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Leadership Spiritual Behaviors Toward Subordinates: An Empirical Examination of the Effects of a Leader’s Individual Spirituality and Organizational Spirituality

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Abstract

This study notes three research requirements in workplace spirituality namely; need for conducting empirical studies, building on the existing research, and linking spirituality to organizational topics in general and leadership in particular. It also notes that the existing literature indicates a requirement for examining the spiritual sources of a leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. To address these research requirements in workplace spirituality, this study conducts an empirical examination of the effect of two spiritual factors—leader’s individual spirituality and organizational spirituality—on leadership spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. It specifies and empirically examines a direct effects model hypothesizing direct effects of these two variables on a leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. It also specifies and empirically examines a moderating effect model hypothesizing that organizational spirituality will moderate the relationship between a leader’s individual spirituality and the leader’s spiritual behaviors toward subordinates. The results of this study provided support for the direct effects model but not for the moderating effect model. Specifically, in the direct effects model, a leader’s individual spirituality accounted for statistically significant variance in leadership spiritual behaviors toward subordinates but organizational spirituality did not.

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Acknowledgments

Only a part of the author’s later work on this paper occurred during his short term faculty position for a few months at Symbiosis International University, Pune (India) during a part of his one year leave period from his institute namely; Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, India.

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  1. Indian Institute of Management (Kozhikode), Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode, 673570, India

    Badrinarayan Shankar Pawar

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  1. Badrinarayan Shankar Pawar
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Correspondence to Badrinarayan Shankar Pawar.

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Pawar, B.S. Leadership Spiritual Behaviors Toward Subordinates: An Empirical Examination of the Effects of a Leader’s Individual Spirituality and Organizational Spirituality. J Bus Ethics 122, 439–452 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1772-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1772-5

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