is the religion.

Despite the perfect concept of religious belief, the

actual implementation of the believers in everyday life

might be contradictory to the values itself. Some

believers only practice the ritual part of the religion

and do not have any clue to the substance of the

teaching. The big traumatic event of 9-11 had created a

negative image on the Moslem believer’s who were judged

as the culprit. The awareness of the 9-11 tragedy had

urged people to learn more on Islam. Only to their

chagrin, that Islam actually teaches Ehsan, a practice

of kindness and care on every seconds of our lives, as

if we can feel the presence of God. He is closer than

our jugular vein. Ehsan also has several meanings. It is

alms giving, perfection and amelioration, forgiveness,

completeness of faith and most important of all, doing

good deeds. It is also a continuous struggle to work

towards attaining God’s satisfaction and to worship God

as if you see Him and He sees you. This feeling makes

the person behave at his or her best without the need

for any human supervision. Every activity should be a

pursuance of good deeds and remembrance of God’s6


presence, and practicing good work ethics becomes part

of worship.

Branine (2010) in his paper on Human Resource

Management with Islamic management principles: A

dialectic for a reverse diffusion in management, stated

that most of the Arab countries suffer from extreme

superficial Islamic knowledge which has damaging effects

and limited the scope for the development of Islamic

management implementation in the workplace. In the

actual concept, Islamic Management has a real effect not

only on economic and political organisations but also on

relationship and social conduct. It is proven that we

have to focus on substance of Islamic spirituality

despite the actual implementation of some of the

believers. The Westerners in search for the secret of

spiritual pursue had found new revelations from the

spiritual dimensions of Islam.

The Spiritual Dimension of Islam

David Weir in his paper (Weir, 2012) provide a

reminder of the contemplative in ethical questions in

business by re-introducing spirituality to business

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schools. It is timely to go beyond the Western “rational

model” with economic goal orientation and objective-

targeted behaviors into the principles of management in

the Islamic world. Islam represents a comprehensive

worldview and a basis for cultural and behavioral

universality. In particular, he noted that the Islamic

approach to wealth seems as an effective collective and

community asset within the responsibility of “ummah”

approach to mediation and influence in social network

with the interest of the whole stakeholder. Islamic

business view is not seeking profit per se but rather to

create a legacy and create a meaning for the

stakeholders and even to the whole universe (by

preserving the environment etc. The concept of human as

Rahmatan lil Alamin: giving blessing to the universe).

Trust is a central concept in Islamic organization

and the networks of interpersonal trust in business as

well as personal and familial relationships are usually

know as Wasta. A wasta is professional relationship

which has a mediating effect in a society and provides a

base for cooperation with strangers (Weir, 2012).

Despite of the ideal moral virtue of Islamic spiritual

dimension, Islam has been the least understood concept

by the Westerners. Levinas confess that Western

philosophy has most often been an ontology: A reduction

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of the Other to the Same by interposition of a middle

and neutral term that ensures the comprehension of

being. “Therefore we need to explore our thinking about

management, not just in the Judaeo-Christian tradition

but in what is characterized in Islamic Management. The

managers who implement the Islamic will go beyond

specific prudentiality for the owners’ financial

interests into the unrestricted care for all

stakeholders. This is not, in practice, contrained by

organizational or even professional boundaries but

extends boundlessly to recognize that unreachable other

for whom the manager’s responsibility is infinite (Weir,

2012).

David Weir proposed that if the Westerners were

wishing to move towards a genuinely intercultural

philosophy and ethics of management, several aspects of

the cultures of management found in the Islamic world

seem to offer possibilities for the application of new

thinking. First, Islamic criteria is inclusive not

exclusive, which will gain organizational acceptance.

Second, the implementation of wasta (trust) based

obligations is infinite because these social networks

are as extensive as a family is extensive. Third the

ways in which Islamic financial institutions operate to

conserve wealth and maintain the reputations business

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managers, even when they have compromised the banks’s

wealth, contrasts with the blame and punishment based

routines of Western ways in handling business failure.

The Islamic approach to wealth, seen as a collective and

community asset within responsibility of ummah, chimes

well with the current notions of ecological and

environmental concern. Islam represents a pattern

of behaviors and beliefs affecting the whole human life.

Fourth, in relation to principles of organization, in

Islamic practice, organizational life is seen as

governed by precepts which can be known and must be

followed. Organizations are not exempt domains within

which normal collective obligations need not be

maintained, for economic activity is subject to the same

moral frameworks as those regulating society at large.

The practical obligations of the five pillar of Islam

(Testimony of Faith, Duty of Prayer, Provision of Zakat,

Self-modification and purification-including the duty of

fasting during Ramadhan and obligation for Hajj in

Mecca) contain the ethical bases of all behaviour.

Islamic regulation is a continually evolving set of

principles, interpreted in the light of contemporary

experience.

In general the essence of Islamic philosophy is its

concern to comprise self and other, ego and alter in one

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frame from which ontology is explicitly excluded,

because certain knowledge is not available to humans

without intervention of God and God does not intervene.

Therefore the ontological and epistemological issues are

framed in Islam in a manner that permits science but

does not accord its absolute primacy.

Islamic Work Ethic

The current practice of mundane work ethics maybe is

rooted back to the conditions in the 19 th century where

the notion that work was not held in high esteem. Adam

Smith in the Wealth of the Nations published in 1776

indicated that businessmen are “an order of men, whose

interest is never the same with that of the public, who

have generally an interest to deceive and even to

oppress (Abuznaid, 2006). On the contrary Muslims have

offered unique perspectives on work and work ethic. Ibnu

Khaldun the medieval Arab sociologist argued that

engaging in business serves four objectives:

facilitating cooperation and mutual understanding among

people, satisfying the needs of people, increasing

wealth and influence and spurning the growth of cities.

The engagement in trade and manufacturing served

physical, psychological, social and spiritual purposes.

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But unlike work ethic in Judaism and Christianity,

Islamic work Ethic (IWE) has been misunderstood or

ignored in management and organization studies. Work in

Islam therefore is situated in the core of the faith and

is considered as an integral part in life. Furthermore

in Muslim societies the saying of Prophet Mohamed and

Quranic text are an integral part of socio-political

discourse. Therefore the use of these sources become

imperative in any discussion of IWE (Abuznaid, 2006).

Meaning of Islam?

Religion in the ideal concept has a major impact on

human behavior, social interactions and social

relations. A Moslem manager, in fact can use Allah

supreme names as a guide to his management style and

action. To understand better the spirituality and

Islamic Work Ethic we need to define the meaning of

Islam.

Every religion has been named either after the name

of its founder or after the community and nation in

which the religion took its birth. For example, Jesus

Christ gives his name (Christianity) to the believer. It

is different with Islam which has been described by

Weber as the religion of world-conquering warriors, a

knight order of disciplined crusaders (Abuznaid, 2006).

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Islam is not associated with any person or group nor

community. Islam is an attributive title. Whosoever

posseses this attribute, may he or she belong to any

race, community, country or clan is a Moslem. Islam in

the Arabic word means submission, surrender and

obedience. It stands for complete submission and

obedience to Allah which brings real peace in the

society at large. On the contrary if the person is born

a Moslem, but does not exercise his faculties of reason,

intellect, and intuition for recognizing his Lord, and

misuses his freedom of choice by choosing to deny Him,

then he becomes an unbeliever (kufr), which is a form of

ignorance, pure and simple.

Islam and Economic Prosperity

Based on the literature, Islamic teaching has never

opposed any adoption of modern and progressive economic

methods (Abuznaid, 2006). The Koran never prohibits

private property, since it lays the rule for

inheritance. Islam even advises that inequalities should

not be challenge. Islam requires owners of a private

property to give alms. It is a compulsory for the

society to make sure that everyone has the right to

life. Economic activities such as the making of

profits, trade, and production are looked upon in Islam

as an act of worship with the intention to be the13


vicegerent of Allah to share meaningful things to the

whole universe. The prophet regarded trade so highly

that it is reported in the hadith that he said,” The

Merchant who is sincere and trustworthy will at the

judgment day be among the Prophets, the just and the

martyrs.” Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) was a

succesful businessman, even his wife was a very

succesful business woman.

Managerial Themes in Islam

It is an established fact that Islam is at the same

time, religion and state, right and might, mosque and

school. In brief it is a comprehensive system that

regularizes all walks of life and good to eternal time

and place (Abuznaid, 2006). Islam thus also provides

managerial themes and work ethics. The Westerners in

their quest to find the good business’ code of conducts,

had found the fact that principles derived from Islamic

work ethic will produce good business. To understand

better Abuznaid from the Thunderbird International

Business Review offer guidelines of managerial themes in

Islam as follows:

Consultation (Al Shura)

Consultation is an important Islamic principle governing

the administration and management of public interest. Al14


Gufeili (1983) has described Islamic management as

consultative management. Consultation enhances the

spirit of solidarity between employees and their

managers. It also diminishes lack of confidence that may

exist between the various parties. This tradition is

definitely the opposite of the authoritarianism

approach.

Honesty (Siddiq)

Honesty is the soul of every endeavor. Moslem beliefs

that human life is a quest of giving the best

performance in the holy purpose to serve the Creator.

Being honest is the evidence of a total service with

integrity and obedient to God. Islam urges Moslems to

carry out tasks that entrusted to them efficiently and

completely because work is the act of worship.

Firmness (Al Hazm)

Firmness is necessary if one is to carry out

responsibilities and execute instruction efficiently and

effectively. Islam considers any negligence in carrying

out one’s tasks and responsibilities, especially public

trust, a great sin against God and His Messenger.

However firness should not be at the expense of

fairness.

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Mercy (Al Rahmah)

One of the name of Allah is Merciful, the compassionate.

Moslems ought to be merciful and beneficient too.

Management need to pay attention to the psychological

needs, soul needs and material needs of mankind.

Teamwork (Al Amal Al Jamaah)

Believers are instructed to adopt and put into practice

the philosophy of teamwork and cooperation. The

prophet’s saying: Allah is with the group. Believers are

instructed not to indulge in matters that are not their

concern and not to criticize others when they should

not. There are several stories which show that the

prophet pbuh (peace be upon him) does his part by

helping subordinates with their work when necessary.

Planning (Al Takhteet)

The famous saying in the Islamic civilization by Imam

Ali is as follows: “For your world, act as if you live

externally; and for your herafter, act as if you will

die tomorrow.” This implies that everything should be

well planned as a proof of the best worship.

Supervision and Follow Up (Al Ishraf and Al Mutabaa)

Leadership management in Islam is characterized as

compromise leadership, humanitarian leadership, group16


leadership, leadership that focuses on objectives, and

politically skilled leadership (Abusin, 1984).

Setting an Example

As an Islamic leader and manager, one should be a role

model. He should be the first to take up the

responsibilities. Leader should give an example of

eagerness to serve and give total actions to whatever

good deeds he pursues.

Allah Supreme Names and The Application in Management

It is believed that Allah supreme names have laid the

foundation for good management and leadership. It is

quite relevant to say that a Moslem manager and leader

must observe these names as guidelines for his behavior.

It is noticed that most of these names, if not all, have

business connotations and can therefore be applied to

management functions and principles like planning,

organizaing, decision making, controlling and

motivating.

Figure 1. Allah Almighty Names and Their Application in Management

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The implementation of Islamic Management Themes has been

a topic of research for several scholars. In this

Literature Review we will see implementations on Human

Resources Management practices, Marketing performance

practices and the relationship with innovation

practices.

Human Resource Management: The Islamic Perspectives

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Hashim, 2010 conducted an empirical study on the

implementation of Human Resources Management practices:

The Islamic Perspectives. The findings revealed that the

selected organisations frequently practise the Islamic

approach in all its human resource management functions.

Junaidah Hashim in her endeavor distributes 121

questionnaires to Muslim employees who work in various

positions in eight Islamic organisations who

participates. The study reveal that Islamic approach in

HRM positively influences the organisational commitment

among employees. This knowledge is also beneficial for

non-Muslim managers in order to have better

understanding of the expected behaviors of their Muslim

employees. Muslim employees regardless for who they work

are expected to be honest, trustworthy and determined to

continuously strive for the best.

Spirituality affecting Marketing Performance

Rezaei, 2011 of the University of Isfahan, Iran,

conducted a descriptive survey research. The population

of this research was the employee of sales and marketing

unit in Isfahan Mobarakeh Steel company. The sample size

is 370. The finding shows that marketing performance is

positively affected by Spiritual Intelligence, which

supports all the Spiritual Intelligence components.

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This interesting paper is supporting the concept of

implementing spiritual management (found in Islamic

religious background of Iran) to foster performance of

the company, in this specific paper is focused to the

marketing performance.

Islamic Work Ethics and Innovation Capability

The paper by Raduan Che Rose and Naresh Kumar,

University Putra Malaysia, shows an empirical results

indicating that IWE is highly adapted in the public

sector. In addition, the respondents collectively

declared that the innovation strength in the Malaysian

public sector is mounting. IWE is found to be

significant with moderate correlation and positive

relationship with the innovation capability scale.

Scholars are concerned about innovation capabilities

which robustly claimed to channel the public sector

competitiveness. However we need to learn the underlying

drivers of innovation capability and understand the

multiple definitions of innovation in management

literature.

In a review conducted by Ali and Al Owaihan (2008)

it was found that managers working in the public sector

scored higher on IWE than those working in the private

sector. Similarly, reported in his findings that20


employees working in government organizations showed

stronger support of the IWE. The superior work ethic

provided by IWE is a platform and strength for the

entire workforce despite the unpredictably tremendous

challenge that lies in the future.

Studies had shown that both Muslim and non-Muslim

employees are aware and conscious of their religious

demands for the establishment of justice and fair

dealings in the workplace. Non Muslims are at ease with

the IWE due to their personal experiences and

observation of the Islamic way or work-life balance in

Malaysia.

Conclusion

The never lasting endeavor to find a conducive work

ethics had led us to find the alternative spiritual

management practice: The Islamic management. Despite the

vast number of the believer ( one fifth of the world

population) Islamic management is not well understood

and mostly tarnished by the negative images. This

negative image understandably derives from the negative

conducts of the people who only practices the ritual of

Islam without understanding the real substance of being

a Moslem. An interesting quotes comes from “Ahok” the

current vice Governor of DKI who said that his follower

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mentioned that his management conduct by caring for

other people is an Islamic value, despite the fact that

he is not a Moslem. While at the same time, the

corruptor who labelled themselves as a Moslem, is

actually a Non Believer.

This Literature Review had summarizes the journey of

finding the spiritual virtues which had shed valuable

informations on the substance of the spiritual concept

in the perspective of Islam. The papers are selected

from both the Western and Eastern perspectives to avoid

bias.

The limitations of this Literature Review rooted

from the scarcity of the resources. For future review,

more papers should be collected from various points of

view, to gain a richer understanding on the subject.

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References:

Abuznaid, S (2006). Islam and Management: What Can be

Learned? Thunderbird International Business Review. Vol 48 (1),

pp. 125-139.

Ali, A (2008). Islamic Work Ethic: A critical review.

Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, Vol 15, 1, pp.

5-19.

Benefiel, M (2003). Mapping the terrain of spirituality

in organizations research. Journal of Organizational Change

Management. 16 (4), pp. 367-377.

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.

Branine, (2010), Human Resources Management with Islamic

Management Principles: A Dialectic for a reverse

diffusion in management, Personnel Review,Vol 39 (6), pp.

712-727.

Bush, T. (2010). Spiritual Leadership. Educational

Management Administration & Leadership, 38 (4), pp. 402-404.

De Klerk, J.J (2005), Spirituality, Meaning in Life, and

work, wellness, a research agenda. International Journal of

Organizational Analysis 13 (1), pp. 74-88.

Hashim, (2010). Human resource management practices on

organisational commitment: The Islamic Perspective.

Personnel Review. Vol 39 No 6, pp. 785-789.

Karen, C. (2000). A Framework for Accommodating religion

and spirituality in the workplace. Academy of Management

Executive. Vol 14, 3, pp. 124-133.

Lee. Et al (2008). The relationship between spiritual

management and determinants of turnover intention.

European Business Review, Vol 22 No.1, pp. 102-116.

Milliman J. Czaplewski, A.J. and Ferfuson. J (2003).

Workplace spirituality and employee work attitudes: An

exploratory empirical assessment, Journal of Organizational

Change Management, 16 (4), pp 426-447.

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Rezaei, H (2011). An Analysis of Spiritual Intelligence

effect on Marketing Performance and Innovation in Sales

and Marketing unit (Case study: Isfahan). Interdisciplinary

Journal of Contemporary Research in Business. Vol 3, no 6, pp. 683-

691.

Rose, (2008), Examining the Link Between Islamic Work

Ethic and Innovation Capability, Journal of Management and

Development, Vol 29 No 1, pp. 79-93.

Rudnyckyj (2009), Spiritual Economies: Islam and

Neoliberalism in contemporary Indonesia. Cultural

Anthropology, Vol 24 (1), pp 104-541.

Weir, David (2012). Management teaching, the spiritual

dimension and the acceptance of the Islamic other.

Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion. Vol 9 (1), pp. 67-

81.

Woods (2007), The bigger feeling the importance of

spiritual experience in educational leadership.

Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 35 (1), pp.

135-155.

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