Applying Critical Realism in Spirituality at Work Research

Date
2017-03-31
Authors
McGhee, P
Grant, P
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Emerald Insight
Abstract

Purpose This study aims to demonstrate how critical realism (CR) can be used in spirituality at work (SAW) research and to provide a practical example of CR in SAW research.

Design/methodology/approach CR is a philosophical meta-theory that allows the stratification of spirituality into different levels of reality, advocates for research methods matching the ontology of the level investigated and provides complementary methods of exploring this phenomenon’s causal power in social contexts. The authors present a study where CR was used to explain how and why SAW influences ethics in organisational contexts.

Findings The results demonstrate that CR provides a useful approach to bridging the positivist-interpretivist difference in SAW research. Moreover, a CR approach helped explain the underlying conditions and causal mechanisms that power SAW to influence ethical decision-making and behaviour in the workplace.

Originality/value While CR has been applied in the management literature, negligible SAW research has used this approach. That which exists is either conceptual or does not discuss methods of data analysis, or describe how critical realist concepts resulted in their findings. This paper addresses that lacuna. CR also provides value, as an alternative approach to SAW research, in that it allows the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods as complementary, not confrontational methods while providing a more integrated and deeper view of SAW and its effects.

Description
Keywords
Management; Research methodology; Critical realism; Ethics; Extensive and intensive analysis; Spirituality at work
Source
Management Research Review, Vol. 40 Issue: 8, pp.845-869, https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-05-2016-0124
Rights statement
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2017. Authors retain the right to place his/her pre-publication version of the work on a personal website or institutional repository for non commercial purposes. The definitive version was published in (see Citation). The original publication is available at www.emeraldinsight.com (see Publisher’s Version).