Sharing God's love: a study of mission in faith-based health care

Thesis (M.A., Communication Studies) -- California State University, Sacramento, 2009.In the last two decades, organizational communication, management and\ud psychology scholars have begun to focus their attention on growing trends of\ud incorporating spirituality in the workplace. At the same time, faith-based organizations\ud have taken up the question of how to maintain unique spiritual environments. For these\ud institutions, communicating their religious mission becomes the primary feature of\ud organizational identity. For researchers, the religious communication becomes a prime\ud avenue for understanding the implications of spirituality in organizations. This study\ud explores mission in a faith-based health care system to examine the ways in which\ud communicating a spiritual mission enhances and restrains both organizations and their\ud members. Following the tenets of grounded theory and using participant observation,\ud textual analysis and in-depth interviews, the research found that employees make sense of\ud mission in two primary ways: by enacting or ignoring it.Communication Studie