Corporate spirituality as organizational praxis

A methodology for doing research into corporate spirituality should enable us to deal with the religious component of spirituality instead of trying to separate spirituality from religious beliefs, as the positivist school proposes. Waaijman’s phenomenological-dialogical research cycle enables us to deal with religious diversity in a scientific way. Sölle’s concept of democratized spirituality allows for discovering everyday (corporate) life as a finding place and workplace for spirituality. Replacing theistic terms by the concept of ‘alterity’ in a definition of spirituality may stimulate corporate spirituality without excluding or disqualifying spiritual diversity.
Arendt’s concept of ‘action’ is closely connected to democratised spirituality. From that we can deduce a number of characteristics of corporate spirituality that give flesh and bone to what corporate spirituality can be. This allows us to see that many elements of corporate spirituality are already present in our organizational praxis. It also tells us that we need to become more aware of them and practice them. In doing so we set out on a ‘via transformativa’ that eventually may transform our organizations.