University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America
Book

A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America

A Hard Look at Spirituality, Religion and Values in the Workplace

Ian I. Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton
Jossey-Bass, 1999
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Ian I. Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton proffer that many of the problems faced by business and society are the result of a spiritual impoverishment that they discovered in their research on organizations. The authors bring an authoritative, scholarly tone to their material, yet they write conversationally and make no effort to hide their opinions. While indicting corporate America for its neglect of the spiritual, Mitroff and Denton also cite examples of businesses with soul that encourage the expression of spirit. getAbstract.com recommends this book to all readers interested in the creation of a more spiritually fulfilling workplace.

Summary

Spiritual Impoverishment

What is the state of spirituality in corporate America? After years of study and practice, we have been forced to a painful conclusion: By themselves, all of the conventional techniques in the world will not produce fundamental and long-lasting changes. We believe that today’s organizations are impoverished spiritually and that many of their most important problems are caused by this impoverishment.

Spirituality has been avoided by organizational science as a serious topic for empirical and systematic study. This is damning evidence of the spiritual impoverishment of academia as well. Organizational science can no longer avoid analyzing, understanding and treating organizations as spiritual entities. Organizations must become more spiritual in order to meet the ethical needs of their stakeholders.

Important evidence supports all of these conclusions. Our data contain some of the strongest statistical findings we have ever witnessed, yet they are not the final work on the subject. The data suggest that employees of organizations that identify strongly with spirituality or that have a greater sense of spirituality:

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About the Authors

Ian I. Mitroff holds the Harold Quinton Distinguished Professorship of Business Policy at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is also the president of Comprehensive Crisis Management, a private consulting firm, and the author of 20 books, including Smart Thinking for Crazy Times. Elizabeth A. Denton is an independent organizational consultant based in New York City. She works with executives and teams in both Fortune 100 and entrepreneurial companies.

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