Spirituality and an Online Satirical News Venture: The Case of Faking News

Abstract

Studies on workplace spirituality have paid limited attention on its manifestation in the emerging forms of organizations. All the significant elements of spirituality including the emergence of shared values, meaningfulness of work, finding the whole/completeness in work, and transcendence through commitment to a larger cause have generally been discussed in the context of large organizations with focus on a defined group of employees. Some studies focusing on entrepreneurship and community network-based spirituality do look at the mechanism of manifestation of spirituality in other contexts but often fail to incorporate the role of leadership in such cases. This study based on the case of Faking News, a pioneering venture in online satirical news content in India, looks at how the elements of spirituality apply in the online venture context with small team size and high reliance on volunteers. Drawing inferences from a detailed interview with the founder Rahul Roushan, the study shows that all the elements applied generally in the context of large organizations with a substantive employee strength apply to this venture as well. In addition, as a leader-led online venture, the development of commitment here was based on the values of both the leader and those who were associated with it. However, it needs to be noted that achieving transcendence and commitment in a venture related to freedom of expression and similar values may be inherently amenable to achieving these goals. The chapter ends with some suggestions for further study of spirituality in the emerging organizational milieu.