Title: Workplace spirituality and well-being: examining the relationship on employee engagement in South Korea

Authors: William D. Hunsaker

Addresses: School of Business Administration, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehak-ro, Buk-gu, Daegu, South Korea

Abstract: Today's organisations are actively seeking ways to better engage the 'whole' self of their employees, in response to employee disengagement, as employees actively seek ways to better express their 'whole' selves spiritually at work in achieving a greater sense of well-being. Despite the overlap of workplace spirituality, well-being, and employee engagement constructs, the interrelationship of these constructs has seen little research to date. This paper determined that workplace spirituality, as measured through spiritual leadership, positively influenced employees' sense of meaning in work and membership or community at work. In turn, this sense of spiritual well-being mediated the engagement of employees in their work. These findings expand the scope of workplace spirituality and employee engagement research in highlighting the influence of not only meaningfulness in work but also meaningfulness at work in a non-Western context.

Keywords: calling; meaning; meaningfulness at work; meaningfulness in work; membership; spiritual well-being; spiritual leadership; spillover effects; South Korea; work engagement; workplace spirituality.

DOI: 10.1504/JGBA.2018.097371

Journal for Global Business Advancement, 2018 Vol.11 No.5, pp.650 - 664

Received: 11 Jul 2017
Accepted: 10 Apr 2018
Published online: 16 Jan 2019 *

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