New Dimensions of Corporate Culture: A Construct for Stakeholder Ethics in a Spiritual Workplace

Abstract

The topics of corporate ethics and workplace spirituality have become increasingly important management issues throughout businesses in the United States during the past several years. This renewed interest in ethics and spirituality can be partially attributed to the many illegal and unethical acts of corporate executives that have cost stakeholders billions of dollars. Our objective is to analyze stakeholder ethical theory and its implications within the culture of a spiritual workplace environment. One original premise is that stakeholder theory focuses on the belief that management decisions must be made in light of their impacts upon all stakeholders that may be impacted by these decisions (Freeman, 1994). These stakeholders include stockholders, employees, customers, managers, suppliers, and local communities (Beauchamp & Bowie, 2004). Within the context of this analysis, the primary focus is on one specific group of stakeholders which is employees. Additionally, employees shall be used in this paper as including managers and all subordinate employees actively involved in employment with the organization. As previously mentioned, in addition to the increased focus on corporate ethics, there is a resurgence of spirituality among the American workforce. This interest in spirituality transcends into every aspect of life including homes, relationships, and businesses. Thus, there is a broader spectrum of factors to be evaluated within the context of stakeholder ethics in a spiritual workplace environment. There has been limited research on the impacts of stakeholder ethical theory and its potential impacts on decision making in a spiritual workplace environment. The primary objective of this paper is to analyze the impacts of a construct of stakeholder ethics within a spiritual workplace environment.