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Is Work an Act of Worship? The Impact of Implicit Religious Beliefs on Work Ethic in Secular vs. Religious Cultures

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Abstract

This research examines the impact of implicit religious beliefs on work ethic in specific cultural contexts. Based on three studies, the authors found that thoughts related to religion impact work ethic, but only when the culture embraces religious values at work and in public environments. In a comparative setting, Moroccan participants primed with religious thoughts displayed greater work ethic, whereas similarly primed French participants exhibited less work ethic (Study 1). For North African–French biculturals, religious stimuli interacted with cultural identity to predict work ethic (Study 2) and activated religious beliefs and cultural identity had a significant effect on their level of effort (Study 3). Our research reveals that implicit religious beliefs can predict work ethic in a manner contingent on a cultural setting. In cultures where religious values are historically embraced and encouraged, work ethic constitutes a religious construct that enhances work ethic. Conversely, in secular cultures, religious cues inhibit work ethic. We believe that within a multi-cultural, multi-religion work force, it is important to take note of these influences.

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Data availability

Data from all 3 studies are available upon request.

Notes

  1. Maghreb, (Arabic: “West”), also spelled Maghrib, region of North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It comprises essentially the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plain of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. (Encyclopædia Britannica).

  2. Laicity.

  3. Our goal was to develop a secular scale which can be applied to various religious contexts. In this sense, attitude towards gambling is not about its being condoned in different religions. The purpose here, as it is mentioned explicitly in the item “Money acquired easily (e.g., through gambling or speculation) is usually spent unwisely” (Arslan, 2001), is to provide an example and/or a context for careless spending. Even though gambling legal in many countries, problem gambling (i.e., when gambling is out of control) still causes personal, social, and interpersonal problems (Raylu & Oei, 2004). In other words, regardless of religious context, this dimension is measuring attitude towards self-monitoring, urge control, consumption control, financial management, and wise use of time and money. We, therefore, believe that this scenario captures the essence of the dimension “attitude towards saving money and time” quite well.

  4. The frequency of attending religious service might be different in different religions. In order to rule out the impact of this difference, we conducted a robustness test for each study by excluding this item. Our results were robust to the alternative measure.

  5. While creating the questionnaire on Qualtrics, we could choose to make the question “forced-response” which means that the participants cannot move forward without responding. However, when comes to collecting data on place of birth/ethnicity, the French law prevents us from choosing this option. Therefore, we did not force participants to answer these questions.

  6. Prior to the main experiment, we conducted a pilot study in which three bicultural coders (Mean age = 21, 2 females) blind to the study rated ten pictures as being representatives of the French culture from 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much). We selected the 5 pictures which produced the highest inter-rater consistency (ICC = 0.81). Similarly, three bicultural coders (Mean age = 23, 2 females) were recruited to rate ten pictures as being representatives of the Maghrebian culture, and five pictures with highest inter-rater consistency were selected to be used as manipulation material (ICC = 0.83).

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Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to professor Yasmina Bennis, University of Casablanca, and INSEAD Behavioural Lab for their hospitality and for providing the participants and logistics for conducting the experiments. We thank professors Lee Ross, Simone Dolan, José Allouche, Pooyan Khashabi, and Amirali Hannani for comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by La Fondation HEC. We thank our colleagues from HEC Paris and Stanford University who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of People & Organizations, NEOMA Business School, Campus de Rouen, Office A235, 1 rue du Maréchal Juin–BP 215, 76825, Mont-Saint-Aignan Cedex, France

    Shiva Taghavi

  2. Department of Management and Human Resources, HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Michael Segalla

  3. Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, China

    Michael Segalla

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  1. Shiva Taghavi
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Correspondence to Shiva Taghavi.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors declare that part of the data has been used in an earlier version of this research published in a conference book of proceedings: Specialized conference of the EuroMed Academy of Business: HR practices, strategic and entrepreneurial challenges: Academic and Practitioners Views.

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Taghavi, S., Segalla, M. Is Work an Act of Worship? The Impact of Implicit Religious Beliefs on Work Ethic in Secular vs. Religious Cultures. J Bus Ethics 188, 509–531 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05325-z

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