Belief and Organization

Belief and Organization examines the alternative belief systems which contemporary organizational actors live by and through which they seek to find meaning within the dominant (neo)capitalist social order. The widespread search for personal meaning reflects what Charles Taylor refers to as the 'massive subjective turn of modern culture' and a corresponding drive to locate subjective 'sources of significance. Such subjectivist strategies enable people to disregard, resist or subvert the globalizing capitalist imperatives that would otherwise have them become worshippers of the new human gods. Alternative belief systems take a variety of forms and contributors to this volume represent a range of positions - some religious or spiritual, others secular –, which are presently being adopted and acted on in European and US workplaces. The authors of this work have deliberately courted an international framing of the issues in order to better reflect trends in organizational conduct in the Western hemisphere. By this heterodox approach, they intentionally seek to spread the net to embrace a wider set of religious and non-religious beliefs and affiliations