When work becomes home: An empirical study of the significance of belief and employee receptivity to spiritualised management in the UK

<p dir="ltr">This article examines whether belief affects how employees respond to managerial approaches that draw on metaphysical rhetoric, discourses, and values. Drawing on in-depth, qualitative interviews with participants who hold various metaphysical and secular beliefs, it argues that those who identified as religious were less likely to respond positively to spiritualised management despite wanting to express their faith through work compared to those who identified as atheist and who overtly rejected religiosity in the workplace. These responses are theoretically contextualised through the works of Peter Berger and colleagues (1966, 1967, 1973). The article contributes theoretically by exploring how spiritualised management performs important social functions, particularly for those who do not have faith in metaphysical frameworks of belief: it responds to the need for new ‘institutional homes’ that realign public and private aspects of existence following the decline of primary religious institutions in some Western liberal democracies.</p>