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This study identified and analyzed the 29 empirical articles which created 65 new scales that were published from 1996–2004 within the Spirituality, Religion, and Work (SRW) domain. Utilizing Hinkin's (1995) methodology for evaluating questionnaire scale development as a model, this study reviewed: (1) item generation issues such as inductive vs. deductive approaches; (2) scale development issues such as sampling and validity/reliability assessment; and (3) scale evaluation issues such as convergent validity testing. The study found that the vast majority of studies (86%) reported detail on the item development process for the new scales used; the primary method for item development was deductive, based on existing theory. In the area of scale development, only 45% of the studies reported using factor analysis for evaluation of constructs; of those that did, less than 25% of those reported information regarding factor retention criteria, such as eigenvalues. With regard to the internal consistency, the coefficient alpha was reported in only 45% of the studies. However, in those cases where scale development practices were described, the information was generally quite detailed and reflected statistical rigor. Few studies (38%) reported any information related to scale evaluation. Similar to Hinkin's (1995) conclusions from his review of scales in the management field, this study found scale development practices within the SRW domain to be inconsistent. The article reports detailed findings using Hinkin ‘s (1995) detailed methods and discusses practical implications for editors, reviewers and SRW researchers.

Two views of organizational change dominate the management literature. The incremental view holds that organizations experience large‐scale strategic changes quite slowly while the revolutionary view proposes that organizations experience long periods of relatively little strategic variation punctuated by short, intense periods of major change. Commonalties among the two change theories provide the basis for a study of 101 businesses over a six year period. The research examines two theoretical implications: change is bimodally and discretely distributed and skewed toward incremental strategic change, and firms undergoing revolutionary strategic change will be more likely to experience simultaneous changes on multiple organizational dimensions than firms undergoing incremental strategic change. Consistent with Proposition 1, it was found that change is skewed toward incremental, but also that change is unimodal and continuously distributed, contrary to Proposition 1. Contrary to Proposition 2, revolutionary change on multiple dimensions was found to be rare.

This paper aims to compare the nature of three different business and management education (BME) research streams (online/blended learning, entrepreneurship education and experiential learning), along with their citation sources to draw insights on their support and legitimacy bases, with lessons on improving such support and legitimacy for the streams and the wider BME research field.

The authors analyze the nature of three BME research streams and their citation sources through tests of differences across streams.

The three streams differ in research foci and approaches such as the use of managerial samples in experiential learning, quantitative studies in online/blended education and literature reviews in entrepreneurship education. They also differ in sources of legitimacy recognition and avenues for mobilization of support. The underlying literature development pattern of the experiential learning stream indicates a need for BME scholars to identify and build on each other’s work.

Identification of different research bases and key supporting literature in the different streams shows important core articles that are useful to build research in each stream.

Readers will understand the different research bases supporting the three research streams, along with their targeted audience and practice implications.

The discovery of different support bases for the three different streams helps identify the network of authors and relationships that have been built in each stream.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to uncover differences in nature and citation sources of the three continuously growing BME research streams with recommendations on ways to improve the support of the three streams.

While spirituality and religion in work (SRW) as an inquiry field has been gaining interest in the popular press, it has only recently been recognized by the academic community. Consequently, its relevance to important research and its legitimacy in contributing scholarly work is not ensured. Part of the problem is that many SRW concepts resist being tested with “approved” positivist research models. This paper explores the tension between relevance and legitimacy, focusing on research methods, models, and traditions that may serve both well. It suggests that many methodologies and traditions that support such work already exist. It discusses some of these methods and offers operational blueprints for alternative forms of excellent research. It argues that combining such methodological underpinnings with experimental models and new forms of data representation allows for scholarly work to emerge, thus facilitating SRW's desire to stay true to important research questions while respecting sound research traditions.

The emerging research on spirituality, religion and work (SRW) poses concerns for all social scientists. Specifically, the paradigm currently employed for social scientific research, including measurement techniques, data analysis, and even accepted language, is inadequate for scholarship in the emerging inquiry stream. This paper discusses the current positivist model under which scholarly work derives legitimacy, and explores where the model fails to address the needs of SRW researchers from both conceptual and moral standpoints. Taking lessons from the natural sciences, we show how inquiry, modeling, and knowledge made critical leaps utilizing a post‐positivist creativity within a discipline that struggled with many of the same issues we currently face in the SRW research agenda. The paper concludes with implications for a new research methods paradigm and language that would better serve our understanding of the holistic human experience in organizations, including a discussion of the inherently moral underpinning of our work.

This paper is an introduction to the special issue on “The leading edge in research on spirituality and organizations”. The paper discusses some of the issues concerning the outer world of worldly activities and the inner world of spirituality and religion in modern Western society, with particular emphasis on how this affects organizations. The aims of the special issue are put forward and the papers within it are briefly discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to existing critiques of workplace spirituality and organizational culture. The paper links the two by problematising definitions of workplace spirituality that employ a “culture approach” to change, in which the construct is limited to a set of values that gives particular meaning to the workplace.

Properties of Weick's sensemaking model combined with a critical sensemaking approach are used to analyze texts in order to show how a spiritual culture may shape the actions of its members by serving as an implicit form of managerial control.

The paper reveals how some texts, Mitroff and Denton's, in particular, advocate workplace spirituality as necessary for organizations and the individuals who work in them to prosper. Simultaneously, such texts may imply a form of pastoral power, the purpose of which is to re‐affirm a positive self‐image, due to the cueing effects of language that is voiced in specific contexts.

The paper suggests that a cultural approach to understanding workplace spirituality influences how people can make sense of the organization in which they are members. The potential inordinate reverence of work and one's contribution toward enhanced organizational performance is of interest to all members of organizations because it highlights how control is achieved.

The paper offers some insights into the conditions that promulgate the linkage between work and spiritual fulfilment, and it promotes the continuing development of critical spirituality in organizations in order to overcome the potential managerial instrumentality that is highlighted in this paper.

The International Journal of Organizational Analysis (IJOA) is a leading journal that has published high-quality research focused on various facets of organizational analysis since 1993. This paper aims to conduct a retrospective analysis of the IJOA journey from 2005 to 2020.

The data used in this study was extracted using the Scopus database. The bibliometric analysis, using several indicators, is adopted to reveal the major trends and themes of the journal. The mapping of bibliographic data is carried using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny.

The study findings indicate that IJOA has grown for publications and citations since its inception. Five significant research directions emerged, i.e. organizational diagnostics, organization citizenship behaviour, organizational commitment to employee retention, psychological capital and firm performance, based on cluster analysis of IJOA’s publications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of IJOA. The study presents the key themes and trends emerging from a leading journal, considered a high-quality journal, for researching various facets of organizational functioning by academicians, scholars and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen conceptual understanding of the spiritual components of resilience.

A conceptual paper drawing on research the authors have been conducting on resilience within the police community for a combined period of over half-a-century.

A more holistic conceptualisation of resilience and particularly a more detailed and accurate picture of the spiritual aspects to resilience which is applicable to a wide variety of public and private sector leadership situations, not just those within the police.

The paper provides an increased appreciation of resilience which the authors hope will lead to more practical research in this area, with the longer term goal being to impact positively on practical workplace issues of major current concern in a wide variety of workplaces across the world.

The paper's contribution is to promote the importance of resilience, provide a greater theoretical understanding of holistic perspectives of resilience and further develop the spiritual component of resilience. This contribution is important because many leaders currently have a limited appreciation of all the aspects of resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intricate interconnection between religion, spirituality and pursuits of economic opportunities among ethnic entrepreneurs, using British Africans as a frame. Against the backcloth of institutional constraints confronting ethnic minorities, the paper investigates how African immigrants in the UK utilise ethnic‐based religious resources in the enactment of entrepreneurship. It focuses on the intersection between religion, spirituality, and entrepreneurship for the purpose of providing “below the surface” understandings of African entrepreneurship.

Rooted in the context of discovery rather than verification, the research approach involved the use of a focus group as an “entry point” in the collection of field data. This was followed up with one‐to‐one interviews so that key issues were then probed deeper whilst simultaneously allowing considerable scope to idiosyncratically explore particular meanings with research participants. The sample was drawn from British Africans in London.

African Pentecostal churches have become a significant force in nurturing business start‐ups and encouraging entrepreneurship among the population group. Social capital generated within the religious organizations has a catalytic effect on entrepreneurial propensities.

The boundaries between enterprise and religion can be delicately thin and confusing, with wide‐ranging implications for policy interventions. For the entrepreneurs, reconciling religious orientation with the imperatives of entrepreneurship can be hugely problematic and this presents an opportunity in terms of support needs.

Ethnic‐based religious spaces have become a fecund ground for stimulating a brand of religion‐based ethnic entrepreneurship. This hybrid entrepreneurship is unique and offers a novel platform for constructing new understandings of ethnic entrepreneurship.