Can Organizational Spirituality Contribute to Knowledge Management?

Abstract

Society demands more sustainable business. Increasing organizational spirituality can be one manner of accomplishing this humanized strategy, and knowledge management is an efficient method to diffuse high-level values through the company. Spirituality has a vital role in organizational theory and practice. Nevertheless, this also places a heavy burden on practitioners. To address this association, we conducted a systematic literature review, systematizing and categorizing the results to answer the research question, “can organizational spirituality contribute to knowledge management?”, and propose a future investigation research agenda. We utilized the Web of Science and Scopus database. We submitted the articles to VOSviewer software version 1.6.16 for building, displaying, and exploring a bibliometric map supported by network data. The beginning was about wisdom, followed by a major focus on knowledge fields after increasing attention to spirituality. VOSviewer provided a network with two clusters, namely, spirituality dynamics and knowledge dynamics. Spirituality and knowledge labels have connections in both clusters. Wisdom and organizational wisdom are isolated from the other terms. Based on the articles analyzed, organizational spirituality can indeed assist knowledge management. One should ponder, however, that there are still few empirical studies with non-generalizable results. Considering the mysticism and excess of non-scientific articles (and scarcity of scientific ones), we recommend a change in approaching it. Traditional and positivist methodologies are not the most suitable; consequently, innovative and mixed methods ought to be used, providing the research’s scientific nature. It is crucial to look at the insertion of spirituality in management with a scientific and critical eye.