Managing people ‘spiritually’: a Bourdieusian critique

This article draws from Pierre Bourdieu’s critical sociology to examine how organizational spirituality is being framed as a new way to manage people. The article takes a critical look at the way much of the literature prescribes spiritual values with the subtext that human resource practices infused with spiritual values, inter alia, improve organizational performance. This article demonstrates how ‘symbolic violence’ provides an analytical tool to unravel the theoretical make-up of organizational spirituality. This critique posits that the ‘top-down’ approach to organizational spirituality relies on a Bourdieusian ‘cultural arbitrary’ and the ‘power of pedagogy’ to seek the active consent of organizational members. The article proceeds to identify the ideological underpinnings of this process, thus paving the way for new critical theorizing on organizational spirituality.