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Relation of
The relation of workplace workplace
spirituality with employees’ spirituality

innovative work behaviour: the

mediating role of
psychological empowerment Received 20 March 2020
Revised 11 May 2020
Accepted 24 August 2020
Tapas Bantha and Umakanta Nayak
School of Management,
Centurion University of Technology and Management, Bhubaneswar, India

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality and
employees’ innovative work behaviour and also to check the mediating role of psychological empowerment on
this relationship from the lens of self-determination theory (SDT).
Design/methodology/approach – An internet-based survey was conducted among knowledge workers,
i.e. 340 employees (software engineers and product developers) working in different US-based multi-national
companies operating in India. The relationships are tested by using partial least squares structural equation
modelling (PLS-SEM) and, for mediation, Preacher and Hayes (2008) procedure has been used.
Findings – The PLS-SEM and Preacher and Hayes (2008) mediation results revealed that there is a
significant positive relationship between workplace spirituality and employees’ innovative work behaviour.
There is also a substantial effect of workplace spirituality on psychological empowerment and psychological
empowerment on employees’ innovative work behaviour. Psychological empowerment is found to be
mediating fully between workplace spirituality and employees’ innovative work behaviour.
Practical implications – In the context of organizations, it will be really beneficial to enhance employees’
innovative work behaviour through inculcating workplace spirituality. Promoting workplace spirituality is
one of the prerequisites in organizations towards creating sustainability and establishing an empowered
organization in this competitive business environment.
Originality/value – There is a dearth of studies in linking the relationship between workplace spirituality
and employees’ innovative work behaviour with the mediating role of psychological empowerment from the
lens of SDT.
Keywords Workplace spirituality, Self-determination theory, Psychological empowerment,
PLS-SEM, Innovative work behaviour
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Workplace spirituality has gained great acclaim from the organizational researchers all over
the world for the past two decades. Gamut of researchers have taken a lot of initiatives
towards integrating spirituality and management. The results are breath-taking and it has
shown promising outcomes in the terms of work life, where spirituality is summum bonum
in enriching the work standards and thinking standards of the population (Dhiman and
Marques, 2011; Gupta et al., 2014; Vasconcelos, 2013). “It is easy to see why people Journal of Indian Business
Research
increasingly look to spiritual and humanist rationales for changing workplace policies” © Emerald Publishing Limited
1755-4195
(Stout et al., 2015, p. 155). Alignment of spirituality with organizations has resulted in DOI 10.1108/JIBR-03-2020-0067
JIBR reaping various benefits, which is validated by most of the organizational researchers
through their empirical investigations (Karakas, 2010; Vasconcelos, 2015). Thus, spirituality
is treated as the foundation for organizations through which issues such as peace, ethics and
human rights can be established at the workplace (Karakas, 2008). There is a pragmatic
shift in transcendence which emphasizes on to interconnectedness rather than self-
centeredness (Capra, 1993). There is also a transition from self-interest to service (Neck and
Milliman, 1994). There are also evidences of escalation interest regarding workplace
spirituality at corporates, board rooms and in the business world too. Fortune United States
Multinational Corporations (US-MNCs) such as Coke, Boeing inculcated spirituality at their
workplaces through imbibing it in their culture and strategical orientations (Konz and Ryan,
1999). Some of the corporate houses integrate spirituality in the corporate social
responsibility framework through aligning the functional strategies, i.e. marketing, finance,
operations and human resources.
Business had shifted its paradigm due to various factors such as globalization,
technology upgradation with high advancement, high level of competition in a knowledge-
based economy with rapid changes in the business segments that are putting substantial
pressure on corporates to develop creativity (Chan Kim and Mauborgne, 2005). Creativity
and innovation is an indispensable part of corporates which is inclined to bring changes in
the working process and outcomes of any organization (Ford and Gioia, 1995). The work
designs and allocation along with the profile of the knowledge workers became more
exhaustive and automated (Parker et al., 2001). There is a continuous demand creation by
the organizations to sustain themselves in this volatile competitive environment through
developing various strategies for building and enhancing creative potentiality of employees.
Creative potentiality of employees or employees’ innovative work behaviour used to foster
organizational innovation that builds change and competitive advantage which is the
foundation for organizational excellence (Amabile, 1988; Zhou and George, 2001).
Workplace spirituality defined as “The recognition that employees have an inner life that
nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of
community” (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000). Psychological empowerment is defined as “a
motivational construct manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-
determination impact” (Spreitzer, 1995). Meaning defined as when an individual aligns his/
her work with his/her ideals (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). Competence defined as when an
individual has self-efficacy to perform any task with expertise (Bandura, 1989). Self-
determination when an individual feels autonomy to take up tasks and making decisions
about them (Deci et al., 1989) and impact defined as when an individual has an influence on
organizational outcomes (Ashforth and Mael, 1989).
Employees’ innovative work behaviour defined as “Individuals’ behaviours directed
toward the initiation and intentional introduction of new and useful ideas, processes,
products or procedure within a work role, group organization” (De Jong and Den Hartog,
2007). Employees’ innovative work behaviour is a multifaceted behaviour which integrates
ideation, promotion and application of creative ideas which can foster organizational
performance (Janssen, 2005). According to researchers, all the three stages complete the
whole process of innovative work behaviour (Scott and Bruce, 1994). Individuals at work
comes up with an idea with relations to the problem of their work role, then try to seek
support for promoting their ideas and after application, it generates new avenues of work
innovation which is very much beneficial for the organization (Van der Vegt and Janssen,
2003). Employee creativity focusses on idea generation with relation to products and
services (Amabile, 1988), whereas innovative work behaviour focusses on implementation of
idea that may result in innovative output; hence, many of the business companies try to
enhance employees’ innovative work behaviour to survive and flourish in the competitive Relation of
business world (Yidong and Xinxin, 2013). workplace
From the above, it is evident that establishing and examining the relationship between
workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour should be the primary area of inquiry
spirituality
and is also the need of the hour for organizations to sustain and flourish in the business
world.

Theoretical underpinning and conceptual model

Self-determination theory (SDT) focusses on the major three psychological needs
“competence” “autonomy” and “relatedness” (Deci and Ryan, 2008). The grounding of this
theory is on intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation. This theory argues that
individual’s behaviour is “self-motivated” and “self-determined” (Ryan and Deci, 2017). In
the same line, one of the philosophical underpinning of workplace spirituality is “Intrinsic-
origin view” (Krishnakumar and Neck, 2002) which focusses on inner realms of an
individual which is integrated with spirituality. Individuals being in a spiritual workplace
foster creativity and innovation and also enhances organizational productivity and
efficiency (Marques et al., 2005). Along with the above justification, another philosophical
underpinning to understand innovative work behaviour that is grounded on “Integrative
view”, which means the convergence of environmental and personal characteristics
(Amabile, 1996; Sternberg and Lubart, 1999).
Drawing from SDT, the author(s) propose that when the basic needs of autonomy,
competence and relatedness which are having positive resemblance with core tenets of
workplace spirituality inner-life, meaningful work and sense of community (Gatling et al.,
2016) which come under the purview of environmental characteristics which may facilitate
innovative work behaviour (Afsar and Badir, 2017), it will have positive relation with
psychological empowerment (Siegall and Gardner, 2000) that will positively result in
employees’ innovative work behaviour (Amabile, 1996; Zhang and Bartol, 2010) (Figure 1).

Literature review and hypotheses

Workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour
The relation between creativity and spirituality is well understood in the context of business
(Miller, 1999). Afsar and Badir (2017) in their study found a substantial positive correlation

Psychological
Empowerment

Innovative
Workplace
Work
Spirituality
Behaviour

Figure 1.
Note: Model emerged from the theory Conceptual model
JIBR between workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour. Afsar and Rehman (2015) in
their study also found a substantial positive correlation between workplace spirituality and
innovative work behaviour. Workplace spirituality enables to express creativity at the
employee’s end in a comprehensive manner (Dent et al., 2005). Spirituality empowers people
that enables them to showcase creativity in organizational context (Karakas, 2010).
Spirituality can foster creativity in different workplace contexts in the present business
scenario (Shinde and Fleck, 2015). Workplace spirituality positively influences employee
creativity through different leadership styles such as servant leadership (Williams et al.,
2017). At macro level, workplace spirituality develops awareness in organizations which
may lead to innovation and creativity. At a micro level, it develops inner consciousness of
employees, which enhances intuition and enables innovation. It is evident that workplace
spirituality and innovative work behaviour focuses on sense of community i.e. inter-
connectedness rather than self-interest that may help in nurturing innovation. According to
SDT, when employees are intrinsically motivated, they show higher discretionary
behaviours and innovation (Sheldon, 1995; Hennessey, 2000).
Endorsing the above views, the author(s) propose the following hypothesis:

H1. There is a positive relationship between workplace spirituality and innovative work
behaviour.

Workplace spirituality and psychological empowerment

When an individual’s sense of purpose fosters beyond than oneself, it can lead to
inculcation of spiritual values at the workplace that has a positive effect on psychological
empowerment (Whitaker and Westerman, 2014). There is a positive relationship between
workplace spirituality and psychological empowerment in the domain of workplace
spirituality in nursing context (Ardalan et al., 2013). There is also a positive correlation
established between workplace spirituality and psychological empowerment (Poorkyani
et al., 2013). In their review paper, Yusof et al. (2019) has established positive correlations
between workplace spirituality and psychological empowerment along with other
constructs such as “organizational citizenship behaviour” and “leader-member
exchange”. Different dimensions of workplace spirituality have been proposed as having
a positive relationship with psychological empowerment in the context of teaching
professionals (Paul et al., 2020).
Furtherance to the above mentioned points, the author(s) propose the following
hypothesis:

H2. There is a positive relationship between workplace spirituality and psychological

empowerment.

Psychological empowerment and innovative work behaviour

Researchers established relationship between psychological empowerment and employee
creativity (Sun et al., 2012). Leadership researchers validated psychological empowerment
as a mediator between different types of leadership styles and employee creativity in their
studies (Zhang and Bartol, 2010; Pieterse et al., 2010; Tung, 2016; Javed et al., 2017; Yang
et al., 2019). Sangar and Rangnekar (2014) treated psychological empowerment as a
determinant of creativity. Recently an article validated the relationship between
psychological empowerment and innovative work behaviour (Nasir and Suryani, 2019).
Embracing the above viewpoints, the author(s) propose the following hypothesis:
 H3. There is a positive relationship between psychological empowerment and Relation of
innovative work behaviour. workplace
spirituality

Methodology
An internet-based survey has been designed to collect data from creative knowledge
workers.
Creative knowledge workers use a combination of creative applications to perform their
functions/roles in the knowledge economy including anticipatory imagination, problem solving,
problem seeking, and generating ideas and aesthetic sensibilities (Loo, 2016, p. 138).
The type of employees categorized in this category are software engineers and product
developers (Zhang and Bartol, 2010). The survey has been shared via LinkedIn, a
professional networking platform to the software engineers, to product developers working
in different US-based MNCs operating in India. The survey has been shared to 750
employees out of which 340 employees provided their responses (90 males and 250 females).
All the respondents are graduates having work experience of more than five years and
serving in different managerial positions.

Measures
Workplace spirituality. This survey adapted Ashmos and Duchon’s (2000) instrument for
measuring workplace spirituality. It has got three dimensions i.e. inner life, meaningful
work and sense of community. It has got total 21 items out of which inner life has got 5
items (e.g. “I feel hopeful about life”), meaningful work has got 7 items (e.g. “I
experience joy in my work”), and sense of community has got 9 items (e.g. “I feel part of
a community in my immediate workplace-Department/Unit”). a = 0.91 for the overall
workplace spirituality construct. Participants responded to all workplace spirituality
items in a 7-point Likert scale. The seven-point scale ranged from 1 = strongly disagree
to 7 = strongly agree.
Psychological empowerment. This survey adapted Spreitzer’s (1995) instrument for
measuring psychological empowerment. It has got four dimensions, i.e. meaning,
competence, self-determination and impact. It has got total 12 items out of which meaning
has got 3 items (e.g. “The work I do is very important to me”), competence has got 3 items
(e.g. “I am confident about my ability to do my job”), self-determination has got 3 items (e.g.
“I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job”), impact has got 3 items (e.g.
“my impact on what happens in my department is large”). a = 0.87 for the overall
psychological empowerment construct. Participants responded to all psychological
empowerment items in a seven-point Likert scale. The 7-point scale ranged from 1= strongly
disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
Innovative work behaviour. This survey adapted De Jong and Den Hartog’s (2010)
instrument for measuring innovative work behaviour. It has got total 10 items (e.g. “This
employee pays attention to issues that are no part of his daily work”). a = 0.81 for the overall
innovative work behaviour construct. The immediate supervisors of the participants were
asked to rate the frequency with which their subordinates displayed different behaviours on
a five-point Likert scale. The five-point scale ranged from 1= never to 5 = always.
Control variables. The demographic factors, i.e. age, gender and experience, were
controlled. Age and experience were measured in years, whereas gender was measured as a
dichotomous variable coded as 1 for male and 2 for female.
JIBR Results
Measurement model
Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to analyse the data.
PLS-SEM derived significant attention of scholars in social science disciplines including
organizational management (Sosik et al., 2009) and human resource management (Ringle
et al., 2018). PLS SEM generates factor loadings for each scale item, which can be used to
assess the measurement model. Indicator loadings, convergent validity (average variance
extracted) and composite reliability (CR) has provided in Table 1. Each construct should
have an AVE greater than 0.5 (Chin, 1998). All the coefficients are showing homogeneity
with scales (Neuberg et al., 1997) and showing good convergent validity.
Table 2 explains the heterotrait–monotrait (HTMT) ratio as proposed by Henseler et al.
(2015) to check the discriminant validity. HTMT can be examined by looking at the upper
bound of the 95% confidence interval (CI) of HTMT is lower than 0.90 or 0.85 (Hair et al.,
2019). In this case, the CI low (2.5%) and CI up (97.5%) mentioned in the columns. As all
HTMT are significantly different from 1, discriminant validity is said to be established
between these reflective constructs.

Structural model
Table 3 explains the collinearity statistic (VIF) of each predictor in the structural model. It
should be higher than 0.20 and should be lower than 5 (Hair et al., 2016, p.208). The author(s)
do not found any collinearity issues with the structural model, as all the values are above the
threshold levels.
Table 4 explains the path coefficients of the structural model that helps to evaluate the
model (Hair et al., 2011). For reflective measurement models, outer loadings should be taken
in to consideration (Hair et al., 2016, p.84). As we can observe from the table, all the outer
loadings are significant at P < 0.05. H1, H2 and H3 which are proposed by the researchers
are accepted.
Table 5 explains the R2 value that represents the amount of explained variance of the
endogenous constructs in the structural model. R2 values of 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 for target
constructs are considered as weak, medium and substantial (Hair et al., 2016, p.222). The
researcher(s) have found the target endogenous construct’s predictive accuracy as
substantial.
For mediation, the author(s) used Preacher and Hayes (2008) procedure. Initially, the
significance of the direct effect has been checked by using bootstrapping, excluding the
mediator PsyEmp (Psychological Empowerment) and then included the mediator PsyEmp
(Psychological Empowerment) along with the path coefficients. In Table 6, the study
explained the process of mediation along with the values. It has been found that there is a
substantial direct effect of workplace spirituality on innovative work behaviour and thus H1
is accepted. It has also been found that there is substantial indirect effect of workplace
spirituality on psychological empowerment and psychological empowerment on innovative
work behaviour and thus, both H2 and H3 are accepted. Psychological empowerment fully
mediates between workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour.
For testing Goodness of Fit Model Fit (GoF), the author(s) have used the standardized
root mean squared residual (SRMR) for approximate fit criterion (Hu and Bentler, 1999). If
the SRMR value is zero, it is perfect fit, if the value is 0.08 or lower, it is acceptable and value
more than 0.08 depicts absence of fit (Henseler and Sarstedt, 2013). In Table 7, the author(s)
have mentioned the SRMR. The author(s) have found that model has acceptable fit.
 No. of Factor Composite
Relation of
Construct items Cronbach’s a Variable Loadings Reliability (CR) AVE workplace
spirituality
Workplace 21 0.91 WPS1(IL) 0.89 0.98 0.77
spirituality WPS2 (IL) 0.89
WPS3 (IL) 0.90
WPS4(IL) 0.89
WPS5 (IL) 0.83
WPS6(MW) 0.89
WPS7(MW) 0.91
WPS8(MW) 0.92
WPS9(MW) 0.89
WPS10(MW) 0.84
WPS11(MW) 0.86
WPS12(MW) 0.87
WPS13(SOC) 0.89
WPS14(SOC) 0.84
WPS15(SOC) 0.86
WPS16(SOC) 0.87
WPS17(SOC) 0.89
WPS18(SOC) 0.89
WPS19(SOC) 0.90
WPS20(SOC) 0.89
WPS21(SOC) 0.83
Psychological 12 0.87 PEM1(M) 0.89 0.78 0.97
empowerment PEM2(M) 0.84
PEM3 (M) 0.86
PEM4(C) 0.87
PEM5 (C) 0.89
PEM7(SD) 0.90
PEM8(SD) 0.89
PEM9(SD) 0.83
PEM10(SD) 0.89
PEM11(SD) 0.91
PEM12(SD) 0.92
Innovative 10 0.81 IWB1 0.77 0.76 0.97
work behaviour IWB 2 0.76
IWB 3 0.70
IWB 4 0.71
IWB 5 0.76
IWB 6 0.73
IWB 7 0.76
IWB 8 0.84
IWB 9 0.71
IWB 10 0.80
Table 1.
Notes: IL: Inner life, MW: Meaningful work, SoC: Sense of community (dimensions of workplace spirituality). Coefficients for the
M: Meaning, C: Competence, SD: Self-determination, I: Impact (dimensions of psychological empowerment) measurement model

Discussion
In this study, first we have examined the correlation of workplace spirituality with
innovative work behaviour. It implies that to nurture creativity at individual level
and at workplace level, there is a need to incorporate spirituality at workplaces. For
further understanding, we have incorporated psychological empowerment as a
JIBR mediator between workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour as per our
theoretical framework, i.e. SDT. The results reveal that workplace spirituality has a
positive correlation with psychological empowerment (Afsar and Rehman, 2015;
Afsar and Badir, 2017) and psychological empowerment has also a positive
correlation with innovative work behaviour. These results are consistent with the
arguments made by previous researchers (Poorkyani et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2019).
We can also say that psychological empowerment fully mediates between workplace
spirituality and innovative work behaviour. When spirituality at workplaces is
promoted, employee feel themselves empowered and display autonomy and
competency in their endeavours resulting in innovative work behaviour. It is worth

Original sample (O) Sample mean (M) Bias 2.5% 97.5%

WPS ! IWB 0.793 0.807 0.014 0.748 0.815

WPS ! PsyEmp 0.790 0.799 0.009 0.740 0.819
PsyEmp ! IWB 0.340 0.315 0.025 0.231 0.470
Table 2.
Heterotrait– Notes: WPS: Workplace spirituality; PsyEmp: Psychological empowerment; IWB: Innovative work
monotrait Ratio behaviour; Confidence interval: lower: 2.5% and upper: 97.5%

Inner VIF values

WPS ! IWB 2.660

WPS ! PsyEmp 1.000
PsyEmp ! IWB 2.660
Table 3.
Collinearity Notes: WPS: Workplace spirituality; IWB: Innovative Work behaviour; PsyEmp: Psychological
assessment empowerment

Path Loadings Std. Dev T Statistic P Values

WPS ! IWB 0.553 0.066 7.998 0.000

WPS ! PsyEmp 0.799 0.019 41.227 0.000
PsyEmp ! IWB 0.316 0.068 4.989 0.000
Table 4.
Path coefficients of Notes: p < 0.05. WPS: Workplace spirituality; IWB: Innovative Work behaviour; PsyEmp: Psychological
the structural model empowerment

R-Square R-Square Adjusted

PsyEmp 0.778 0.777

Table 5. IWB 0.820 0.819
Coefficients of
determination (R2) Notes: PsyEmp: Psychological empowerment; IWB: Innovative work behaviour
noting that this is the one of the first empirical studies which humbly tried to link Relation of
workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour and psychological workplace
empowerment within self-determination theoretical framework. It is also very
interesting to check the direct, indirect and the total effect of the independent variable
spirituality
on the dependent variable (with the presence of mediator and without the presence of
mediator), which provided us additional insights to understand the theoretical model
and its linkages to various human resource implications.
The limitation of this study sheds light on future research avenues. This study has
only focussed on knowledge workers with reference to particular industry. Future
researchers can take different domains of expertise, where creativity is a prerequisite,
in various industries. Future researches can also be done on comparative analysis of
blue-collar and white collar worker’s innovative work behaviour with relation to
workplace spirituality. Different other theoretical frameworks can also be used to
understand the relationship between workplace spirituality and employee creativity.
One of such theoretical frameworks is social exchange theory (Blau, 1964). Further
research can also use longitudinal and experimental investigations to understand
various interplays in the domain of innovative work behaviour and creativity.

Conclusion
Innovation has become a disruptive agent for organizations to break through the
markets and to create a different space for themselves to sustain and flourish in the
21st Century. Organizations use different means to inculcate a culture of creativity
among employees which enables the organization to come up with new path breaking
ideas and prototypes. Our findings will have significant implications for practitioners
and policymakers as well. To enhance the levels of innovation among employees,
policymakers can organize different workshops on incorporating spirituality at
workplaces which can enable a healthy culture at organizations and foster innovation.
These endeavours will be very beneficial to grow top-line and bottom-line, build a
sustainable and empowered workforce in the 21st Century.

Path Indirect Std. Total T P

Hypothesis Procedure Path Coefficient Effect Dev Effect VAF Statistic Values

Accepted Step-1: Direct Effect WPS!IWB 0.553 n/a 7.998 0.000

(without mediator)
Accepted Step-2: Indirect Effect WPS!IWB 0.535 n/a 0.554 0.089 4.989 0.000
(with mediator) WPS!PsyEmp 0.799 0.049 0.024
PsyEmp!IWB 0.316

Notes: p < 0.05. WPS: Workplace spirituality; IWB: Innovative work behaviour; PsyEmp: psychological Table 6.
empowerment Mediation analysis

Saturated model Estimated model

Table 7.
SRMR 0.085 0.086 Model fit
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Further reading
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Corresponding author
Tapas Bantha can be contacted at: tapas.bantha@gmail.com

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