Workplace spirituality and employee loyalty: an empirical investigation among millennials in India

Pages211-225
Published date02 January 2020
Date02 January 2020
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-03-2018-0089
AuthorNimitha Aboobaker,Manoj Edward,Zakkariya K.A.
Subject MatterStrategy,International business
Workplace spirituality and employee
loyalty: an empirical investigation among
millennials in India
Nimitha Aboobaker, Manoj Edward and Zakkariya K.A.
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper examines the relationship between dimensions of workplace
spirituality (meaningful work, sense of community and alignment with organizational values) and
employee loyalty (intention to stay, benefit insensitivity toward alternate employers and word of mouth
about the organization),in the context of millennials who are three times more likely to change jobs, than
other generations.
Design/methodology/approach This descriptive study was conducted among a sample of 308
employees, working in private sector organizations in India. Self-reporting questionnaires were
administered among the respondents, who were selected through a purposive sampling method and
structuralequation modeling was done to test the hypotheses.
Findings The three dimensions of workplace spirituality had varying influences on the outcomes
variables. Alignment with organizational values was positively related to all dimensions of employee
loyalty, whereas the sense of community had a positive association with intention to stay and benefit
insensitivity whilemeaningful work indicated positive influence only on benefit insensitivity.The findings,
in general,suggest that employees’ experience ofworkplace spirituality has significantpositive influence
on their loyaltytoward the organization.
Originality/value This study is pioneering in conceptualizing and testing a theoretical model linking
workplacespirituality and employee loyalty, particularlyin the context of millennials, who form 50 per cent
of the workforce and reportedly exhibit higher turnover intentions. The study gains relevance in the
context of reports about monetary/non-monetary preferences among millennial employees and that the
generationis not too keen in working with teams,but would rather prefer working in anorganization, which
provides space for self-actualization in individual growth. Implicationsfor their experience of workplace
spiritualityand outcomes are elaborated,thus striving to fill a gap in the existing literature.
Keywords Millennials, Workplace spirituality, Sense of community, Meaningful work, Intention to stay,
Alignment with organizational values, Employee loyalty
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In contemporary times, people spend a good portion of their life at work and derive a good
portion of their social identity from work. Increasingly, individuals place demands on the
workplace for a sense of wholeness and connectedness. The emergent interest in
workplace spirituality amongacademicians and human resource professionals has resulted
in numerous conceptual and empiricalresearch studies seeking to explore and examine the
antecedents and outcomes of the construct (Milliman et al., 2003;Houghton et al.,2016).
Experience of spirituality at the workplace has been found to be positively associated with
favorable employee work attitudes such as intuition, creativity, honesty, trust, personal
fulfillment, organizational commitment, organizational performance, customer orientation,
adaptability, service orientation, ethical selling behavior, job satisfaction, organizational
Nimitha Aboobaker,
Manoj Edward and
Zakkariya K.A. are all
based at School of
Management Studies,
Cochin University of
Science and Technology,
Kochi, India.
Received 13 March 2018
Revised 30 October 2018
Accepted 22 February 2019
DOI 10.1108/JABS-03-2018-0089 VOL. 14 NO. 2 2020, pp. 211-225, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 211

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