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Religious institutions can affect organizational practices when employees bring their religious commitments and practices into the workplace. But those religious commitments function in the midst of other organizational factors that influence the working out of employees’ religious commitments. This process can generate varying outcomes in organizational contexts, ranging from a heightened effect of religious commitment on employee behavior to a negligible or nonexistent influence of religion on employee behavior. Relying on social identity theory and schematic social cognition as unifying frameworks for the study of religious behavior, we develop a theoretically informed approach to understanding how and why the religious beliefs, commitments and practices employees bring to work have varying behavioral impacts.

This research is positioned at the intersection of youth subculture consumption and religious affiliation, through the study of observant Muslim women involved in the highly engaging and codified activity of cosplay. Given authenticity is central to the cosplay visual impact and performance, this study aims to understand the way hijab cosplayers negotiate tensions between authentic body performativity and the observance of religious dressing codes.

A qualitative interpretive approach was used to address the research questions. In-depth semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 25 members of a hijab cosplayers from South East Asia.

The concept of authenticity emerged as multifaceted for hijab cosplayers, where they manage three different aspect of the authentic cosplay performance as follows: authenticity as a cosplayer (social dimension of authenticity), authenticity to the character (personal dimension of authenticity) and authenticity to their religious identity (religious dimension of authenticity). The subsequent malleable authenticity is used to legitimate cosplay as an acceptable performative practice from a religious and from subcultural view.

The research highlights how tensions between identity and performativity of the body are negotiated. More specifically, the study contributes to the understanding of the way hijab cosplayers reconcile tensions between religious identity and the performativity of the body. Given the role of the body as a site for negotiating identity, this study provides important insights in the tensions and strategies at the intersection of authenticity, embodiment and religious identity in youth cultures.

This study aims to explore intergroup relations between two Jewish religious groups in Israel, namely, ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities, by using an integrated model that combines two psychosocial concepts: perceptions of collective narratives and identity strategies.

Data were collected from a representative sample of 402 ultra-Orthodox and 388 national-religious Jews living in Israel, of age 18 and over. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine group differences in perceiving in-group and out-group collective narratives and in patterns of identity strategies. Further, partial correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the relative contribution of perceptions of collective narratives and patterns of identity strategies.

Willingness to compete with and to separate from the out-group was related to the tendency to reject its collective narrative while endorsing the in-group one. In the same vein, the opposite pattern was found in the relations between willingness to integrate and unite with the out-group and the perceptions of collective narratives. The results also indicate group differences: the ultra-Orthodox exhibited stronger tendencies to preserve their in-group collective narratives and to reject the out-group, as well as stronger endorsement of identity strategies of competition and separation compared to national-religious.

The results suggest that it might be useful to encourage dialogue between both groups to clarify each side’s narratives and rationale underlying the endorsement of specific identity strategies. Such an open dialogue could help each group understand the other group’s needs and might also reduce their sense of threat as well as anxiety about losing their religious and social uniqueness. One possible opportunity for such dialogue is workplaces in which members of each group can gradually uncover stereotypes, enhancing reconciliation and willingness to accept the “other’s” collective narrative and choose to adhere more to the similar than dissimilar characteristics.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to examine collective narratives and identity strategies as powerful indicators of intergroup relations between two minority groups of the same religion. Within such a unique context, the power struggle exists and the separation and competition strategies are apparent, but the main conflictual issue is related to similarities and discrepancies of religious ideologies, values, norms and worldviews that shape one’s daily life and his/her encounter with the similar but different “other”.

The USA is witnessing a conflict between LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) consumers/supporters and Christian fundamentalist service providers/opponents regarding whether service can be denied based on religious values. The purpose of this paper is to make a timely investigation into this conflict between marketplace inclusion (for LGBTQ consumers) and freedom of religion (for religious service providers).

The intersection of marketplace inclusion for LGBTQ consumers and religious freedom for service providers is examined by identifying appropriate strategies that address this conflict and reviewing how differing religious perspectives influence perceptions of LGBTQ consumer rights, all building off the social identity threat literature.

LGBTQ and religious identities often conflict to influence consumer behavior and service provider interactions. Such conflict is heightened when there is a lack of substitutes (i.e. only one service provider in an area for a specific service). Common LGBTQ consumer responses include changing service providers, providing justification for the provision of services and pursing legal recourse. Suggested strategies to address this conflict include highlighting common social identities and using two-sided messages for service providers, using in-group interventions for social groups and using government interventions for public policy.

Research has yet to examine the conflict between marketplace inclusion and religious freedom, particularly for the inclusion of LGBTQ consumers. Thus, this paper provides a novel conceptual model detailing these relationships to stimulate discussion among consumers, service providers, social groups and public policy in addition to serving as a foundation for future research.

This paper aims to offer a systematic view of religious consumption and its iterative influences on consumers, as well as their differences in attitudes, values and behaviors.

Using a mixed-method approach – both qualitative and quantitative – the study develops religious self-transformation and self-categorization scales to empirically evaluate the hypotheses.

The convergence of consumption, self-identification and religious attitudes and behaviors proffer an essentially subjective concept useful in understanding the existential reflection and supernatural orientation that individuals may seek through consumption. Cluster analysis (based on product, services, media and practices) reveals four quadrants. The non-religious (religious) group has low (high) consumption in all four consumption categories Self-categorization (self-transformation) group has high (low) level of product consumption, but low (high) in all three other categories. This research presented four invisible identities that are visibly different in terms of life satisfaction, religious brand preference, dollars spending on religious products and monetary donation.

This research only considers one medium-size city as opposed to all types of cities. All religious affiliated and nonaffiliated respondents are included in the total sample.

The study offers new insights into the triadic relationship between religious self-identification, religious consumption, and the marketplace that can be used in branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and persuasive advertising, public relation and social media, and services marketing.

Religion addresses the nature of existence. In this religion–consumer–brand nexus, consumption is a way for consumers to experience and immense themselves in the sacred to solidify, communicate, transform, improve and transport who they are capitalizing on religious self-identification can affectively promote positive social change.

This work proposes four invisible identities that are different in consumption of religious products and services in terms of patterns and purposes. These groups of consumers shape the marketplace through the derived utility of their religious consumption based on their self-identification, which in turn influences their religious brand preference.

Although organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is widely known to have a positive ethical impact in work organizations, the causal antecedents that influence the likelihood of such behaviors among employees is understudied. We addressed this gap by examining the influence of visual images of people on relevant work-related behavior in a work-like setting using the theoretical frame of the social identity perspective. We found that students in a university setting, who were exposed to religious-themed student images, exhibited slower helping behaviors toward the organization than those who were exposed to organizational-themed student images. The results of the current study provide the first-known experimental confirmation of organizational identity as a causal antecedent of OCB.

Social movement scholars have increasingly drawn attention to the process of “bridge building” in social movements – that is, the process by which activists attempt to resolve conflicts stemming from different collective identities. However, most scholars assume that social movements primarily attempt to resolve tensions among activists themselves, and thus that bridge building is a means to other ends rather than a primary goal of social movement activism. In this chapter, I challenge these assumptions through a case study of a “bridging organization” known as Bridge Builders, which sought as its primary goal to “bridge the gap between the LGBT and Christian communities” at a Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. I highlight the mechanisms by which Bridge Builders attempted to facilitate bridge building at the university, and I argue that Bridge Builders succeeded in bridging (a) disparate institutional identities at their university, (b) “structural holes” between LGBT- and religious-identified groups at their university, and (c) oppositional personal identities among organizational members. As I discuss in the conclusion, the case of Bridge Builders has implications for literatures on bridge building in social movements, cultural and biographical consequences of social movements, and social movement strategy.

Social identity as shaped by religion or spirituality is unique in comparison to some other social identity dimensions because it may be invisible unless a person wears a symbol or dress widely regarded as synonymous with a given religious tradition. Yet, some employees choose to fuse their personal and work lives when religion or spirituality is a salient dimension of their social identity. Problems emerge, however, and can make for an awkward fit in the business world.

Perhaps the primary advantage to religion or spirituality at work is potential for high employee morale and residual benefits in enhanced performance. Scholars who research the God gap suggest that abundant and ongoing airing of political and religious difference can benefit everyone. Numerous business organizations endorse respectful pluralism and lived religion, enabling employees to participate in community service activities, retreats with nature walks, physical exercise, meditation, spiritual contemplation, physical space for individual prayer and group discussions throughout the day, faith-related reading materials, and faith leaders to provide counseling. Yet, even though religion is a federally protected class and employers in some parts of the world are mandated to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs and observances so long as no undue hardship on business operations results, this does not mean that conflicts do not arise. To explore religious identity and spirituality with a focus on workplace dynamics, Chapter 11 is divided into subthemes of: what is religious identity?, accommodating faith/spirituality at work, faith/spirituality in organizations and health, the formal religion-spirituality dichotomy, lived religion, and conflicts about faith/spirituality in the workplace.

The study examines the effects of religious identity, practices and beliefs on Muslim Americans' perceptions of discrimination and the extent to which religion might shape the perception of discrimination differently within Muslim race/ethnic groups.

Study data were obtained from the 2011 Pew Survey (N = 1,033), a nationally representative sample of Muslim adults 18 years old and older living in the United States. The sample weights with the exclusion of non-response cases were used for bivariate analyses. For multivariate analyses, multiple imputation procedures were employed to impute missing values on all variables.

Muslim Americans with high levels of religious practices are more likely and Muslim Americans with strong belief in religious tenets are less likely to report experiencing different forms of discrimination. Black, Asian and other/mixed race Muslims with high levels of religious practices report higher rates of discrimination than their white coreligionists. Within group comparison shows that the pure extrinsic group reports higher rates of perceived discrimination than the pro-religious, pure intrinsic and non-religious groups.

The study emphasizes varying effects of religious factors on different Muslim American groups in perceived discrimination and suggests researchers challenge a common perception of viewing religion as a “master status” for the Muslim identity.

For over 2000 years, Iran was dominated by different religions, and hence, religious texts constructed identity, status, and rights for women. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Islamists attacked “Iranian identity,” and tried to replace it with the “Islamic identity,” fearing that Iranians could undermine the legitimacy of their Islamic identity. The purpose of this discursive psychological research is to find out the level of faith development and religious identity among a sample of Iranian women. Due to the Iranian distinct politics and its young population, the Iranian women’s movement is one of the most important movements in the Muslim world. Findings of my inquiry indicate that a contradiction has been imposed on Iranian women since the revolution. Religious beliefs and practices based on Islamic laws and identities that are enforced by the government generate a traditional atmosphere in the society. Consequently, some Iranian women believe in inevitable destiny and admit that anything that happens is God’s will. They believe that an ideal woman must act according to the cultural and religious norms and traditions. Such women strongly internalize these values and have become a source of control and restriction over the activities of other women. On the other hand, many women attempts to become Westernized (modern) women, far from religious beliefs. This qualitative research provides us with rich detailed data and information about a sample of participants, so any generalizations made from the findings must be applied cautiously.