The Impact of Introducing Spirituality in Business Education through Experiential Engagement

Abstract

The impact of businesses worldwide has forced thought leaders to redefine business goals and clearly articulate what the objectives and obligations of business managers should be. The change that we wish to see in the conduct of businesses in the future has necessarily to take root in the institutions that offer programmes in business management. The article discusses spirituality being represented by the personal, communal or interpersonal, environmental and transcendental domains. After reviewing the literature on teaching models for spirituality, the researcher analyzes one such model that seeks to integrate spirituality with business education through experiential programmes for students that will help them understand their professional roles in conjunction with their responsibilities to the community and to the environment. The study is based on the data collected from 285 postgraduate management students who have undergone an intervention based on the experiential teaching model. The data of two studies, carried out at quantitative and qualitative levels, have been analyzed and the findings have been discussed. This will help business educators to create integrated programmes based on the experiential model that will provide the right spiritual orientation for tomorrow’s business managers.