What do Ethics and Spirituality Have to do with Work?
Work is a social practice. It involves us, as individuals, in relation to other individuals or other living beings. Even the solitary workers interact, in some shape or form, with other living beings, even if simply to collect the basic supplies we need to carry out our work. The social nature of work makes it a moral activity, one where we have to care about others beyond our self-interests: we have to care about who they are, how they are, what they do, and how they are likely to engage with us.
Ethics has therefore much to do with work. It helps us remember that work is always at once a service to self and a service to others; and this dual essence is what makes work so morally significant. Through work, we are confronted with our own sense of value, of worth, of care and commitment; and we refine and re-imagine our values through the canvases that others present and represent. In many ways, work helps us hone our ethical values in concrete terms.
Work is also a spiritual practice. Those who feel that their work is a ‘vocation’ speak of deep meaning, of transcendent awareness when they step into work. Work does not even feel like work. For others, assuming their activity is somewhat freely chosen and not purposefully demeaning or exploitative, work may feel far more mundane, uninspiring, dreary. Spirit may be hard to find. Yet spirit may still be there. It is manifested in the fact that we are present at work, that somehow we care about what we do, that we participate in creating our daily experience as we engage with the tasks at hand.
These intersections are of great importance to the researchers, scholars and practitioners interested in the idea of ‘spirituality in the workplace’. This research area is not novel as one might think, and many good reflections come out of the MSR field (which stands for: Management, Spirituality and Religion). A dedicated academic and peer-reviewed journal (the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion), established more than a decade ago alongside an international association, has become a key resource for those keen on exploring the idea of crafting work differently, of managing organizations in a more inspired way, or of caring for our world by shifting our worldviews and facing our responsibilities as conscious human beings.
My own explorations in that domain include:
Rozuel, C. (2019). Unearthing gold from the mud: Alchemy and organizational tensions. Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion , 16(2): 178-198.
Rozuel, C. and McGhee, P. (2012) Investigating the convergence of corporate social responsibility and spirituality at work. Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics , 14(1): 47-62.