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Religion and Organization:

A Critical Review of Current

Trends and Future DirectionsPaul Tracey

a

a Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Published online: 09 Mar 2012.

To cite this article: Paul Tracey (2012) Religion and Organization: A Critical Reviewof Current Trends and Future Directions, The Academy of Management Annals, 6:1,

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Religion and Organization: A Critical Review of Current Trends and Future Directions

PAUL TRACEY∗

Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Abstract

Given the profound role that religion continues to play in contemporary

societies, it is surprising that management researchers have not explored the

intersection between religion and organization in a more meaningful and

determined way. This may be because religion is considered too far removed

from the commercial organizations that form the empirical focus of much

work in the discipline, or simply because it is deemed too sensitive. Whatever

the reason, the upshot is that we know relatively little about the dynamics of

religious organizational forms or the influence of these forms (and the values and practices that underpin them) on broader social processes and

other kinds of organization. This paper is designed to highlight the potential

of religion as a domain of study in management and to provide concrete sug-

gestions for taking forward research in this area. The paper consists of three

parts. I begin by reviewing some of the key literature in the sociology of religion

and religious organizations. I then evaluate the existing literature on religion

∗Email: [email protected]

The Academy of Management Annals

Vol. 6, No. 1, June 2012, 87–134

ISSN 1941-6520 print/ISSN 1941-6067 online

# 2012 Academy of Management

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87


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and organization, noting the salient contributions to date and highlighting

some of the issues raised by this body of work. In the third and final main

section, I suggest promising directions for future research.

Introduction

The field of complex organizations is rich with insight, theory, and analytical

technique. Thearena of religious organizations is rich with distinctiveorgan-

izational designs, special interorganizational relationships, and a large pres-

ence across the landscape of society. Religious organizations have long

served as foundries of organizational forms and issues. Thus, there is

immense potential for research payoff in attending to them. The field of complex organizations would be well-advised to treat religious institutions

more seriously, and scholars of religion would do well to study the emerging

scholarship on organizationsof all sorts. (Demerath & Schmitt, 1998, p. 396)

Despite the predictions of secularization theory, the importance of religious

beliefs and practices to contemporary forms of organization has arguably

increased in recent decades. Indeed, from the mid-1970s onwards, a series of

major socio-political events have “forced religion back onto the scholarly table

for social scientists to consider” (Smith, 2008, p. 1561). These events includethe rise of religious conservatism and the evangelical movement in the US, the

growth of Pentecostalism across Africa, Latin America and large swathes of

Asia, and most obviously the emergence of militant forms of Islam and their con-

flict with the West. But religion has also had important effects on other domains,

including those of commerce. For example, religious groups have played a key

role in the rise of the fair trade movement (Clarke, Barnett, Cloke, & Malpass,

2007), the social enterprise and social business movements (Spear, 2007), and

spearheaded the move to encourage institutional investors, particularly global

pension funds, to consider social problems as important foci of their investmentstrategies (Proffitt & Spicer, 2006). More broadly, with the notable exception of

Western Europe, much of the world “is as religious as it has ever been, and in

some places is more religious than ever” (Berger, 2001, p. 445).

And yet, for the most part, management researchers have stubbornly

refused to engage meaningfully with religion and religious forms of organiz-

ation, or to consider the effects of religious beliefs and practices on secular

organizations. Of course, there are some important exceptions. There is a sig-

nificant body of work connecting religion and business ethics, and the notion

of workplace spirituality has also generated considerable attention. However,

these debates have largely taken place outside the major journals, and can

hardly be said to have permeated thinking on management and organization.

Indeed, my review of the mainstream management literature identified just 86

papers that engage with the topic of religion. Moreover, the existing literature

88 † The Academy of Management Annals


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focuses overwhelmingly on Western Christianity, and seldom examines other

faiths or parts of the world.

The reasons for management scholars’ continued neglect of religion are not

clear. Perhaps it is considered too far removed from the commercial organiz-ations that form the empirical focus of much work in the discipline, or simply

because it is deemed too sensitive. Whatever the explanation, the upshot is that

we know relatively little about the dynamics of religious organizational forms

or the influence of these forms (and the values and practices that underpin

them) on broader social processes and other kinds of organization. In this

article, I consider the literature on religion with relevance for scholars of

management and organization. My aim is to highlight the key contributions

and theoretical debates that could inform part of a move towards a deeper

engagement with religion on the part of management researchers. My hopeis that this sort of engagement will lead to a more sophisticated understanding

of (1) religious organizations1 per se, and (2) how these organizations and the

values and normative frameworks that underpin them affect secular

organizations.

I begin by giving an overview of the sociology of religion and religious

organizations, highlighting its classical tradition, church-sect theory, rational

choice theory (RCT), and cultural approaches. I then review the literature

that incorporates a concern with religion in 21 of the main journals in manage-ment, and classify the papers into a series of themes. Finally, I identify some

directions for future research in order to help guide scholarship that connects

religion and the study of organizations.

The Sociology of Religion and Religious Organizations

The sociology of religion and religious organizations is remarkable in its scale

and scope, and it is impossible to do justice to its subtleties and complexities

here. Its roots can be traced to the founding fathers of sociology, who werewriting at a time when religion played a more obviously prominent role in

social life. During the twentieth century, developments in the sociology of reli-

gion continued apace, with the intellectual center of gravity shifting from

Europe to the US. However, much of the work tended to be empirically

focused, with the “mostly taken-for-granted nature of the larger secularization

theory that overshadowed a lot of social scientific thinking about religion in

much of the last century” (Smith, 2008, p. 1561) hampering theoretical devel-

opment. This led Iannaccone, writing in the late 1980s, to note that “[t]he soci-

ology of religion is an area rich in generalizations but poor in theory” (1988,

p. S241). Nonetheless, the last two decades have seen sociologists make “impor-

tant strides in better understanding the energy, meanings and complexities in

and of contemporary religion” (Smith, 2008, p. 1562), with a series of impor-

tant conceptual developments having taken place. In this section, I briefly

Religion and Organization † 89


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outline what I see as the main theoretical traditions in the sociology of religion

with relevance to management and organization.

The Classical Tradition

The classical sociological writers—Marx, Weber and Durkheim—retain

powerful influence on the sociology of religion and religious organizations.

Not everyone is happy about this, with Stark (2004), a leading pioneer of the

new orthodoxy in the sociology of religion—RCT—calling for an end to the

“ancestor worship” that he believes characterizes the field.2 Nonetheless,

many sociologists of religion still draw on the classic texts in order to

explain contemporary religious organizations and practices. Moreover, it is

my judgment that these texts continue to offer insights for the study of religionin the early twenty-first century, and therefore have relevance for management

researchers and other social scientists interested in the relationship between

religion and organization. It is also notable that organizational scholars’

engagement with this body of work is patchy at best. I therefore briefly

review the main ideas of Marx, Weber and Durkheim as they relate to religion

in the hope of stimulating management researchers with an interest in religion

to consider the implications of the classical sociological writers for their

research.Two key ideas underpinned Marx’s (1843/1972)3 analysis of religion (Davie,

2006). First, religion and economics are intertwined, and it is not possible to

understand the religious dimension of social life as separate from the econ-

omic. Second, religion represents a kind of alienation, one designed to mask

the exploitation that infuses capitalism, and to legitimate the interests of

those who own the means of production by making private ownership seem

the natural state of affairs. Thus, religion is the “the opium of the people”

and is propagated by a property-owning class who control not only the

means of production, but the production of ideas. In other words, religion isa mechanism for control on the part of the elite. There are two main criticisms

of Marx’s work on religion (Collins, 2007). The first is that Marx ignored the

role of religion in enabling “the people” to fight oppression. Indeed, until the

eighteenth century, religious movements provided the basis of nearly all of

the major uprisings by peasant or urban workers. Second, in historical

terms, religion has tended to have a much stronger influence on the elite

than on those who occupy the lower social strata. Thus, an alternative expla-

nation to that of Marx is that religion’s influence stems from the sense of soli-

darity that it provides among the ruling classes, rather than keeping the

working classes in their place.4

At the core of Weber’s work on religion is the notion that religion and

society are quite separate phenomena; that religion has its own existence

which is underpinned by its own belief system or “ethic” (Davie, 2006).



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There are two main strands to Weber’s thinking (McKinnon, 2010). The first,

and the one for which he is particularly well known, is his writing on the Pro-

testant Ethic (Weber, 1904–5/1965). The crux of his argument here is that

various Protestant beliefs and practices fused together at a particular pointin time to undermine the traditional economic order and to produce the “capi-

talist spirit”. This spirit was driven by both the notion of a vocation or calling

(that God is served through work) and the idea that hard work can lead to sal-

vation (and the avoidance of damnation). The result is that Protestants hold

values and beliefs that encourage discipline, hard work, integrity and thrift.

The second strand to Weber’s work, and arguably the most important,

involved a comparative sociology designed to explore the role of religion in

shaping the development of different parts of the world (including books on

Confucianism and Taoism in China, and Hinduism and Buddhism in India).He was clear that the relationship between religion and society (or ethic and

context) must be understood by considering each case individually. His

central idea is that each religion has a primary status group with a particular

lifestyle and prestige, whose members associate with one another but exclude

those from other groups. It is Weber’s contention that the beliefs and practices

of the dominant status groups provide the basis of the cultures of whole

societies.5

Durkheim approached the study of religion from a functionalist perspec-tive, and was essentially interested in its social consequences (Davie, 2006).

For Durkheim (1912/1995), religion has four core features (Ramp, 2010).

First, it is a collective phenomenon. Second, it comprises beliefs and practices.

Third, it is not the same as magic. Fourth, it is based on a fundamental dis-

tinction between the sacred and the profane. It is, of course, the distinction

between the sacred and the profane for which Durkheim’s work on religion

is most well-known. The sacred is set apart from everyday activities, while

the profane has a functional quality, and is used or consumed for a particular

purpose. However, objects are not intrinsically sacred. They become sobecause of the meaning that is ascribed to them by religious communities

in the context of specific situations that are repeated over time (a Christian

drinking a glass of wine in a bar would not consider the wine to represent

the blood of Christ, as she would do in the context of a church communion).

Crucially, all sacred objects represent parts of the collective. The sacred thus

has a “totemic” quality, converting the collective into a set of categories which

form the basis of a system of meaning or logic in a particular society. In light

of this, Durkheim’s work has been criticized for equating religion to “nothing

more than the symbolic expression of religious experience” (Davie, 2006,

p. 175). Nonetheless, the idea that objects become sacred in a given organiz-

ation because of the collective meaning ascribed to them by a particular com-

munity has important implications for the study of organizations, both

religious and secular.6



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Church-Sect Theory (or Sect-Church Theory)

The most prominent theory in the sociology of religious organizations, and for

many years the basis of the sociology of religion in the Anglo-American world

(Robbins & Lucas, 2007) is church-sect theory.7 It has its roots in Weber’s(1904–5/1965) work, but it is generally agreed that Troeltsch (1911/1976) rep-

resents the foundational contribution with respect to the church-sect para-

digm. This initial typology was quite simple, essentially classifying churches

and sects with regard to their respective empirical characteristics (Robertson,

1970).8 Dawson (2011) summarizes the key differences between churches

and sects as follows. First, church members tend to be born into their faith,

because their parents decide to have them baptized at a young age, and in

this respect, they do not make a conscious decision to join. By contrast, sects

tend to rely on conversion in adulthood, with the conversion process often a

dramatic and emotional one. Second, churches tend to have relatively hetero-

geneous congregations and they are inclusive organizations, whereas sects tend

to have relatively homogenous congregations and are often exclusive. Third,

churches tend to reflect and embody broader social values, whereas sects

tend to be more radical and to deliberately eschew dominant social values.

As a consequence, churches tend to be tolerant and moderate, whereas sects

require adherence to strict beliefs and practices with transgressions often pun-

ished by expulsion. Fourth, churches tend to be bureaucratic and hierarchical,with leaders hired according to qualifications and experience, whereas sects

tend to be informal and the leadership charismatic. Finally, churches tend to

rely on ritual and dogma, whereas sects tend to be more spontaneous and

can be anti-ritualistic.

At its core, church sect-theory assumes a recursive process in which an

emotionally vibrant sect breaks away from an established hierarchical

church, perhaps in response to a perceived shift away from, or a watering

down of, particular beliefs or practices. Over time, the new sect itself experi-

ences a process of institutionalization, gradually becoming more hetero-geneous, moderate, tolerant, bureaucratic, formal, and dogmatic. Eventually,

often over a period of about 50 or 60 years (the time that the founding gener-

ation remains in control), sects take a form akin to the parent church from

which they broke away (Lucas, 1995). In other words, they turn into churches.

This inevitably leads to some members feeling that the organization does not

meet their needs or has strayed too far from a core set of beliefs or practices,

which in turn leads to the emergence of a new sect or sects. And so the

process continues. Robbins and Lucas (2007, p. 239) neatly summarize this dia-lectical dynamic at the heart of church-sect theory in the following way:

“Through the process of institutionalization and accommodation yesterday’s

deviant sects. . . have been seen to become tomorrow’s conventional, respect-

able (but less dynamic) churches”.



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Despite its age, church-sect theory remains an important element of the

sociology of religious organizations. Demerath, Hall, Schmitt, and Williams

(1998, p. viii) point out that, “as conceptual frameworks go, this one has

gone far”. However, criticisms of the theory have been mounting for sometime (Dawson, 2011). The main criticism leveled is that church-sect theory

may have been an appropriate framework for explaining the evolution of Euro-

pean Christianity, but it does not capture the complexity of contemporary reli-

gious organization, and its applicability to other faiths such as Islam is not so

obvious. For example, Robbins and Lucas (2007) note that the new religious

movements (NRMs) that characterize the early twenty-first century partly

reflect processes of globalization and secularization, and cannot be accounted

for fully through the relatively simple church-sect logic. Moreover, a number of

scholars have pointed to cases that do not fit church-sect reasoning (Stark & Bainbridge, 1985). For instance, some sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses

and scientology have survived well beyond the first generation of leaders.

As a result of these critiques, it is clear that church-sect theory’s influence

has been on the wane, and is “in need of serious modification” (Robbins &

Lucas, 2007, p. 239). However, it is worth noting that the new dominant para-

digm in the sociology of religious organizations—RCT—has been concerned in

part with explaining the dynamic underpinning of the relationship between

church and sect, and so in this respect, church-sect theory’s influence con-tinues. It is to RCT that I now turn.

Rational Choice Theory (or Religious Competition Theory)

The application of a version of RCT from economics to the study of religious

organizations, also known as religious competition theory, has gained much

influence in the sociology of religion. Indeed, it has arguably become the domi-

nant approach to the study of religious organizations. The work of Bainbridge,

Iannaccone, Finke, and in particular Stark, is seen as constituting the core of this paradigm (e.g. Finke & Iannaccone, 1993; Finke & Stark, 1998; Stark &

Bainbridge, 1985; Stark & Finke, 2000).

At the heart of RCT is a series of microeconomic assumptions about human

behavior in the context of religion. In particular, a central idea is that “within

the limits of their information and understanding, restricted by available

options, guided by their preferences and tastes, humans attempt to make

rational choices” (Stark & Finke, 2000, p. 65). These choices are framed in

terms of rewards and compensators (Stark & Bainbridge, 1987). Rewards are

things that individuals want and are prepared to accept costs in order to

obtain them. These include the legitimacy and networking benefits of church

membership and attendance. Compensators are a kind of reward, the benefits

of which are not easily perceptible, such as immorality or forgiveness. In

making decisions with respect to religion, RCT assumes that individuals seek



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to maximize rewards while minimizing costs, and are engaged in an exchange

relationship with a god or gods (Hamilton, 2011).

More broadly, RCT conceptualizes religion in the context of a market with a

focus on the supply side. Religious preferences are assumed to be quite stable,with changes therefore driven by suppliers in the form of entrepreneurial reli-

gious organizations that cater for previously untapped religious preferences.

Thus, a central assumption of RCT is that religious organizations compete

with one another for adherents, and that greater choice and competition will

lead to higher levels of religious activity because it will increase the likelihood

that the preferences of religious consumers will be satisfied. In this regard, RCT

“turns conventional theory on its head” (Hamilton, 2011, p. 120); rather than

assuming that religious competition undermines the legitimacy of religion and

results in a process of secularization, as Durkheim suggested, RCT assumesthat religious competition is the most effective way to ensure a vibrant

“market” for religion.

As one might expect, RCT has been subject to much critique (Hamilton,

2011; Wilde, Geraty, Nelson, & Bowman, 2010). Most obviously, for some soci-

ologists, there is a major difference between the processes through which indi-

viduals buy a product and choose a faith; religious beliefs are considered to be

the result of a process of socialization to a much larger extent than the purchase

of, say, a toothpaste or a car, for which it is easier to make a rational choiceargument. Second, because RCT assumes a belief in the supernatural, it has

been criticized for ethnocentrism and a focus on Western forms of religion,

and thus an inability to explain Eastern religions such as Buddhism that do

not rely on supernatural assumptions. Third, the idea that individuals and

organizations seek to maximize returns becomes problematic without some

sort of quantifiable currency or metric through which one can account for

costs and benefits. It is therefore difficult to subject many of the claims of

RCT to empirical examination, and harder still to sustain a theoretical argu-

ment drawn from a microeconomic tradition that relies fundamentally onmetrics of this sort (Bryant, 2000). Others have raised methodological concerns

about the empirical measures of religious pluralism that RCT relies upon,

which have been criticized from a statistical perspective (e.g. Breault, 1989;

Chaves & Gorski, 2001; Olson, 1998).

Cultural Theories

A final main perspective in the sociology of religion and religious organizations

can be termed loosely as a “culture” perspective. This body of research in fact

incorporates a number of related approaches to the study of religion. It is

evident most obviously in the literature on NRMs, which examines the emer-

gence and growth of new forms of religious collectives. This work is connected

to a broader intellectual endeavor that aims to understand religion in social and



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cultural terms, and which makes a number of contributions to the sociology of

religion (Bromley, 2011). Specifically, the study of NRMs sheds light on the

relationship between religion and the social context in which religious beliefs

and practices take place. In particular, this work helps to explain the formsof social dislocation that lead individuals to construct new types of social

organization underpinned by new meaning systems. They also help to

explain a crucial dynamic with regard to religious behavior: conversion. A sig-

nificant amount of work has emerged on this topic, which has shown how

social networks and the reconstruction of an individual’s social identity are a

crucial part of the conversion process (Lofland & Stark, 1965; Snow & Macha-

lek, 1984). Bromley (2011) notes that this research highlights the multidimen-

sional nature of conversion, and emphasizes in particular (1) the importance of

both individual and group processes, (2) the key role of both symbolic and rela-tional factors, and (3) that individual outcomes of the conversion process may

be short-term or long-term.

It is interesting that “despite a similar genesis in the classical nineteenth

century theories of social change, scholarly analysis of religious and social

movements have frequently addressed different problems and formulated

different paradigms” (Hannigan, 1991, p. 311). Nonetheless, some sociologists

with an interest in religion draw directly from social movement theory to

explore not only the emergence of new religious movements, but also therole of religious groups in the development of new social movements and

counter-movements designed to address particular social issues (e.g. Zald &

McCarthy, 1998) and how religious beliefs at a macro level affect the develop-

ment of social movement organizations (e.g. McVeigh & Sikkink, 2001; Schei-

tle & Hahn, 2011). On the whole, however, it is perhaps surprising that social

movement theory does not occupy a more central place in the sociology of reli-

gion, especially given its influence on the discipline more broadly.

Finally, new institutional theory forms part of the cultural approach in the

sociology of religious organizations. For example, Cormode (1998) uses insti-tutional theory, and more specifically the concept of isomorphism, to under-

stand the “secularization problem” (p. 117), Stout and Cormode (1998)

show how the logic of religion in the United States is connected to other

macro-level logics such as the state, capitalism, and the family, and Chaves

(1996) examines the diffusion of women’s ordination among Christian

denominations in the US. More recently, Wilde et al. (2010) draw on new insti-

tutional theory in the context of the Second Vatican Council to show that

aspects of the environment frame the interests of leaders, often leading them

to prioritize organizational legitimacy rather than issues of growth and effi-

ciency, as predicted by rational choice theorists. My own reading of this

work (as an institutional theorist from the organizational tradition) suggests

that its aim is to use institutional theory to more fully understand religious

organization rather than to push the boundaries of institutional theory itself.



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In sum, the sociology of religion and religious organizations represents the

most comprehensive and sophisticated body of social scientific research on

religion. While it is somewhat fragmented, it clearly offers an important refer-

ence point for organizational researchers with an interest in religion. Moreover,many of the assumptions that underpin the frameworks used by sociologists of

religion resonate and/or overlap with those used by scholars in management.

Certainly, rather than “reinventing the wheel”, it makes sense for management

researchers working at the intersection of religion and organization to familiar-

ize themselves with this scholarship, and to draw on it where relevant, at least

as a point of departure. In the following section, I examine the existing organ-

izational research with a focus on religion.

The Study of Religion in Management and Organization Theory

To review the management literature on religion, I examined 21 scholarly jour-

nals that I consider to constitute the mainstream outlets in management

research. I felt it was important to include journals that are both North Amer-

ican and European in origin9. I also wanted to make sure that the main man-

agement disciplines—namely organization theory, strategy, and organizational

behavior—were adequately represented. My approach was to search for key

terms in the abstract of each paper published in each journal from the firstissue to July 2011. The search terms used included “religion”, “religious”,

“church”, “mosque”, “synagogue”, “temple”, “Christian”, “Muslim”, “Islam”,

“Jewish”, “Sikh”, “Buddhism”, “spirituality”. I then checked each paper to

ascertain whether religion constituted a relatively important part of its argu-

ments. Papers where religion was found to be very marginal to the arguments

were not included in the review. This was often straightforward, but at other

times involved making a subjective judgment. Dialogue pieces and book

reviews were also excluded. This process resulted in a total of 86 papers

being selected for review. The distribution of the papers across the 21 journalsis listed in Table 1. Having identified the relevant articles, I sought to classify

them according to a set of core themes. The following 11 themes were ident-

ified: religion and the environment; the strategy and performance of religious

organizations; organizational change; organizational culture; power, authority,

and discrimination; religion and individual behavior in organizations; business

ethics; comparative studies; religion and social identity; workplace spirituality;

and religious ideas in secular contexts. In organizing the themes, I sought to

move in a general sense from the macro level to the micro level of analysis,

although the final theme (on religious ideas in secular contexts) clearly cuts

across levels. The first five themes are rooted mainly in the disciplines of

strategy and organization theory, themes six to ten are rooted mainly in

organizational behavior, with the final theme having relevance for all three

disciplines.



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Each paper was assigned to a theme with the exception of Bartunek (2006)

who offers a personal reflection on her own career and work, and Cooper

(2007) who uses the Church to illustrate his postmodern critique of organiz-

ation as “a social body or collection of organs” (p. 1547) and whose article

defies straightforward classification. Again, the process of assigning papers to

themes was not an exact one, and some of the papers could have been classifiedwithin multiple themes. A list of the papers assigned to each category is

included in Table 2. In the remainder of this section, I summarize some of

the key papers from each theme, where relevant connecting with related

ideas and literatures, and evaluate the key insights that they offer.

Religion and the Environment

Ten of the papers included in my review examine the relationship between reli-

gious organizations and the contexts in which they are embedded and/or the

effects of religious beliefs and values on the cultural or institutional environ-

ments of organizations. Four of the ten draw explicitly on ideas from social

movement theory. For example, Hiatt, Sine, and Tolbert (2009) show how

a faith-based social movement organization, the Women’s Christian

Table 1 Number of Papers in the Main Management Journals that Include a Focus on Religion

Journal title Number of papers (total 5 86)

Academy of Management Annals 0

Academy of Management Executive/Perspectives 1

Academy of Management Journal 5

Academy of Management Review 2

Administrative Science Quarterly 10

British Journal of Management 1

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2

Human Relations 31

Industrial and Corporate Change 1

Journal of Business Venturing 0

Journal of International Business Studies 3 Journal of Management 1

Journal of Management Studies 2

Journal of Organizational Behavior 5

Long Range Planning 5

Management Science 0

Organization 6

Organization Science 1

Organization Studies 6

Strategic Management Journal 3Strategic Organization 1



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Table 2 Breakdown of Papers in the Main Management Journals that Include a Focus on Religion by Subject Category

Subject category Papers

1. Religion and the

environment (n ¼ 10)

Creed, W.E.D., DeJordy, R., & Lok, J. (2010). Being the change: Resolving inst

work. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1336–1364.Hiatt, S.R., Sine, W.D., & Tolbert, P.S. (2009). From Pabst to Pepsi: The deins

creation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Administrative Science Quarterly, 5

Jenkins, J.C. (1977). Radical transformation of organizational goals. Administ

Khan, F.R., & Koshul, B.B. (2011). Lenin in Allah’s court: Iqbal’s critique of We

postcolonial imagination in critical management studies. Organization, 18(3)

King, M.D., & Haveman, H.A. (2008). Antislavery in America: The press, the p

Administrative Science Quarterly, 53(3), 492–528.

Nelson, R.E. (1989). Organization-environment isomorphism, rejection, and s

Organization Studies, 10 (2), 207–224.Nelson, R.E. (1993). Authority, organization, and societal context in multinati

Quarterly, 38(4), 653–682.

Proffitt, W.T., & Spicer, A. (2006). Shaping the shareholder activism agenda: I

issues. Strategic Organization, 4(2), 165–190.

Robertson, A. (1969). Penal policy and social change. Human Relations, 22(6)

Smith, E.A. (1957). Bureaucratic organization: Selective or saturative. Admini

2. The strategy and

performance of

religious organizations

(n ¼ 9)

Coghlan, D. (1987). Corporate strategy in Catholic religious orders. Long Ran

Hussey, D.E. (1974). Corporate planning for a church. Long Range Planning,

King, M., & Smith, D.K. (1982). Planning the deployment of clergy. Long Ran

McGrath, P. (2005). Thinking differently about knowledge-intensive firms: In

monasticism. Organization, 12(4), 549–566.

Miller, K.D. (2002). Competitive strategies of religious organizations. Strategic

D o w n l o a d e

d b y [ M c G i l l U n i v e r s i t y L

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Odom, R.Y., & Boxx, W.R. (1988). Environment, planning processes, and org

Strategic Management Journal 9 (2), 197–205.

Pearce II, J.A., Fritz, D.A., & Davis, P.S. (2010). Entrepreneurial orientation a

congregations as predicted by rational choice theory. Entrepreneurship Theo

Wasdell, D. (1980). Long range planning and the church. Long Range Plannin

Webb, R.J. (1974). Organizational effectiveness and the voluntary organization

663–677.

3. Organizational change

(n ¼ 7)

Bartunek, J.M. (1984). Changing interpretive schemes and organizational restru

Administrative Science Quarterly, 29 (3), 355–372.

Bartunek, J., & Franzak, F. (1988). The effects of organizational restructuring

Journal of Management, 14(4), 579–592.

Bartunek, J.M., & Ringuest, J.L. (1989). Enacting new perspectives through wo

Journal of Management Studies, 26 (6), 541–560.

Ludwig, D.C. (1993). Adapting to a declining environment: Lessons from a re41–56.

Kohl, J.P. (1984). Strategies for growth: Intervention in a church. Long Range

76–81.

Mintzberg, H., & Westley, F. (1992). Cycles of organizational change. Strategi

Plowman, D.A., Baker, L.T., Beck, T.E., Kulkarni, M., Solansky, S.T., & Travis,

The emergence and amplification of small change. Academy of Management

4. Organizational culture

(n ¼ 2)

Angus, L.B. (1993). Masculinity and women teachers at Christian Brothers Coll

Sorensen, B.M. (2010). St. Paul’s conversion: The aesthetic organization of labo

5. Power, authority anddiscrimination (n ¼ 10)

Dietrich, D. (1981). Holocaust as public policy: The Third Reich. Human RelaGhumann,S., & Jackson, L. (2010). The downside of religious attire: the Muslim

employment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(1), 4–23.

Hinings, C.R., & Bryman, A. (1974). Size and the administrative component in ch

Katz, E. & Zloczower, A. (1961). Ethnic continuity in an Israeli town. Human D o w n l o a d e



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Kleiner, R.J., Tuckman, J. & Lavell, M. (1959). Mental disorder and status based

12(3), 273–276.

Lauer, R.H. (1973). Organizational punishment: Punitive relations in a volunta

church. Human Relations, 26 (2): 189–202.

Satow, R.L. (1975). Value-rational authority and professional organizations: We

Quarterly, 20 (4), 526–531.

Watson, J. (1950). Some social and psychological situations related to change i

Weima, J. (1965). Authoritarianism, religious conservatism, and sociocentric att

Relations, 18(3): 231–239.

Wilken, P.H. (1971). Size of organizations and member participation in churc

Quarterly, 16 (2), 173–179.6. Religion and

individual behavior in

organizations (n ¼ 11)

Anson, O., Carmel, S., Bonneh, D.Y., Levenson, A., & Maoz, B. (1990). Recen

individual or collective effect. Human Relations, 43(11), 1051–1066.

Chusmir, L.H., & Koberg, C.S. (1988). Religion and attitudes towards work: A

Organizational Behavior, 9 (3), 251–262.

Drakopoulou Dodd, S., & Spearman, P.T. (1998). Religion and enterprise: An in

Theory & Practice, 23(Fall), 71–86.

Friedlander, F. (1975). Emerging and contemporary lifestyles: An inter-genera

329–347.

Furnham, A. (1997). The half full or half empty glass: The views of the economi50 (2), 197–209.

Jones Jr., H.B. (1997). The Protestant ethic: Weber’s model and the empirical lit

Laumann, E.O., & Rapoport, R.N. (1968). The institutional effect on career ac

classification analysis. Human Relations, 21(3), 227–239. D o w n l o a d e



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Nielsen, E., & Edwards, J. (1982). Perceived feminine role orientation and self

547–558.

Reilly, M.E. (1978). A case study of role conflict: Roman Catholic priests. Hum

Sagie, A., & Elizur, D. (1996). The structure of personal values: A conical repre

Organizational Behavior, 17 (S1), 573–586.

Senger, J. (1970). The religious manager. Academy of Management Journal, 13

7. Business ethics (n ¼ 2) Boling, T.E. (1978). The management ethics “crisis”: An organizational persp

3(2), 360–365.

Bell, E., Taylor, S., & Driscoll, C. (forthcoming). Varieties of organizational so

Organization.

8. Comparative studies

(n ¼ 8)

Ajiferuke, M., & Boddewyn, J. (1970). Socioeconomic indicators in comparati

Quarterly, 15(4), 453–458.

Dow, D., & Karunaratna, A. (2006). Developing a multidimensional instrume

Journal of International Business Studies, 37 (5), 578–602.Greif, A. (1996). The study of organizations and evolving organizational forms

medieval family firm. Industrial and Corporate Change, 5(2), 473–502.

Niles, F.S. (1999). Towards a cross-cultural understanding of work-related bel

Parboteeah, K.P., Hoegl, M., & Cullen, J. (2009). Religious dimensions and work

model. Human Relations, 62(1), 119–148.

Sagy, S., Orr, E., & Bar-On, D. (1999). Individualism and collectivism in Israel

high-school students. Human Relations, 52(3), 327–348.

Schiffman, L.G., Dillon, W.R., & Ngumah, F.E. (1981). The influence of subcul

acculturation. Journal of International Business Studies, 12(2), 137–143.Tang, L., & Koveos, P.E. (2008). A framework to update Hofstede’s cultural va

institutional stability. Journal of International Business Studies, 39, 1045–106

Cairns, E., & Mercer, G.W. (1984). Social Identity in Northern Ireland. Huma D o w n l o a d e



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9. Religion and social

identity (n ¼ 10)

Essers, C., & Benschop, Y. (2009). Muslim businesswomen doing boundary w

ethnicity in entrepreneurial contexts. Human Relations, 62 (3), 403–423.

Gutierrez, B., Howard-Grenville, J., & Scully, M., (2010). The faithful rise up: S

effort. Academy of Management Journal, 53(4), 673–699.

Hall, D.T., & Schneider, B. (1972). Correlates of organizational identification

organizational type. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17 (3), 340–350.

Herriott, P., & Scott-Jackson, W. (2002). Globalization, social identities and em

13(2), 249–257.

Hofman, J. (1982). Social identity and the readiness for social relations betwe

Relations, 35(9), 727–741.

Mael, F., & Ashforth, B.E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test ofidentification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(2), 103–123.

Maoz, I., Bar-On, D., Bekermann, Z., & Jaber-Massarwa, S. (2004). Learning ab

A story of a planned dialogue between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Human

Maoz, I., Steinberg, S., Bar-On, D., & Fakhereldeen, M. (2002). The dialogue

process analysis of Palestinian-Jewish encounters in Israel. Human Relations

Weaver, G.R., & Agle, B.R. (2002). Religiosity and ethical behavior in organizati

The Academy of Management Review, 27 (1) 77–97.

10. Workplace

spirituality (n¼

9)

Bell, E., & Taylor, S. (2003). The elevation of work: Pastoral power and the new

349.Bell, E., & Taylor, S. (2004). “From outward bound to inward bound”: The pr

spiritual management development. Human Relations, 57 (4) 439–466.

Boyle, M .V., & Healy, J. (2003). Balancing mysterium and onus: Doing spirit

organizational context. Organization, 10 (2), 351–373. D o w n l o a d e



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Cash, K., & Gray, G. (2000). A framework for accommodating religion and sp

Management Executive, 14 (3), 124–133.

Cullen, J.G. (2009). How to sell your soul and still get into Heaven: Steven Coeffective selfhood. Human Relations, 62(8), 1231–1254.

Driver, M., (2005). From empty speech to full speech? Reconceptualizing spir

psychoanalytically-grounded understanding of the self. Human Relations, 58

Fry, L., & Kriger, M. (2009). Towards a theory of being-centred leadership: Mul

leadership. Human Relations, 62(11), 1167–1696.

Lynn, M.L., Naughton, M.J., & VanderVeen, S. (2011). Connecting religion an

faith integration. Human Relations, 64(5), 675–701.

Zaidman, N., Goldstein-Gidoni, O., & Nehemya, I. (2009). From temples to o

packaging of spirituality. Organization, 16 (4), 597–62.

11. Religious ideas in

secular contexts (n ¼ 6)

Ackers, P., & Preston, D. (1997). Born again? The ethics and efficacy of the co

management development. Journal of Management Studies, 34(5), 677–701.

Finch-Lees, T., Mabey, C., & Liefooghe, A. (2005). “In the name of capability”

competency-based management development. Human Relations, 58(9), 1185

Gabriel, Y. (1997). Meeting God: When organizational members come face to

the supreme leader. Human Relations, 50(4), 315–342.

Hall, D.T., & Chandler, D.E. (2005). Psychological success: When the career i

Behavior, 26 (2), 155–176.

Shenkar, O. (1996). The firm as a total institution: Reflections on the Chinese st

885–907.Wilson, F. (1992). Language, technology, gender, and power. Human Relation

12. Not classified (n ¼ 2) Bartunek, J., (2006). The Christmas gift: A story of dialectics. Organization St

Cooper R. (2007). Organs of process: Rethinking human organization. Organ D o w n l o a d e



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Temperance Movement, was able to successfully challenge the legitimacy of

alcohol consumption in the United States in the late nineteenth century,

which had the effect of undermining breweries and promoting the soft

drinks industry. In another interesting paper, King and Haveman (2008)study the emergence of the organized anti-slavery movement in the late eight-

eenth and early nineteenth centuries. They found that the relationship between

religious organizations and the antislavery movement varied according to theo-

logical orientation: “this-wordly churches” (those concerned with redeeming

society as well as redeeming souls) supported the development of the antislav-

ery movement while “other-worldly churches” (those with an overriding focus

on individual salvation) sought to weaken it. The idea that religious organiz-

ations may play influential and sometimes unnoticed roles in social movements

and social change is reinforced by Proffitt and Spicer (2006). Through ananalysis of shareholder activism with respect to key global social issues span-

ning 35 years, these authors show that religious organizations were behind

around 60% of the more than 2000 shareholder proposals in the US on

topics relating to international human rights and labor standards. It was

only when religious organizations had successfully legitimated these issues

that public pension funds began to take them seriously. This is consistent

with insights from the sociology of religion, which has shown that religious

groups and organizations may be “crucibles of social movements” (Zald & McCarthy, 1998, p. 24).

Just three papers draw mainly on ideas from new institutional theory.

Nelson (1989) examined the responses of Brazilian Protestant churches in

200 communities to environmental pressures. On the basis of his analysis,

he argued against the assertion—dominant in the literature at the time—that

organizations in a field generally become more similar (or isomorphic) when

faced with a given set of institutional circumstances. In doing so, he identified

two “non-isomorphic responses”. The first is rejection; in the context of

Nelson’s study, a “deviant religion” (i.e. Protestantism) may begin as a sym-bolic revolt against a dominant religious order (i.e. Catholicism).10 The

second is substitution, with the Protestant Church providing an alternative

to the Catholic Church for people who, for a variety of reasons, are not able

to practice Catholicism.

In a later paper, Nelson (1993) again seeks to undermine the assumption

that isomorphism is a ubiquitous feature of organizational life. This time he

draws on Weber’s tripartite classification of legitimate authority—rational-

legal, traditional, and charismatic—to examine the relationship between

authority type, the institutional environment, and organizational outcomes.

In doing so, he studied three multinational churches (the Christian Congre-

gations, the Assemblies of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter

Day Saints) in the US and Brazil, with each church assumed to represent

one of Weber’s ideal-typical forms of authority. He found that the three



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churches adopted radically differing organizational forms and exhibited

markedly different performance levels within countries, and that the same

denominations exhibited markedly differing performance levels between

nations.Creed, DeJordy, and Lok (2010) draw on institutional ideas to explore the

microdynamics of institutional change. Specifically, they examine how gay,

lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) ministers who belong to two Protes-

tant denominations in the United States cope with the institutional contradic-

tion they experience between their membership of the church and their

membership of the GLBT community. Their study is especially interesting

because it describes how people, whose identities are apparently inconsistent

with the religious organizations to which they belong, can initiate institutional

change from apparently marginal positions. They also show that these actorsare neither the “cultural dopes” nor the “hyper-muscular institutional entre-

preneurs” (p. 1337) who dominate much of the recent new institutional

theory literature. Given the prominence of new institutional theory within

the management literature and the rich empirical contexts that religious organ-

izations offer, it is perhaps surprising that there has not been more empirical

work in management that has sought to use an institutional lens to study reli-

gion and organization.

The Strategy and Performance of Religious Organizations

The nine papers grouped under this heading are all concerned with the stra-

tegic management of religious organizations and the implications for organiz-

ational effectiveness. Implicit in a number of these papers is the notion that

religious organizations are in competition for resources and members. As

noted, this taps into a longstanding debate in the sociology of religion stretch-

ing back to Durkheim, who argued that faiths with a monopoly position are in

a much stronger position than those operating in a multi-faith environment,because competition between faiths inevitably undermines the claims of each

of them. Finke and Stark (1998) as well as other rational choice theorists

offer an opposing view, claiming to show empirically that religious partici-

pation in the US is highest in cities where competition between faiths is stron-

gest, a claim that was challenged by, among others, Chaves and Gorski (2001),

and Voas, Olson, and Crockett (2002).

Building on these discussions, Miller (2002) examines religious production

and competition, drawing on economic and institutional theory to build a fra-

mework for examining “the sources of sustainable competitive advantage

among religious organizations” (p. 435). For Miller, rivalry is an intrinsic

feature of religious organization. This rivalry is often overt, particularly in

the case of proselytizing organizations, and can be extremely intense, most

obviously in contexts where there is an absence of regulation. He



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conceptualizes religious organizations’ competitive advantage as being rooted

in three core strands: (1) the credibility of the commitment of the founders

and their movement’s perceived legitimacy; (2) the organization’s ability to

secure organizational resources that are rare and inimitable; and (3) theability to build a differentiated strategy that allows the organization to tap

into unique customer segments.

In another significant paper, Pearce, Fritz, and Davis (2010) link RCT and

the concept of entrepreneurial orientation to examine whether there is a

relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational perform-

ance. Entrepreneurial orientation is an organization-level construct that com-

prises a number of distinct but related kinds of behavior—innovativeness,

proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, risk-taking, and autonomy—which

have been shown to increase for-profit firm performance and resource acqui-sition in some circumstances (Lumpkin & Dess, 2001). Using a sample of 250

religious organizations in five different markets, the authors found an entrepre-

neurial orientation to be associated positively with performance. The authors

conclude that an entrepreneurial orientation “can be a source of competitive

advantage or strategic renewal for local organizational units of larger religious

denominations” (p. 240).

McGrath (2005) takes quite a different tack. By examining the practices and

strategies adopted by early medieval Irish monastic communities and attempt-ing to show their relevance for contemporary knowledge-intensive firms

(KIFs), the author seeks to show that an understanding of contemporary

firm effectiveness requires the adoption of multiple lenses, and that singular

perspectives are inadequate. While McGrath does not seek to present Irish

monastic communities as models that “contemporary KIFs or other types of

firms need to aspire towards or copy”, he does assert that his work is insightful

because historical analysis can encourage management researchers to think

about the present in different ways.

The appropriateness of conceptualizing religious organizations in terms of strategy, competitiveness, and competitive advantage may be viewed with

skepticism by some scholars. However, Miller (2002, p. 450) notes that

while “critics may view this [perspective on religious organizations] as a

crass, even irreverent, portrayal of religion. A more constructive view recog-

nizes that all organizations—sacred or secular—require resources”. I concur

with Miller that insights from the strategy literature, including the resource-

based view (RBV), entrepreneurial orientation, and the knowledge-based

view, have the potential to provide significant steps forward in our under-

standing of religious organizations. A particular advantage of these

approaches is that they provide a stronger theoretical basis than RCT in soci-

ology for considering why some religious organizations attract more followers

and resources than others. I discuss this point more fully in the section on

directions for future research.



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Organizational Change

It is interesting that, while relatively small in overall numbers (n¼7), several

of the management papers on religion that have arguably had the greatest

visibility and influence focus on organizational change. These papersinclude three by Jean Bartunek, the organizational scholar whose work on

religion is perhaps the most well-known. The empirical setting for all three

papers is an organizational restructuring in an international women’s

Roman Catholic religious order, which involved the creation of a single

national province in the US to replace five existing provinces. While the

empirical setting is the same, the data used in each paper are different.

Bartunek (1984) shows how organizational members’ shared interpretive

schemes were altered as the structure of the order changed. In a second

paper, Bartunek and Franzak (1988) explore how changes in organization

structure affect frames of reference and cooperation. More specifically, the

authors set out to examine the extent to which the merger of the five pro-

vinces into a single province had succeeded in changing organizational

members’ understanding of key concepts, and the extent to which the

merger had succeeded in promoting cooperation between different groups

in the order. In a third paper, Bartunek and Ringuest (1989) focus on the

effects of organizational change on lower level organizational members.

They found that different groups in the organization had varying experiencesof the change process, with some developing new interpretive schemes and

others retaining the existing ones. Interestingly, lower level members who,

through their work, developed and enacted new interpretive schemes were

less likely to be appointed to organizational committees and more likely to

leave the order. Those members who enacted new interpretive schemes and

who remained in the order came to view themselves as less important in

the eyes of organizational leaders, but more influential in the order as a

whole.

The way that Bartunek and her co-authors treat their empirical context isinteresting; the religious setting is in many ways downplayed, with the focus

on the organizational dynamics associated with the restructuring of the

order. Two of the papers have sections that directly address the implications

of the setting in which the research took place. For example, Bartunek and

Ringuest note that religious orders differ from other work settings with

respect to their identity dynamics and the role of the environment. But

“rather than minimizing . . . [the study’s] applicability to other settings”, the

authors argue that the context of a religious order highlights “the value of researchers attending to some aspects of transformation that have not yet

received very much attention” (p. 556). This statement neatly captures the

potential of studying religious organizations. Not only do we learn about

particular organizational forms that have seldom been subject to systematic



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analysis by organization theorists, but there is also the potential to gain fresh

perspectives on the study of organizations in general.

In addition to the work of Bartunek and her co-authors, there are other

important papers that examine religious organizations and change. Forinstance, Mintzberg and Westley (1992) developed a model of change based

on different types of cycle. Intriguingly, in order to illustrate their model

they used “cases in world religion”. According to the authors, all organiz-

ations experience circumstances in which their existence is threatened, but

“what distinguishes the world religions is that they have found ways to

sustain themselves through these changes” (p. 52). This arguably makes

them particularly interesting settings through which to study change. In

doing so, they draw parallels between the strategies of the Catholic Church

in thirteenth century Italy and IBM (both of which sought to control andisolate change in a strategy they term “enclaving”), the Protestant church in

eighteenth century North America and Hewlett Packard (both of which

sought to respond to change by encouraging a pluralism in points of view

in a strategy they term “cloning”), and early Buddhism in India and the

Body Shop (both of which sought to maintain the intensity of charismatic lea-

dership into the later stages of organizational development in a strategy

termed “uprooting”). In developing these arguments, the authors show crea-

tively the link between religious organizations and contemporary manage-ment practices.

A more recent paper by Plowman et al. (2007) also makes important theor-

etical contributions to the literature on change. Drawing on a compelling single

case study, the authors question dominant perspectives which have tended to

classify change as (1) episodic or continuous (e.g. Weick & Quinn, 1999) or (2)

convergent or radical (e.g. Tushman and Romanelli, 1985). The authors

examine how a small and apparently minor change—in this case, the decision

of a group of young people who belonged to a church in the Southwest of the

US to offer hot breakfasts to homeless people each Sunday morning—can beamplified by small subsequent actions, leading to unplanned radical change.

The actions in question involved one of the volunteers (a physician) who

served food on Sunday mornings deciding to offer free medical advice,

which in turn led to a wave of full-scale medical, dental and orbital clinics

based at the church, which in turn precipitated funding to provide job training,

legal assistance, and other support services for homeless people, which in turn

led to homeless people joining the church and radically altering its culture,

creating tensions and conflict in the process.

Like much of the change literature in management, these papers emphasize

the complexity of organizational change and the difficulties of managing it pur-

posefully. But by focusing on a very different context, that of religious organ-

izations, they shift our attention to aspects of the change process which, though

present, may be less visible in a for-profit context.



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Organizational Culture

It is perhaps surprising given both its central place in management theory

and its obvious relevance to religious organizations that organizational

culture hardly features at all in this review, with just two papers on thetopic. In one of the papers, Angus (1993) uses an ethnographic study of a

Catholic boys’ school in a provincial Australian city to explore the construc-

tion of “masculine subjectivities” (p. 235) in the school and of women tea-

chers’ experiences of the organization’s coercive, physical, competitive,

individualistic culture. He notes that the school’s culture, and more specifi-

cally its “gender regime” (p. 253), is internalized in a complex manner by

pupils. The internalization of gender stereotypes was part of the “hidden

curriculum” (p. 253) of the school, but was reinforced through more

formal practices and indeed the academic curriculum itself. Several

women teachers sought to contest aspects of the school’s culture, and suc-

ceeded in developing more productive and supportive relationships with stu-

dents, at least in their own classes. But the struggle was not an easy one, as it

involved challenging the norms and practices rooted in a particular form of

Catholicism.

Sorensen’s (2010) paper is focused on organizational aesthetics rather than

culture per se, and compares two versions of the Conversion of Saint Paul by

Caravaggio (the Italian Renaissance painter) with two contemporary formsof organization. The first version of the painting was rejected by the Catholic

Church, while the second was accepted. The two versions provide “radically

different interpretations of what conversion can accomplish” (p. 308). Soren-

sen’s argument is designed to highlight how aesthetic artifacts are used both

for the purposes of control and serve “as a locus of resistance and a means

of escape” (p. 308).

These two papers hint strongly at the promise of the concept of organiz-

ational culture in the study of religion. However, one of the papers is almost

20 years old, and neither explicitly taps into the so-called “second wave”(Dacin & Weber, 2007, p. 742) of cultural analysis in organization studies;

the more recent literature on the topic emphasizes the potential of culture as

both a resource and a constraint on behavior, as well as the relationship

between an organization’s culture and broader social processes. Given the idio-

syncratic nature, and indeed the sheer strength in terms of social control, of the

cultures that characterize many religious organizations, this is clearly an area

that is ripe for further investigation.

Power, Authority, and Discrimination

Ten of the papers were categorized as being concerned with power, authority,

or discrimination, although several of the articles in other categories, most

notably organizational change and organizational culture, are also of course



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concerned to a large extent with aspects of power and control. Two key insights

can be drawn from this group of papers.

First, the exercise of authority and control pose distinct problems in the

context of religious organizations. For example, in an important study of Church of England and Methodist churches in England, Hinings and

Bryman (1974) argue that, in contrast to for-profit firms, religious organiz-

ations may need to increase the proportion of administrative staff as they

grow in order to exert effective control. This is explained by (1) organizational

complexity, defined by the number of different tasks performed, which is high

in religious organizations11 and (2) the spatial dynamics of religious organiz-

ations, with tasks allocated on a geographical basis, which reduces the scope

to generate administrative efficiencies. The authors conclude that religious

organizations “may operate within constraints over which they have little orno control, and with belief systems that do not put a great stress on ‘rationality’

or ‘efficiency’” (p. 474).

In addition, Wilken (1971) argues that religious organizations face particu-

lar difficulties when seeking to control and encourage the participation of their

members (i.e. their congregations), because they cannot turn to the financial

incentives used in utilitarian organizations or the physical sanctions used

in coercive organizations. These problems are likely to increase as the size of

the congregation increases. Partly because of the challenges of control outlinedby Hinings and Bryman and by Wilken, ideological norms, rather than formal

rules or sanctions, constitute a particularly strong basis of control in religious

organizations. Indeed, the ability of organizational leaders to ensure

compliance from followers depends, in part, on the extent to which the

content of the instructions is consistent with the goals of the ideology

(Satow, 1975).

A second key insight from this group of papers is that members of religious

faiths may be discriminated against on the grounds of their religion. This might

be because of their religious attire which makes them stand out, leading to dis-crimination in the workplace as in the case of Muslim women in the United

States (Ghumman & Jackson, 2010). Or it might be because of deliberate

attempts by the state or other powerful actors to vilify and demonize a particu-

lar religious group, as was the case in the Third Reich, leading ultimately to

state-sanctioned mass murder (Dietrich, 1981). Discrimination can also have

less obvious implications for members of religious faiths. For example,

Kleiner, Tuckman, and Lavell (1959) show that the “frustration” that emanates

from discrimination may manifest itself in increased mental health problems.

However, social attitudes toward particular religious groups are not static, and

social interaction between different groups may play an important role in ame-

liorating discrimination (Watson, 1950). Clearly, these papers only scratch the

surface of the issues relating to power, authority, and discrimination in the

context of religion.



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Religion and Individual Behavior in Organizations

This group of papers, as well as those considered in the sections that follow on

business ethics, comparative studies, religion and social identity, and work-

place spirituality, have a more micro focus and could be classified broadly asbelonging to the field of organizational behavior. The 11 papers that form

part of this section are concerned in a general sense with the relationship

between religious beliefs and individual values, attitudes, and behavior in

organizations, although in some of them (Friedlander, 1975; Furnham, 1997;

Nielsen & Edwards, 1982; Sagie & Elizur, 1996) religion is just one of several

variables examined.

The intellectual roots of this work can be traced to Weber (1904–5/1965),

who, as noted above, posited that each religion has its own belief system (or

“ethic”) that is linked to particular forms of behavior. In this respect, the

papers offer mixed evidence about the influence of religion on behavior.

Some found no clear effect. For example, Chusmir and Koberg (1988) explored

the relationship between (1) religious affiliation and (2) religious conviction,

and different work-related attitudes including motivation, job satisfaction,

and organizational commitment. They concluded that there are no significant

relationships between either religious affiliation or religious conviction and any

of the work-related attitudes that they studied. Interestingly, they did find a

relationship between religious conviction and organizational rank, with man-agerial staff holding less strong religious convictions than non-managerial staff.

They also found that Protestants are more likely to score highly on the Protes-

tant work ethic measure that they used, and that people who do not belong to a

religion have a higher need for power than Catholics, Protestants, or “affiliates

of Eastern religions” (p. 251).

Drakapoulou Dodd, and Seaman (1998) examined the relationship between

religious beliefs and entrepreneurial behavior in the UK. The authors found

that entrepreneurs were not more or less likely to hold religious beliefs than

salaried employees, and that the presence or absence of religious beliefs hadno effect on the performance of the entrepreneurs’ ventures. They concluded

that: “The very clear empirical finding of this short empirical study is that

British entrepreneurs, however defined, show neither more or less religious

propensity than their counterparts in the wage and salary sector” (p. 81).

By contrast Senger (1970), in the first paper with a focus on religion to be

published in the Academy of Management Journal , did find a relationship

between religious beliefs and work-related attitudes and behavior. He

measured the extent to which a sample of US managers was religious, and com-pared this score with a range of organizational and biographical data. Perhaps

counter-intuitively, the study concluded that religious managers were less con-

cerned with “doing satisfying work” and “becoming a whole person”, leading

the author to assert that they were “less self-actualizing” (p. 186). While



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religious managers were more likely to be rated highly with respect to all-round

competence, they were less likely to be promoted to very senior positions (cf.

Laumann & Rapoport, 1968). On the basis of his findings, Senger speculates

that religious managers will have a positive effect on the workplace becausethey are likely to pursue their socially oriented goals while at work, improving

the working conditions of all organizational members. Other researchers found

relationships between religious beliefs and role orientation (Nielsen &

Edwards, 1982), lifestyle (Friedlander, 1975), and optimism (Furnham, 1997).

The upshot is that the management literature does not offer a clear picture

of the effects of religious beliefs on individual values, attitudes, or behavior in

organizations. Nor does it tap directly into work in other social sciences that

distinguishes more concretely between five core dimensions of individual reli-

giosity (Stark & Glock, 1968): (1) the experiential dimension (individual reli-gious feelings concerning communication with a divine power); (2) the

ideological dimension (beliefs about the nature of the divine); (3) the intellec-

tual dimension (knowledge about particular doctrines); (4) the ritual dimen-

sion (individual religious practices); and (5) the consequential dimension

(the connection between non-religious and religious beliefs, experiences, and

practices). While these dimensions are not uncontested (Bréchon, 2007), enga-

ging meaningfully with them may provide management researchers with an

important opportunity to move work in this area forward. Specifically, under-standing more about how individual religiosity affects behavior has the poten-

tial to shed light on a range of key issues in management including leadership,

power and politics, and decision-making.

Business Ethics

Closely related to the previous section on religion and individual behavior in

organizations is the topic of business ethics. Only two papers—Boling (1978)

and Bell, Taylor, and Driscoll (forthcoming)—were placed in this category,although Weaver and Agle (2002), discussed below, could also have been

included. Bowling’s paper argues that the dominant “theistic” approach to

business ethics, which focuses on Judeo-Christian morality, is inadequate in

the context of complex modern corporations, and calls instead for “cooperative

ethical contracts” (p. 363) in which firms devote as much energy to developing

and enforcing e

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