‘Visionaries … psychiatric wards are full of them’: Religious terms in management literature

Verbum et Ecclesia

 
 
Field Value
 
Title ‘Visionaries … psychiatric wards are full of them’: Religious terms in management literature
 
Creator Kessler, Volker
 
Subject Theology, Management Theory Workplace Spirituality; vision; metanoic organisations, evangelists
Description Contemporary management literature often makes use of strong religious vocabulary. This article will provide a critical analysis of this practice. It especially analyses the usage of three religious terms in management circles: ‘vision’ – a term omnipresent in leadership literature, ‘metanoic organisations’ – a notion found in books about change management, and ‘evangelists’ – a job title mentioned in job advertisements by companies such as Apple and Microsoft. This phenomenon goes hand in hand with the megatrend ‘workplace spirituality’, which started in the 1990s. In addition, it can be observed that religious vocabulary has found its way into ordinary current management literature, even if this literature does not show any overt link to spirituality. The article lists some negative side effects of this use, such as confusion of terms, manipulation of people and inappropriate pathos.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: It is important for both Theology and Management Theory to be critical of the use of religious terms in non-religious contexts.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2017-03-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Literay Analysis
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ve.v38i2.1649
 
Source Verbum et Ecclesia; Vol 38, No 2 (2017); 9 pages 2074-7705 1609-9982
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1649/3114 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1649/3113 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1649/3115 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1649/3104
 
Coverage western world 1980-2016 —
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Volker Kessler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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