Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II: The Role of Spirituality in Unprecedented Times (Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment) 3031095391, 9783031095399

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN WORKPLACE SPIRITUALITY AND FULFILLMENT

Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II The Role of Spirituality in Unprecedented Times Edited by Mai Chi Vu · Nadia Singh Nicholas Burton · Irene Chu

Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment

Series Editors Satinder Dhiman School of Business Woodbury University Burbank, CA, USA Gary E. Roberts Robertson School of Government Regent University Virginia Beach, VA, USA Joanna Crossman University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Satinder Dhiman, Editor-in-Chief Gary Roberts and Joanna Crossman, Associate Editors By way of primary go-to-platform, this Series precisely maps the terrain of the twin fields of Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment in the disciplines of business, psychology, health care, education, and various other allied fields. It reclaims the sacredness of work—work that is mind-­ enriching, heart-fulfilling, soul-satisfying and financially-rewarding. It fills the gap in scholarship in the allied disciplines of Workplace Spirituality and Flourishing. Using a comprehensive schema, it invites contributions from foremost scholars and practitioners that reflect insightful research, practices, and latest trends on the theme of workplace spirituality and fulfillment. The uniqueness of this Series lies in its anchorage in the moral and spiritual dimension of various positive forms of leadership—such as Authentic Leadership, Servant Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Values-Based Leadership. We welcome research monographs and multi-authored edited volumes representing myriad thought-positions on topics such as: Past, Present and Future Directions in Workplace Spirituality; Workplace Spirituality and World Wisdom/Spiritual Traditions; Culture Studies and Workplace Spirituality; Spiritual, Social and Emotional intelligence; Nature of Work; Mindfulness at Work; Personal Fulfillment and Workplace Flourishing; Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance; Inner Identity, Interconnectedness, Community and Transcendence; Managing Spiritual and Religious Diversity at Work; Spirituality and World Peace Imperative; Sustainability and Spirituality; Spirituality and Creativity; and Applied Workplace Spirituality in Health Care, Education, Faith-based Organizations, et al.

Mai Chi Vu  •  Nadia Singh Nicholas Burton  •  Irene Chu Editors

Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II The Role of Spirituality in Unprecedented Times

Editors Mai Chi Vu Newcastle Business School Northumbria University Newcastle, UK Nicholas Burton Newcastle Business School Northumbria University Newcastle, UK

Nadia Singh Newcastle Business School Northumbria University Newcastle, UK Irene Chu Newcastle University Business School Newcastle, UK

ISSN 2662-3668     ISSN 2662-3676 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment ISBN 978-3-031-09539-9    ISBN 978-3-031-09540-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Without the Protestant religion, capitalism could never have come into being. This argument, proposed by Max Weber, the forefather of modern sociology, demonstrates how the influence of religion was considered to be vital to an understanding of world events in previous times. However, it is evident that most modern scholars do not attribute the same degree of importance to religion and spirituality, despite more of the world becoming more religious. This book attempts to counter this trend by presenting a diverse set of chapters sharing a common theme—how religion and spirituality can contribute to our understanding and provide solutions for organizations and individuals facing challenges in unprecedented times. Newcastle, UK Newcastle, UK  Newcastle, UK  Newcastle, UK 

Mai Chi Vu Nadia Singh Nicholas Burton Irene Chu

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Ron Beadle at Northumbria University for inspiring us to compile this volume. Ron has been an endless source of inspiration, advice, and support throughout the process. We are also grateful to the Palgrave Macmillan team. The initial idea for this book comes from a conference organized by Ron at Northumbria University in 2021 titled “Faith in Business” and the authors’ engagement with the Management, Spirituality and Religion division at the Academy of Management, where collaborations with scholars and practitioners across many religious, spiritual, and indigenous traditions were developed and nurtured. As a result, this volume represents the voices of many different scholars from different traditions around the world.

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Praise for Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II “At work, just like in any endeavor, we strive to bring in the whole person to bring out the best in them, not only with a view to personal fulfillment, but also in service to the common good. None of this would be possible without the serious consideration of spirituality, faith, and religion in the workplace, as these volumes presently offer. Often cast as sources of social support and an experience of transcendence, purpose, and meaning, their main role, however, is to serve as anchors of truth. They constitute our main defense against abuses of wealth and power and our most reliable guide towards flourishing.” —Alejo José G. Sison, Professor of Business Ethics, University of Navarra (Spain) “This two-volume edited work is an important contribution to the growing recognition of the role of religion in building societies where pluralism and the co-existence of different view-points are respected and valued. In many parts of the world, sectarian conflicts related to religious differences have led to an academic and professional discourse that criticises religion as the basis of those conflicts. This discourse has an essentialist, one-sided and imbalanced understanding of religion, whose other dimensions – of caring and of ‘the sigh of the oppressed’ – it neglects and ignores. Such neglect weakens societies’ capacity to intervene effectively to prevent situations that can cause sectarian conflicts. Organisations responding to the suffering caused by loss during the Covid epidemic witnessed the caring aspect of religion and the spiritual power of religion. The role of religion in everyday life in dealing with the growing global ecological crisis and possible ensuing social collapse is becoming increasingly evident. Religious practices can impact social behaviour in ways that contribute to strategies for mitigation of and adaptation to global climate change, and so are of pivotal importance in our current era of human societal evolution.” —Pritam Singh, Professor Emeritus Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford, UK

“This two-volume collection bears an important message: in precarious times such as we presently endure, hark back to the wisdom of the sages. Anchored in a worldview informed by spiritual practice of olde, the timeless advice it enshrines may see us through our current travails. And in so doing provide valuable insights into our day-to-day. The balance between Western and Eastern faith traditions is particularly welcome, enabling the reader a comprehensive outlook on the wisdom of the ages. And while the focus is on the different cultural modes of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and the world-wide crisis it ushered, the implications are much wider and point to lessons applicable to and for life. Well worth reading and carefully contemplating I highly recommend this collection to you.” —Yochanan Altman, PhD, Visiting Professor, WU Vienna, Austria, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Haifa, Israel, Chair, International Association of Management Spirituality & Religion, Publisher, Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, Editor, IAMSR - De Gruyter series Management, Spirituality & Religion

Contents

Part I Introduction   1 1 Introduction:  Spiritual Traditions and Practices in Unprecedented Times  3 Mai Chi Vu, Nadia Singh, Nicholas Burton, and Irene Chu Part II Buddhism  15 2 Nonconceptual  Mindfulness: Navigating Crisis Preparedness for Crisis Management 17 Mai Chi Vu and Loi Anh Nguyen 3 Buddhist-Enacted  Practices: Implications for Coping Mechanisms in Unprecedented Times 41 Mai Chi Vu

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Part III Confucianism  63 4 Harmony  in Taiwan’s Covid Response and MacIntyrean Goods 65 Irene Chu 5 Confucian  Rituals and the Workplace: Fostering SelfRefinement and Making Our Shared World More Habitable in Unsettled Times 89 Daryl Koehn 6 Humanistic  Leadership in the Confucian Context: Philosophical Foundations and Empirical Implications109 George Gotsis Part IV Pedagogy 135 7 Zen  Koan Pedagogy: A Spiritual Approach to Management Education137 Tianyuan Yu and Albert J. Mills Part V Methodology 157 8 Designing  and Implementing Ecological Models in Organisation Studies: Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Approach (FCM)159 Jacqueline Jing You I ndex179

Notes on Contributors

Nicholas  Burton is an associate professor in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Strategy, at Northumbria University, UK. He has published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Management Learning, the Journal of Management History, Review of Managerial Science, and Strategic Change. Irene  Chu is Lecturer in International Management at Newcastle University Business School (NUBS). She gained her MBA and PhD from Durham University Business School and previously worked in the international public and private sectors in Taiwan. Her interdisciplinary research interests are virtue ethics, especially the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Confucianism, cross-cultural studies, critical realism and institutional logics. She has publications in several journals including the Journal of Business Ethics, British Journal of Management and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Current projects include introducing a typology of goods into institutional logics, concepts of the self, eudaimonia (human flourish) in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in emerging markets, especially Africa. George Gotsis  is a professor of Philosophy and History of Economics in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He holds two PhD degrees, one in Political Science from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece, and another in Economics from the National and xiii

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Notes on Contributors

Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He teaches History of Economic Thought, History and Philosophy of Economics, Business Ethics, and History and Philosophy of Human Resource Management. His research interests comprise, among others, workplace spirituality, religion in business and faith at work, intercultural management, and healthcare management. Daryl Koehn  is the Wicklander Chair of Business Ethics and Managing Director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University in Chicago. She has published widely in the fields of ethics, political theory, and corporate governance. Her monographs include The Ground of Professional Ethics (1994); The Nature of Evil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Rethinking Feminist Ethics (1998); Local Insights, Global Ethics for Business (2001); Living with the Dragon: Acting Ethically in a World of Unintended Consequences (2010); and Toward a New (Old) Theory of Responsibility (Springer, 2019). Edited volumes include Corporate Governance: Ethics across the Board (University of St. Thomas Center for Ethics, 2000) and Ethics and Aesthetics in Business Ethics (Springer, 2013). Her new book Ethics Without Dilemmas is slated to be out in 2022. Daryl consults extensively with corporations and has served as an expert witness in business ethics in numerous civil cases. Albert J. Mills  is Emeritus Professor of Management at the Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Canada, and Professor of Innovative Management at the University of Eastern Finland. His 48 books and edited collections include The Oxford Handbook of Diversity in Organizations (2015); Ageing, Organizations and Management: Constructive Discourses and Critical Perspectives (Palgrave, 2017); and Insights and Research on the Study of Gender and Intersectionality in International Airline Cultures (2017). Albert is Co-Editor of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal. Loi  Anh  Nguyen is an assistant professor at Metropolitan State University. She holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of Nottingham, a Master’s degree in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, and a PhD in Human Resource Development with a minor in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota,

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USA. Her research has been published in books and journals including Management Learning, Human Resource Development Review, and the Journal of Economics and Development. Nadia  Singh is a senior lecturer in Economics, at Northumbria University, UK, and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy of the UK. Nadia completed her PhD in Economics at Oxford Brookes Business School. She has published her work in journals like World Development, the Journal of Development Studies and Gender, and Gender, Work, and Organisation. Her research interests are centered in ecological and gender economics, as well as the influences of Sikh philosophy on issues of environmental governance and organizational sustainability. Mai  Chi  Vu is a senior lecturer in Responsible Business at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK.  She holds a PhD in Management from Durham University Business School. She publishes regularly in the Journal of Business Ethics, Management Learning, the Journal of Management Inquiry, European Management Review, the Journal of Business Research, and the International Journal of Human Resource Management. Her research interests focus on organizational mindfulness, business ethics, meaningful work, and workplace spirituality. Jacqueline  Jing  You  is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Durham University Business School, Durham University. Her research focuses on mechanisms that contribute to building or activating resilience in organizations, with particular emphasis on inter-organizational collaboration and coordination. Tianyuan  Yu  is an associate professor in the Department of Business and Tourism at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada. She holds a PhD in Management from Sun Yat-Sen University, China, and is a PhD candidate at Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Canada. Tianyuan has extensive research interest in management spirituality and religion, gender and diversity in organizations, management history, and cross-cultural management. She is engaged in research on a Zen-informed approach to leadership, education, and research methodology. Her recent research publications appear in a number of international journals, edited books, and conference proceedings.

Abbreviations

aka also known as CA conversation analysis CE common era COVID-19 Coronavirus disease of 2019 FCM Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping FCMs Fuzzy Cognitive Maps M Master MBCT mindfulness-based cognitive therapy MBSR mindfulness-based stress reduction n.d. no date P participants VUCA volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Mindfulness for crisis preparedness (Source: Adopted from Mitroff (1989)) Fig. 4.1 Covid statistics for selected countries (data from https:// coronavirus.jhu.edu/, visited on 02/02/2022) Fig. 8.1 An example of a fuzzy cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020) Fig. 8.2 An example of a social cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020) Fig. 8.3 An example of a condensed social cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020)

25 66 166 170 171

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List of Tables

Table 7.1 Transcription system (adapted from Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2009)144 Table 8.1 An adjacency matrix coded from the fuzzy cognitive map 167 Table 8.2 Data collection and analysis 172 Table 8.3 Augmented matrix 174

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Part I Introduction

1 Introduction: Spiritual Traditions and Practices in Unprecedented Times Mai Chi Vu, Nadia Singh, Nicholas Burton, and Irene Chu

We live in a context of a ‘new normal’ and unprecedented time as a result of the global pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by lockdown measures and mobility restrictions across the globe, represents a ‘threatening circumstance’ (Bojanowska et al., 2020) with grave social, economic, and occupational implications. There have been massive disruptions in the management sector in the form of business closures, heightened economic vulnerability, and severe job losses. This has brought into question the sustainability of the ‘business as usual’ (Brewis & Bell, 2020; Earle & Leyva-de la Hiz, 2021) principle. National governments

M. C. Vu (*) • N. Singh • N. Burton Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] I. Chu Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_1

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and policymakers across the world face unprecedented challenges as the social and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis translate into devastating consequences for the physical and psychological well-­ being of the population at the global level (World Health Organization, WHO, 2020). Some empirical studies have revealed how the prolonged exposure to stress induced by the COVID-19 crisis has heightened the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorders, anxiety, depression, as well as other symptoms of distress (Cao et al., 2020; Duan & Zhu, 2020). The social distancing and security measures have affected social and occupational relationships among people, as well as their perception of empathy toward others (Kawohl & Nordt, 2020). More than a year after the pandemic, the concept of ‘new normal’ has emerged in the way people live and work (Corpuz, 2021). The term ‘new normal’ first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis, referring to economic, cultural, and social transformations that affect individuals’ perceptions and lifestyles (El-Erian, 2010). Neoliberalism, capitalist ideology in management, and the pursuit of material growth and wealth have been dominating management and economic thinking (e.g., Lovins et  al., 2018; Pirson, 2017; Pio & Waddock, 2021). However, in the face of threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, empirical studies found that hyper-individualistic orientations can lead to higher caseloads and mortalities due to unwillingness to adhere to epidemic prevention measures (e.g., Maaravi et al., 2021), which questions the ideas of moral cosmopolitanism, idealization, abstraction, and acontextuality in management studies. These constructs remain intrinsically rooted in the doctrine of maximization of self-interest without any concern or obligation to achieve societal upliftment (Ivanhoe et al., 2018). In unprecedented times, particularly in the context of ‘new normal,’ it has become crucial to consider new managerial philosophies and practices to shift the dominant narrative to other-focused values and collective action, moving beyond the myopic focus on the managerial elite (e.g., Bell & Bridgman, 2018; McLaren, 2020; Pio & Waddock, 2021). Amid this transformational period of time, individuals, organizations, and other human entities have found ways to navigate volatile environments (Caligiuri et al., 2020). Various disciplines have increasingly discussed the capacity to manage resilience, flexibility, and creativity in

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adversity (Corpuz, 2021). Amid this ‘new normal’ context and within academia, there has been a growing interest to explore the role of spirituality in creating coping mechanisms in unprecedented times (e.g., Chirico, 2021; Fardin, 2020; Roberto et al., 2020) that can reinvigorate humanistic values and human experience in management and enrich ways to enact a world of meaning by proactively regulating individuals’ states and interactions with changes in the social environment (Kyselo, 2014). When individuals encounter differentiated forms of fear or suffering, they may also experience ‘spiritual renewal’ (Kowalczyk et al., 2020) as spirituality has been found to be a resource and coping mechanism that may positively impact physical and mental health worldwide (Vitorino et al., 2018). Spirituality manifests in the process of an individual’s behavior, beliefs, and experiences (Miller & Thoresen, 2003) that can guide the stress and coping process at any one point in time (Park & Folkman, 1997). Spiritual influences can help in navigating and orientating an individual’s belief systems, interpretations, comprehension, and reactions to life experiences (Acklin et al., 1983; Dull & Skokan, 1995). They can also facilitate an active attitude toward coping in difficult times through strengthening of social support and helping humans in bereavement (Krysinska et al., 2014) in response to times of crisis. Furthermore, spirituality tends to embrace other-focused orientations with a relational view about the nature of the self (Chu & Vu, 2021; Vu & Burton, 2021) that moves away from hyper-individualistic conception of the self (Berger, 1983; O’Neill, 1993; Rawls, 1999) to promote the notion of Oneness (primary moral aspects are embedded in the relationship between the self and ‘other’) (Ivanhoe, 2017; Ivanhoe et al., 2018). This highlights that businesses are not stand-alone entities (Demuijnck & Fasterling, 2016) but essentially a part of the larger society, grounded in a humanistic approach with a shared connection to others. Exploring spiritual practices in the workplace can facilitate organizational capacity for compassion (Madden et al., 2012) since individuals can modify their roles, behaviors, and group norms away from self-interest to spread compassion through the organization via their interaction with other stakeholders (Grant & Patil, 2012; Rynes et al., 2012). Although a few studies have explored the influence of spiritual practices on resilience during unprecedented times (e.g., Chirico, 2021; Roberto et  al., 2020; Vu &

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Nguyen, 2022), how different spiritual practices can offer dynamic coping mechanisms in unprecedented times in the workplace remains underexplored. In this second volume of Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace, the authors explore the spiritual practices of Buddhism and Confucianism in response to unprecedented times to offer crisis management approaches, coping mechanisms, and value-based, humanistic, and ethical orientations in the workplace. The last two chapters of the volume reflect on a practical management education approach adopted from Zen Buddhism during the COVID-19 pandemic and propose a contemporary methodological tool to study the complex phenomena of workplace spirituality in the face of adversity. These approaches move away from hyper-­ individualism to other-focused orientations with an anthropocentric perspective that embrace interconnectedness and oneness. Chapter 2: Nonconceptual Mindfulness—Navigating Crisis Preparedness for Crisis Management by Mai Chi Vu and Loi Anh Nguyen introduces a nonconceptual mindfulness approach that can facilitate organizations with preparedness for crisis management on the basis of mindful, non-judgmental, and cognitive evaluative awareness that can liberate defensive mechanisms and bias both at the individual and organizational level. In particular, the authors highlight how mindfulness practices can facilitate crisis preparedness for organizations via: (i) mindful awareness of impermanence to navigate organizational defensive mechanisms such as denial (refusal to acknowledge threatening realities), idealization (idealization of a person, object, or organization), disavowal (discrediting the importance of threatening realities), and fixation (rigid commitment to a particular course of action) (Elliott et al., 2021; Mitroff et al., 1988; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993); (ii) non-judgmental and cognitive awareness to facilitate retentive ability, cognitive transformations, and evaluative ability to examine the beneficial or detrimental nature of individual and organizational assumptions in preparing for a crisis; and (iii) mindful bias processing to move away from static organizational norms, routines, structure, or strategy, and explore potential possibilities in times of crisis with retentive ability, cognitive transformations, and an ability to evaluate the nature of mental states and information processing. This nonconceptual mindfulness approach provides an alternative lens

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that appreciates the impermanent state of phenomena to reduce rigid responsiveness and embraces interconnectedness under adverse conditions. Chapter 3—Buddhist-Enacted Practices: Implications for Coping Mechanisms in Unprecedented Times by Mai Chi Vu provides a critical lens that unpacks how Buddhist practices when transferred into organizational contexts tend to bear little resemblance to their original forms of practice, leading to misinterpretations of their characteristics of ‘universal’ adaptability and instrumentalization. The chapter takes a critical view of Buddhist-enacted practices in the workplace (e.g., right mindfulness, the Middle Way, Skillful Means, non-self ) to highlight the need for these practices to be interpreted and managed more context-sensitively in organizational contexts. Vu further unpacks how these practices, when practiced context-sensitively with the moral principles underpinning the Noble Eightfold Path guiding Buddhist practices, can serve as coping mechanisms in organizational contexts. For instance, right mindfulness and its ethical foundations can facilitate ethical awareness of potential ethical issues linked to consumption and production. This can guide individuals and organizations to act in moral and ethical ways that can contribute to sustainable and responsible consumption and production. It can also enhance organizational capacity for compassion by facilitating compassionate vision within healthcare organizations to refine the performance of healthcare professionals in times of crisis. The practice of the Middle Way can navigate extremes and attachments to facilitate resilience and self-regulation in unprecedented times. Skillful Means offers an alternative approach for organizations to context-sensitively address challenges in crises with a more contemplative approach that facilitates eventfulness of situations, temperance, sensitivity, and reflection. This is in contrast to imposing fixed interpretations or organizational policies that are based on predetermined outcomes or past experiences that may no longer be relevant in the context of the ‘new normal.’ Lastly, non-self embraces other-centeredness that highlights the importance of other-­ focused orientations and collective action to move beyond individualism. Chapter 4—Harmony in Taiwan’s Covid Response and MacIntyrean Goods by Irene Chu relates Confucian harmony to concepts from the

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moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who proposes that a balanced pursuit of internal and external goods is necessary for eudaimonia or human flourishing. By bringing these concepts to bear on the differing responses to COVID in different countries, Chu demonstrates the relevance of religious and moral concepts to contemporary challenges. The Confucian emphasis on the family has consequences for paternalism, trust and loyalty, and results in a restriction of social cohesion beyond family units and discourages a wider spirit of community. It is the concept of harmony within society which counters this lack of trust outside the family and which stabilizes the social system. The emphasis is on a more communal conception of the good, with the Confucian notion of the self being more relational than individualistic. The chapter unpacks how Taiwan’s successful COVID response was due to a variety of factors, but that these were underpinned by the Confucian concept of harmony. Chapter 5—Confucian Ethics and Ritual: Combatting the “Hell of the Same” by Daryl Koehn examines the nature and various functions of rituals and the numerous ways in which Confucian rituals can support, reinforce, and even ground virtuous and respectful and thoughtful behavior in the workplace and beyond. In this chapter, Koehn focuses primarily on how rituals function within Confucian ethics because Confucius was arguably the first ethical thinker to discuss in detail the importance of li or rituals. Part One loosely defines rituals and sets up a typology of them. Part Two considers specific ethical features of Confucian rituals. Part Three explores the relevance of Confucian rituals to the workplace and the possible benefits attendant upon ritualizing employee behavior. The author argues that introducing Confucian rituals supports the thinking we need in chaotic and turbulent times. Rituals of all sorts, including workplace rituals, are a natural home—a real site—for playful thinking. When we embrace rituals, we experience the pleasure of recognition. That pleasure, in turn, encourages greater engagement with and respect for ritual. The result is a virtuous circle of ever-deepening understanding of ourselves and the world. These rituals make for flexible stability and further respect for persons, and provide employees with specific forms of behavior that can be practiced as part of a process of self-refinement. Some repeated activities (e.g., regularly going into a physical office) enable rituals to evolve while simultaneously creating a real space for

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employees and stakeholders collectively to discover meaning. Rituals’ symbolic quality can support an element of humor, which can be welcome when turbulence leads people to feel anxious. Chapter 6—Humanistic Leadership in the Confucian Context: Philosophical Foundations and Empirical Implications by George Gotsis provides a framework for assessing the role of the Confucian tradition in informing leadership attributes, focusing on moral awareness, and intrinsic worthiness of, and unconditional respect for, subordinates. Gotsis explores the concept of humaneness deeply entrenched in specific streams of Confucian thought and assesses its heuristic value as a foundation of Confucian humanism. The author focuses on operationalizing humanistic leadership in the context of Confucian societies. Particular emphasis is placed upon leadership practices that enact humanistic values and envisage a socially responsible business environment, especially in the ambiguous post-COVID-19 reality. In the wake of the pandemic, humanistic leadership practices are framed as appropriate for shaping virtual spaces that empower employees and promote resilience, innovation, and transformative growth to create adaptive systems and processes that embody the dimension of humaneness/benevolence, an invaluable symbolic resource in coping with new challenges in times of unprecedented crisis. Chapter 7—Zen Koan Pedagogy: An Alternative Approach to Management Education by Tianyuan Yu and Albert J. Mills provides a holistic, spiritual approach to management education. They identify four features of Zen koan pedagogy, illustrated by a textual analysis of a classical Chinese koan followed by a video analysis of a contemporary Western dharma talk. These features include: (1) a holistic and spiritual approach, (2) verbal and nonverbal methods, (3) a living tradition, and (4) spontaneity and creativity. The authors discuss how they explore Zen koan pedagogy in management education during the COVID-19 pandemic, gaining insights for spiritual teaching practice that is healing and empowering in unprecedented times. These features were included in the four recurring Zen-informed class activities, namely sitting meditation, reflexive learner activity, bewildering question, and council practice. This approach involves authentic dialogues on difficult topics with a meditative mind stimulating deep reflexivity, and reveals our Buddha-nature,

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which heals our hidden trauma and ongoing suffering. The authors introduce a unique contemporary Zen koan pedagogy approach in management education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 8—Designing and Implementing Ecological Models in Organization Studies: Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Approach (FCM) by Jacqueline Jing You is unlike other chapters that focus on particular spiritual practices and traditions. The chapter proposes the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) approach as a useful methodological tool in studying the complex phenomenon of workplace spirituality. This approach allows researchers to estimate and visualize causal relationships that reflect complex decision-making processes, especially in the face of adversity. You argues that although a wide variety of measures have been developed, such as spiritual values (compassion, mindfulness, meaningful work, transcendence, and perceptions of spiritual values) exhibited by organizations, little is known about how various spiritual mechanisms facilitate coordinative work in responding to crises, with each crisis differing in nature. Although spirituality is not observable, “the basic feeling of being connected with one’s complete self, others, and the entire universe” (Mitroff & Denton, 1999, p. 83) implies that spirituality manifests itself in various forms of interconnection and interdependency. People with a high level of spirituality tend to address problem-solving by seeking social connections, which is particularly important when organizing resilience in the face of adverse situations (e.g., Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003; Williams & You, 2022; You, 2021). This chapter proposes the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) approach as a useful methodological tool to capture the causal mechanisms that produce resilience in the face of stressful demands (e.g., cognition, emotion and behaviors) and how various spiritual coping mechanisms interact in the workplace.

References Acklin, M.  W., Brown, E.  C., & Mauger, P.  A. (1983). The role of religious values in coping with cancer. Journal of Religion and Health, 22(4), 322–333. Bell, E., & Bridgman, T. (2018). Expecting the unexpected in management learning. Management Learning, 49(1), 3–7.

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O’Neill, J. (1993). Ecology, policy and politics: Human well-being and the natural world. Routledge. Pearson, C. M., & Mitroff, I. I. (1993). From crisis prone to crisis prepared: A framework for crisis management. Academy of Management Perspectives, 7(1), 48–59. Park, C. L., & Folkman, S. (1997). Meaning in the context of stress and coping. Review of General Psychology, 1(2), 115–144. Pio, E., & Waddock, S. (2021). Invoking indigenous wisdom for management learning. Management Learning, 52(3), 328–346. Pirson, M. (2017). Humanistic management: Protecting dignity and promoting well-being. Cambridge University Press. Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Roberto, A., Sellon, A., Cherry, S. T., Hunter-Jones, J., & Winslow, H. (2020). Impact of spirituality on resilience and coping during the COVID-19 crisis: A mixed-method approach investigating the impact on women. Health Care for Women International, 41(11–12), 1313–1334. Rynes, S. L., Bartunek, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Margolis, J. D. (2012). Care and compassion through an organizational lens: Opening up new possibilities. Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 503–523. Sutcliffe, K. M., & Vogus, T. J. (2003). Organizing for resilience. In K. S. Cameron, J.  E. Dutton, & R.  E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 94–110). Berrett-Koehler. Vitorino, L. M., Lucchetti, G., Leão, F. C., Vallada, H., & Peres, M. F. P. (2018). The association between spirituality and religiousness and mental health. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1–9. Vu, M. C., & Burton, N. (2021). Bring your non-self to work? The interaction between self- decentralization and moral reasoning. Journal of Business Ethics, 1–23. Vu, M.  C., & Nguyen, L.  A. (2022). Mindful unlearning in unprecedented times: Implications for management and organizations. Management Learning, 13505076211060433. WHO. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems. https://www.who.int/news/item/13-­10-­2020-impact-of-covid19-on-people%27s-­livelihoods-­their-­health-­and-­our-­food-­systems Williams, C., & You, J. J. (2022). Organizing for resilience: Leading and managing risk in a disruptive world. Routledge. You, J. J. (2021). Exploring organizational resilience from an inter-organizational perspective: Relational resilience based on business ecosystems in China. Doctoral dissertation, Durham University.

Part II Buddhism

2 Nonconceptual Mindfulness: Navigating Crisis Preparedness for Crisis Management Mai Chi Vu and Loi Anh Nguyen

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global socio-technical crisis, disrupting existing business practices (Huynh, 2020), and political and economic structures (Woodside, 2020). As human entities are managing their responses to COVID-19, the question of how to prepare for the next crisis becomes critically important (McKinsey & Company, 2020; Pearson & Mitroff, 2019). Prior studies have documented a plethora of ways to increase the effectiveness of organizational crisis responses, including investing in tools for early crisis signal detection (Smith, 1990;

M. C. Vu (*) Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected] L. A. Nguyen Metropolitan State University, St Paul, MN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_2

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Taleb, 2012), building high-reliability and agile organizations (Roberts, 1990; Reason, 2000, Teece et al., 2016), and increasing organizational resilience and dynamic capabilities. The literature on organizational crisis has focused on internally induced crises such as corruption, image fallout, and product defects (Combs, 2010; Marsen, 2020). Much less attention has been paid to externally induced crises until the recently increased occurrence of health hazards, financial crises, and so on (Slaughter et al., 2021). The mechanisms for managing internally induced crises (e.g., bankruptcy, organization wrongdoings, downsizing, product recall) are different from those of externally induced crises (Bundy et al., 2017). For instance, technical and operation control issues in BP’s Gulf oil spill or Target’s consumer data breach caused financial and reputational damage to these firms in the way that they had to redefine their relationship with customers, local communities, and governments (Bundy et al., 2017). On the other hand, with externally induced crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, local restaurants to larger companies like Spotify and Unilever have been successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic by altering strategies that engage with short-term survival and long-term resilience and growth (e.g., offering content in the form of podcasts by Spotify; restaurants incorporating experiential and learning elements in home-cooked dishes; Unilever’s prioritization of packaged food, surface cleaners, and personal hygiene product brands over other products, such as skin care, where demand has fallen) (Guillén, 2020). Crisis type influences stakeholder perceptions, thus impacting organizational crisis response strategies and effects (Coombs, 2007; Bundy & Pfarrer, 2015). For instance, in family firms, where members are typically more emotionally attached to their firms (Berrone et al., 2012), they would have different coping mechanisms during crises (e.g., aligning strategies with firm and family values, spiritual traditions, or non-economic goals (Burton et al., 2022; Chrisman et al., 2005). Whether these crisis events have moved from recommending that organizations avoid crises (Hwang & Lichtenthal, 2000; Perrow, 1984; Turner, 1976) and minimizing their impact (Mitroff et al., 1989; Smith, 1990), to embracing crisis via operating on the edge of chaos in a volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) world (Dervitsiotis, 2003), learning (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2014; Carmeli &

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Schaubroeck, 2008) and mindfulness (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) have been ongoing. Central to these discussions is enhancing organizational readiness for crisis (i.e., crisis preparedness). Given the threatening characteristics of crisis events influencing organizations (Taleb, 2012), we are inclined to suggest that organizations equip themselves to embrace uncertainties including crisis situations. In this chapter, using the cultural approach to crisis management (Mitroff et al., 1989) and system perspectives, we focus on exploring how mindfulness could impact organizations’ crisis preparedness at various stages and levels. Mindfulness entails some aspects of learning and unlearning that can be well applied in dealing with externally imposed crises, such as creative thinking (Capurso et  al., 2014), transformative learning (Vu & Burton, 2020), unlearning of bias (Vu & Nguyen, 2022), and the ability to enhance attentional processes rather than passive control conditions to engage with unexpected contexts (Schofield et  al., 2015). We look at how mindfulness could re/orient organizational members’ behaviors and actions, affecting the  organizational structure, assumptions, and core organizational identities. This approach would allow us to combine both internal perspectives—focusing on within-­ organizational dynamics of managing risk and complexity (e.g., Bundy et al., 2017; Gephart et al., 2009)—and external perspective—focusing on interactions of organizations and external stakeholders (Bundy & Pfarrer, 2015; Coombs, 2007), as both perspectives help to identify “behavioral and social constraints that may interfere with mindful organizing and relationship building (e.g., biases, limitations, and expectations)” (Bundy et  al., 2017, p.  1670) in crisis preparedness and management. Being embedded in the interconnectedness and system thinking approach, mindfulness can enact analytical skills to identify, describe, predict, and better understand the relationships between complex sets of factors (Sajjad & Shahbaz, 2020). We analyze these elements in their intricate relationships with external organizational stakeholders. Our study is significant in several ways. First, it extends the crisis management literature by integrating the two perspectives of system perspectives and the cultural approach to crisis management to provide further insights on crisis preparedness. Second, it further develops the lesser known understanding of mindfulness and its possible impacts in crisis

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situations. Third, we extend the literature by looking at the possible effect of mindfulness on an organization’s crisis preparedness in the organizational ecosystem and its interdependencies with external stakeholders.

Crisis Management and Crisis Preparedness Organizational crisis management is known as “a systematic attempt by organizational members with external stakeholders to avert crises or to effectively manage those that do occur” (Pearson & Clair, 1998, p. 61). Crisis disturbs the balance of an organization’s relational systems, affecting the systems’ cohesion, flexibility, and communication (Kahn et al., 2013). Crisis management literature has built various models to predict, prevent, and handle crises to anticipate and avoid threats (Turner, 1976; Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). While some organizations could anticipate the arrival of a crisis (Perrow, 1984; Seeger et al., 1998), most do not know when it will happen and how detrimental its effects could be. This is particularly true for a prolonged pandemic like COVID-19. Although this is not the first pandemic, COVID-19 is probably the first one that significantly impacts individuals and organizations worldwide. Moreover, the predictive capabilities do not guarantee effective crisis handling due to crisis attributes being unanticipated, affecting organizational capabilities  with crisis complexities (Thorgren & Williams, 2020; Coombs, 2010). Crisis management is usually divided into different phases and the evolution of initiating event and progress through response and recovery phases (Smith & Elliott, 2007; Wang & Belardo, 2009). These phases often include the pre-crisis stage, the during crisis or crisis management stage, and the post-crisis stage (Bundy et al., 2017). The pre-crisis stage entails organizational actions to prepare for a crisis. These actions often include strategic and technical, and structural efforts (Pauchant et al., 1991) to prevent system breakdowns that may lead to or be caused by a crisis. Crisis preparedness also consists of efforts to identify and monitor risks as they emerge and prepare stakeholders for the possibility of a crisis event (Avery & Park, 2019; Palttala et al., 2012; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993). While it is pivotal in the first phase, we argue that crisis preparedness is also embedded in all other phases of crisis

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management (Coombs & Laufer, 2018). For instance, organizational preparedness and positive stakeholder relationships can facilitate crisis management after a triggering event (Bundy et al., 2017). When organizations expand into new markets beyond their borders, preparedness to understand stakeholders and how they would react differently to a crisis with different crisis response strategies remains crucial (Coombs & Laufer, 2018). The crisis and response phases enact organizational crisisprepared systems and adjustment. In other words, the during crisis phase could be seen as the enactment of crisis preparedness or adoption of organizational crisis preparation (Pearson & Clair, 1998). In the post-crisis phase, organizations often evaluate and learn from their mistakes or failures to be ready for the next crisis. The learning activities feed into organizational crisis preparedness. As learning in crisis is happening throughout the process (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2014), so does organizational crisis preparedness. Organizational crisis preparedness, hence, is not only a set of activities but also an ongoing process, forming a crisis-prepared mindset and culture. Organizational culture strongly impacts crisis management effectiveness (Bundy et al., 2017). Changes in culture, design, and structure can help firms avoid system breakdowns that can lead to or intensify the crisis. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants moved away from the traditional culture of envisioning a seating area next to a kitchen to implement various business models such as eat-in, take-out, delivery, and catering (Guillén, 2020). Mitroff et  al. (1989) have long pointed out that crisis-prepared firms and crisis-prone firms differ in their abilities to divert resources to formal crisis policies. In crisis-­prepared organizations, self-centeredness, defensive mechanisms, and passivity, which affect organizations’ abilities to recognize and cope with complex reality, are low (Carmeli & Sheaffer, 2009; Mitroff et al., 1989). Crisis-­ prepared organizations are also better than crisis-prone ones in their audits of organizational practices to avoid bypassing threats and create new opportunities. Crisis-prone businesses often just prepare to handle the types of calamities that they have already experienced or suffered, and not even all of these (Mitroff & Alpaslan, 2003). However, how to build a crisis-prepared organization is not fully answered, especially when previous models in crisis management often focused on one-event-triggered

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and relatively short-term disastrous crises (Elliott, 2014). During the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, organizations hoped that things would go back to normal soon but realized that “everything might be not normal for a long time” (Ambrosino, 2020). In such an extended crisis and the VUCA world we live in, it is arguably necessary to develop a crisis-as-­ mindset approach to support organizations in coping with multifaceted and prolonged crises (Mehra & Ahuja, 2021). In this chapter, we argue that a mindful culture—referring to the ability to recognize warning signals and learn from them to prevent failure and crisis (Veil, 2011)—is critical to building crisis preparedness because a crisis-as-mindset approach only is associated with inattentional blindness (Shi & Li, 2021), which may hinder individuals and organizations from unpacking faulty assumptions, thus bypassing threats and coping opportunities. Furthermore, a crisis-focused mindset may also be associated with anxiety and stress (Pauchant et al., 1991), especially under an ongoing prolonged crisis situation. According to types of crises, including natural disasters, technological crises, confrontation, malevolence, organization misdeeds, workplace violence, and human-made disasters (Lerbinger, 1997) that can be either nature-caused or human-made, the COVID-19 pandemic is not a human-made but a nature-caused crisis (Kumar et  al., 2020). It is an accidental crisis that organizations have passively reacted to with a burst of frenetic activity (Wade & Bjerkan, 2020). However, it is human behaviors that contributed to the intensity and the wider spread of the pandemic (e.g., fear leading to ethnocentrism, panic buying, optimism bias in ignoring public health warnings and communication, the spread of fake news, and harmful social behaviors via social media) (Christakis & Fowler, 2013; Schaller & Neuberg, 2012; Van Bavel et al., 2020; Wise et al., 2020). Human behaviors, especially relational behaviors (emphasis on the quality of relationships and networks) rather than task behaviors (emphasis on task fulfillment), play a significant role in transforming the relational system from crisis to a ‘new normal’ balance. Therefore, examining the interactions and interdependent nature of human relational behavior in crisis management and a more mindful reaction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is timely and important.

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Nonconceptual Mindfulness The concept of mindfulness remains complex and semantically ambiguous (Anālayo, 2019), and lacks a clear definition (e.g., Baer, 2019; Kudesia, 2019; Umar & Chunwe, 2019). Modern conceptualizations of mindfulness fail to provide an unequivocal definition that takes into account the complexity of its original definitions (Chiesa, 2013). Buddhist scholars note that no single view can capture the Buddhist view of mindfulness (Baer, 2019; Gethin, 2011; Grossman & Van Dam, 2011). Buddhism is a plural tradition encompassing a variety of views that have evolved over centuries, with different historical and social settings influencing the Buddhist approach to and understanding of mindfulness (Anālayo, 2019; Dreyfus, 2011). When mindfulness is conceptualized by its content without acknowledgment of its processual dimensions, it is unlikely that it can be practiced fully. Mindfulness is an active process of ‘mindful organizing’ (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012) by making sense and building a sense of, with, and for others (Gauthier, 2014); a process of changing mindsets and handling emotions in adaptive transformation (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997); a process of enhanced awareness in organizations (Weick et al., 1999); and a process of a combination of re-­cognition (Carmody, 2009), re-perceiving (Shapiro et  al., 2015), and discernment (Siegel, 2007) processes. Gunaratana (2002, p. 144) highlights that developing mindfulness involves an ongoing awareness of the inherently transitory nature of conditioned phenomena, the unsatisfying nature of worldly things, and the processual nature of entities. Mindfulness is non-conceptual awareness. Another English term for sati is ‘bare attention’. It is not thinking. It does not get involved with thought or concepts … It is, rather, the direct and immediate experiencing of whatever is happening, without the medium of thought. (Gunaratana, 2002, p. 140)

Adopting a nonconceptual mindfulness is different from secular mindfulness approaches as it involves additional attributes of ‘right mindfulness’ (Pāli: sati; Sanskrit: smr̥ti) that have been reduced in secular mindfulness practices (e.g., Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu et al., 2018), such as repeated application of both past and moment awareness from the ethical point of view (Bodhi, 2013) that moves beyond processing information by means

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of rules and perceptions that are attuned to a particular situation or limited by organizational agendas (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). In addition, right mindfulness is an ethics-based state of mindfulness (Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu & Burton, 2020), considering the impermanent (constant of change of the universe) and dependent arising (interdependence of all phenomena) nature of internal and external relationships, guided by the other Noble Eightfold Path principles (right action, right intention, right view, right effort, right livelihood, right concentration, right speech), which is useful to examine the unprecedented nature of crisis. Therefore, this approach can contribute to crisis management in a number of ways. First, nonconceptual mindfulness is based on the notion of impermanence—a perspective that examines phenomena and life in a constant state of flux and as non-enduring (Van Gordon et  al., 2018), facilitating a willingness to reflect on and be open to change. Second, it liberates a non-judgmental awareness based on an emergent experience and wider engagement with cognitive and affective phenomena (Bodhi, 1994; Kudesia & Nyima, 2015) on the basis of lived experience over abstraction (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001). Lastly, it can guide individuals to mindfully process and eliminate biased assumptions, as an assumption is a contextual perception that is subject to change and empty in nature. This helps to understand how individuals develop a shared understanding of reality, taking into account the presence of shared beliefs and taken-forgranted assumptions within a social field (Bourdieu, 2000) to cultivate an analytical perspective to facilitate understanding of organizational phenomena/issues without individual bias, through reflecting on memories of past experiences and modifying that experience using new contextual information to navigate future negative responses (Foa & Kozak, 1986).

 avigating a Mindful Culture N for Crisis Preparedness Effective and proactive crisis management is all about crisis-prepared organization (Pauchant & Mitroff, 1988; Smith, 1990; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993; Pearson & Clair, 1998). The main factor that determines whether the organization is crisis-prepared or crisis-prone lies in its culture (Smith,

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1990; Mitroff, 2005) since organizational culture can govern behaviors, attitudes, and methods of communication in difficult situations (Schraeder et al., 2005), and can either facilitate or constrain building the required capabilities for crisis management (Mitroff, 2005). Organizational culture increases a company’s crisis-preparedness (Veil, 2011) and differentiates the crisis-prepared and crisis-prone organization (Deverell & Olsson, 2010; Topper & Lagadec, 2013). Based on Mitroff’s (1989) onion model of crisis management, we lay out how mindfulness practices can facilitate crisis preparedness for organizations via mindful awareness of impermanence to navigate organizational defensive mechanisms, non-judgmental and cognitive awareness to navigate organizational assumptions, and mindful bias processing to navigate organizational structure (see Fig. 2.1). Aware of outdated, disengagement from habitual patterns, organizational flexibility

Mindful bias processing to navigate organizational structure and plans

Non-judgmental awareness and cognitive awareness to mindful evaluation

Core organizational identify: mindful awareness of impermanence to navigate defensive mechanisms

Fig. 2.1  Mindfulness for crisis preparedness (Source: Adopted from Mitroff (1989))

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Mindful awareness of impermanence to navigate defensive mechanisms in organizations—Understanding impermanence is a fundamental facilitator of willingness to change. Impermanence helps organizational actors come to terms with the fact that it is natural for life to be uncertain and that trauma and crisis can occur at any time in life as a normal cycle of life and the universe (Cacciatore & Flint, 2012; Cacciatore et al., 2014). Mindful awareness through lived experiences facilitates awareness of how phenomena exist in interdependent relationships (Brown & Ryan, 2003). With such awareness, at the intra-organizational level, individuals are more willing to be aware of the outdated routines, belief systems, and processes that may not be compatible with the sense of urgency within organizations to facilitate the needed change (Cegarra-Navarro & Wensley, 2019), moving individual frames from passively coping to a crisis to proactively managing the situation (Weick & Putnam, 2006). At the inter-organizational level, the appreciation of impermanence promotes awareness of unexpected and unprecedented changes through the rise and fall of the process of dependent arising (Schroeder, 2004) that may be beyond an organization’s control to collaboratively govern potential shared problems caused by any externally induced crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. With such awareness, organizations may be more willing to reorient organizational values, norms, behaviors, cognitive structures, dominant logics, or core assumptions (Cegarra-Navarro et al., 2014; Sinkula, 2002) according to the new circumstances while considering knowledge exchange with other organizations. To respond to a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, collaboration across organizations is important to build up a resilient system (Orth & Schuldis, 2021) to facilitate plans for short, medium, and long term that can help to reenergize and rebalance economies (Michie & West, 2020). For example, Prisma Health, a South Carolina-based organization, partnered with Johnson & Johnson Ethicon division to enhance capacity and distribution infrastructure based on a flattened structure with an open-­ source approach in sharing a mission to collaboratively design and distribute emergency ventilator-expansion devices (De Smet et al., 2020). A study by McKinsey and the Harvard Business School (Handscomb et al., 2020) found that when organizations are more aware of the ‘impermanent’ nature of the business context by building up agile transformations

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systems pre-COVID-19, they can perform and move faster post-­ COVID-­19 both at inter- and intra-organizational levels, as they are equipped with cross-functional teams, empowered frontline teams, and clear data on outputs and outcomes, which have proved critical to adapting to the COVID-19 crisis. With mindful awareness of impermanence, defensive mechanisms such as denial (refusal to acknowledge threatening realities), idealization (idealization of a person, object, or organization), disavowal (discrediting importance of threatening realities), and fixation (rigid commitment to a particular course of action) (Elliott et  al., 2021; Mitroff et  al., 1988; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993) are rejected in organizations. However, over-­ reliance on the notion of impermanence may cause organizations to focus more on moment-awareness and feed-forward rather than feed-backward to learn from past experiences, since failures and painful lessons are part of the process of mindful awareness (Vu & Nguyen, 2022). Non-judgmental awareness and cognitive/evaluative awareness to navigate organizational assumptions/beliefs—Mindfulness has been described as “a kind of nonelaborative, non-judgmental, present-centred awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is” (Bishop et al., 2004, p. 232). Such a conceptualization can facilitate the disengagement from habitual patterns of discursive and affective reactivity in organizations to allow more reflection, rather than imprisonment of habits and compulsions. On the other hand, as introduced in various presentations of Abhidharma—part of the Buddhist Canon analyzing the realms of experience and the world given in such experience into basic elements—and the Satipaṭth ̣ āna Sutta—a widely studied discourse in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, the foundation for contemporary Vipassana meditational practice—mindfulness extends the present-centered non-­judgmental awareness as it involves the ability to attend to and retain experience to develop a  clear understanding of the experience, to make sense of the information delivered by our cognitive apparatus, and to attain the ability to recollect working memory to keep relevant information active and integrate it within meaning patterns for purposeful activities in the future (Dreyfus, 2011; Jha et al., 2010). In other words, mindfulness involves retentive ability, cognitive transformations, and the evaluative ability to

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examine the beneficial or detrimental nature of individual and organizational assumptions in preparing for a crisis. This evaluative ability of mindfulness is particularly crucial to respond to the need to consider ‘new normal’ states to improve operational resilience, embrace remote work, or reimagine alternative methods of sustainable operation (e.g., training to enhance technological capabilities to establish online/digitally sustainable operational platforms) to create a new competitive advantage in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Verma & Gustafsson, 2020). Mindful evaluations may help individuals and organizations to move away from being attached to a wider organizational identity and assumptions that may result in a crisis-prone rather than a crisis-prepared organization (Deverell & Olsson, 2010; Topper & Lagadec, 2013). It is important to note that over-attachment knowledge gained from mindful evaluations might run the risk of drawing organizations back to mindless routines constraining mindful awareness of impermanence (Vu & Nguyen, 2022). Mindful bias processing to navigate organizational structure and plans for crisis preparedness—To facilitate the pre-crisis state (Bundy et al., 2017) in preparing for potential strategic and structural changes, it is crucial that organizations build dynamic capabilities, and promote flexibility, moving away from static organizational norms, routines, structure, or strategy, and exploring the potential possibilities for any changes needed in times of crisis. Most organizations tend to embrace certain types of routines or structures as primary means to achieve their goals (March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982), or as sources of accountability and political protection needed to assist organizations to operate effectively and efficiently (Feldman & Pentland, 2003). However, organizational static structures and routines can lead to stagnation, inflexibility, and mindlessness (Ashforth & Fried, 1988; Gersick & Hackman, 1990; Langer, 1989; Vu et al., 2018). For instance, routines are usually based on experiences and become an automatic performance that may lack vigilance, and may entail critical thinking that may result in biased or over-simplified analysis, and mindless decision-making (Ashforth & Fried, 1988). Hence, routines can be problematic in crisis management as they can create barriers for flexibility (Gersick & Hackman, 1990) and blind spots for organizational change (Becke, 2014). Moving away from different forms of bias is particularly important at both intra- and inter-­organizational levels.

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At the inter-organizational level, without bias, there are higher levels of connectivity that increase network relationships within and beyond organizations, information sharing, and the development of trust and reciprocity (Diani, 2003), allowing the exchange of inter-organizational ideas to occur more effectively (Putnam, 1995). At the pre-crisis stage, mindful sensorial processing encourages communication with stakeholders at the inter-organizational level by capturing the needed information, staying alert, and having a moral judgment of the received information, such as allowing an effective exchange of inter-organizational ideas, considering alternative interpretations of available information, and re-­ examining habitual or comfortable states of routine (Cegarra-Navarro & Wensley, 2019). The biased and rigid organizational structure can affect communication at later stages of the crisis in the form of blaming and scapegoating culture (Abo-Murad & Abdullah, 2019). Unbiased processing helps limit misinformation, leading to ineffective actions, overreactions, or underreactions (Pennycook et al., 2020). For instance, when risk perceptions of COVID-19 are affected by more than one factor, such as societal, cultural, and psychological factors, they influence preparedness and planning (Giritli Nygren & Olofsson, 2020). Mindful sensorial process helps to filter out disruptions, such as bias and the infodemic during the COVID-19 crisis (Vu and Nguyen, 2022). An infodemic, which includes rumors, stigma, and conspiracy theories, makes it difficult to find credible sources for guidance and updates (Pulido et al., 2020) during a crisis. A mindful bias processing approach is also essential at an  intra-­ organizational level to assist organizational members in filtering out any harmful or misleading information leading to further disruptions. This approach informs individuals about being aware of and responding and behaving attentively and appropriately to others (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Condon, 2017), facilitating prosocial and positive emotions (Fredrickson et al., 2015; Lutz et al., 2008), and encouraging interpersonal kindness (Fredrickson et  al., 2017), empathy, and felt connections with others (Shapiro & Schwartz, 2000), while reducing non-empathetic and negative emotional and cognitive habits (Kang et  al., 2013; Vago, 2014). Furthermore, it helps organizational members to exchange ideas and to make sense of the information while maintaining ethical integrity as ethics is one of the three important pillars (ethics, mental training, wisdom)

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of the Buddhist path of mindfulness (Kapleau, 1989). With such dimensions constituting the notion of compassion embedded in right mindfulness, it can confront exploitative systems of management and power structure but with skillful attentiveness (Slott, 2011). In other words, mindful bias processing involves retentive ability, cognitive transformations, and an ability to evaluate the nature of mental states and information processing. Such non-simplified interpretations and processing of information surpass standard information processing through context-­ free rules and perceptions, or through a plan manipulated by the organization’s data control (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, p.  24). Thus, they facilitate an approach that involves dynamic interaction of both information receivers and senders that embraces the dependent arising and context-­sensitive awareness in mindfulness.

Conclusions Lack of preparedness is often the case for a number of impending crises (e.g., global warming, poverty, the soil crisis) (Timmis & Brüssow, 2020), and this has also been observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the importance of preparedness for crisis responsiveness for potential future catastrophes. Preparedness can provide individuals and organizations with willingness and openness to change, particularly in a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which can lead to transformation in signs and symbols, rituals, and underlying assumptions before, during, and after the crisis (Spicer, 2020). For instance, preparedness of employees and organizations for unforeseen contingencies and provisions, preparing labor force, and aftereffects during COVID-19 have proven to be significant in navigating negative outcomes (Kaushal & Srivastava, 2021). In this chapter, we have introduced a nonconceptual mindfulness approach that can provide organizations with the preparedness for crisis management on the basis of mindful, non-judgmental, and cognitive evaluative awareness that can liberate defensive mechanisms and bias both at individual and organizational levels. This approach provides an alternative lens that appreciates the impermanent state of phenomena to reduce rigid responsiveness under adverse conditions.

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3 Buddhist-Enacted Practices: Implications for Coping Mechanisms in Unprecedented Times Mai Chi Vu

Introduction Unprecedented times and grand challenges (McLaren, 2020) such as increased social inequality, climate change, energy and sustainability crises, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic have put the human species at risk (Pio & Waddock, 2020). Scholars argue that neoliberal tenets of self-­ interest, hyper-individualism, free markets, and the desire for constant growth (Monbiot, 2016; Pirson, 2017) have been dominating management systems (Blum et al., 2020; Lovins et al., 2018; Monbiot, 2016; Waddock, 2016), which need to be re-examined to find alternative ways to mitigate such challenges. Pio and Waddock (2020) suggest that indigenous knowledge and values can offer different sets of managerial values to foster the redistribution of shared well-being and holistic collaboration for a more flouring world. Spiritual resources and skills can facilitate

M. C. Vu (*) Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_3

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more effective ways of tackling crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and future challenges (Chirico, 2021). This chapter introduces a selected number of Buddhist practices that embrace other-centeredness and context-­sensitivity such as right mindfulness, the Middle Way, skillful means, and non-self to respond to the need to navigate the impermanent nature of the universe to better cope with crises and to better attend to the ‘new normal’ context coming out of the pandemic, referring to economic, cultural, and social transformations that affect individuals’ perceptions and lifestyles (El-Erian, 2010) and disruptions within organizations (Caligiuri et al., 2020).

 ight Mindfulness vs. Secular R Mindfulness Practices Mindfulness has received increased attention in various industries. Global companies such as Google, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and Monsanto, and even the US Army, have been reported to use mindfulness in the workplace (Stone, 2014). According to Purser and Loy (2013), this trend locates mindfulness as a universal panacea for solving organizational problems and associated dysfunctionalities. The rise of secular mindfulness originated from the early work of Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990), who developed a mindfulness-based stress reduction program at the Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Since then, mindfulness-based interventions have been widely applied in psychology, psychotherapy, education, medicine, and organizational life (Baer, 2006; Segal et  al., 2002; Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Secular interpretations of mindfulness have been highly criticized (Purser & Loy, 2013; Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu & Gill, 2018; Vu et al., 2018). The dissociation of modern mindfulness practices from any particular belief system aims at attracting a broad spectrum of the population in secular Western societies (Monteiro et al., 2015). However, secular mindfulness practices and meditation programs tend not to focus on the moral or ethical elements of individuals’ choices of behavior (Donald et  al., 2019; Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu et  al., 2018), which can

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paradoxically reinforce individuals’ sense of self rather than transcend it (Monteiro et  al., 2015). For instance, in 1996, Monsanto CEO Bob Shapiro implemented corporate mindfulness programs; in 2007, Google created the course “Search Inside Yourself ” to promote the value of all living beings and individuals’ well-being (Kim, 2018). However, Monsanto’s scandal of illegally storing agricultural chemicals in Hawaii (Robin, 2014) and Google’s data privacy scandal and the Google global protests against sexual misconduct (Kaufman et  al., 2021) show how ethical features were abandoned in the process of industrializing mindfulness practices. The rising application of secular mindfulness practices in organizations has been characterized as a quick-fix McMindfulness (Hyland et  al., 2015; Purser & Loy, 2013; Vu & Gill, 2018). Secular mindfulness practices are mainly based on attention enhancement, moment-awareness, stress reduction, and present-centered non-­ judgmental awareness, which are far from the Buddhist mindfulness tradition based on the recollection of both present and past experiences (Bodhi, 2011, p.  23; Gethin, 2011). Such a secular orientation has reduced mindfulness to its utility to serve organizational purposes rather than embracing its ethical and holistic practice that embeds intellectual wisdom and physical concentration (Qiu & Rooney, 2019; Vu & Gill, 2018). As a result, secular mindfulness tends to be a marketable technique for organizational life, neglecting the diverse religious, cultural, and spiritual approaches to its different traditions (Goleman, 1988; Singh, 2010). Amid unprecedented changes (e.g., financial crisis, disruptions by the recent COVID-19 pandemic), it has become crucial to move beyond the narrow focus on moment-awareness mindfulness to embrace mindfulness practices that champion compassion and impermanence. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, moving away from self-­ interest and hyper-individualism to promote solidarity, interpersonal relationships, and compassion has become important (Pleyers, 2020). Mindfulness can be more effective when it combines different qualities, not over-emphasizing moment-awareness (Badham & King, 2021). Mindfulness, hope, and compassion are key features of resonant leadership (McKee & Boyatzis, 2005); mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion are central components of the successful “mind of the leader”

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(Hougaard & Carter, 2018), and mindfulness in motion combining yoga stretches and mindful awareness facilitated a Mindful Medical Center where health systems were improved and burnout of healthcare professionals was mitigated (Klatt et al., 2020). Right mindfulness (Pāli: sati) is a skillful means that represents an ethics-based state of mindfulness, considering the impermanent and dependent-arising nature of relationships, guided by the other Noble Eightfold Path principles (right action, right intention, right view, right effort, right livelihood, right concentration, right speech). The notion of right mindfulness is different from the Westernized and popular interpretation of mindfulness that emphasizes moment-awareness and stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Purser & Milillo, 2015). Right mindfulness as a skillful means refers to a presence of mind based on the capability to recollect past experiences to expand the breadth of attention and moment-awareness to accumulate wisdom (Anālayo, 2018; Bodhi, 2011). The practice of right mindfulness is directed toward the liberation of suffering based on knowledge and wisdom (Swierczek & Jousse, 2014). Thus, right mindfulness is not merely about meditation (Brown & Ryan, 2003), but rather wisely using the accumulation of experience and knowledge, and mastering past experience and moment-awareness to enhance personal development, learning, and self-transformation (Purser & Milillo, 2015) by learning to let go of extreme attachments. Past experiences inform potential problems, while moment-awareness raises consciousness toward current contextual constraints, and therefore the combination of both is crucial. Wisdom-­ enacted states of mindfulness based on both past experiences and present awareness (Purser & Milillo, 2015; Vu et  al., 2018) contribute to the exploration of new knowledge, free from perceived assumptions and ideologies. Compassion training in right mindfulness is an affective state rooted in a caring motivation system that can facilitate attitudes against hyper-­ individualism. Hyper-individualism was one of the main drivers that significantly affected individualistic orientations that prioritized the self and immediate kin as opposed to the wider community (Pleyers, 2020). Such orientations have led to more cases and higher mortality rates due to individuals’ unwillingness to adhere to epidemic prevention measures (e.g., Maaravi et  al., 2021), influencing the implementation of

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organizational policies. Compassion meditative training can enhance prosocial behavior across different delivery mechanisms and social contexts (e.g., Condon et al., 2013; Weng et al., 2013). For instance, developed from practices known as ngondro in Tibetan Buddhist traditions (Rinpoche, 1990), Sustainable Compassion Training (Makransky, 2007, 2011) is based on the practice of ‘receiving care,’ whereby meditators visualize a benefactor or a caring moment in which another being provides a source of love and compassion. In this approach, the practitioner evokes the caring moment to activate their own love and compassion as the basis for extending caring. However, the application of any compassion training (e.g., thought and behavioral practice) is subject to certain conditions. Compassion is not a particular emotion or the same as caring motivation but reflects the uniting of caring motivation with complex social intelligence and emotional textures that are context-dependent (Gilbert, 2019). For instance, compassion has to compete with other motives that can be unconscious, such as self-interest or prestige-seeking within a group. Further, in reciprocal relationships (e.g., Bargh, 2017; Gilbert, 2019) in environments that may contradict prosocial goals, such as corporate settings promoting productivity or economic gain, showing compassion can be problematic and questionable (e.g., Monteiro et al., 2015). In healthcare contexts, compassion training can enhance compassionate healthcare practice with improved leadership and refined performance of healthcare professionals, when it becomes a key component and vision of healthcare organizations (Sinclair et al., 2021), On the other hand, right mindfulness, and its ethical foundations, represents a deep and rich learning process. Mindfulness is embedded with moral principles of compassion and loving-kindness (Hyland, 2017) and “encompasses and is embedded in a range of not only cognitive, but also emotional, social, and ethical dimensions” (Grossman, 2015, p. 88). Ethics, mental training, and wisdom are also three important pillars of the Buddhist path (Kapleau, 1989), which are reflected in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path but often neglected in Western interpretations of secular mindfulness. The notion of ethics can be trained in the contemplation practice of phenomena (dhammanupassana)—the development of wisdom for critical reflexivity, in which ethics is crucial to identify hindrances, understand their arising, and identify ways to remove or

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avoid such hindrances in the future (Bodhi, 2010, p. 92). For instance, ethical mindfulness training can develop consumers’ ethical decision-­ making skills by increasing their awareness of potential ethical issues linked to consumption, and guide them to purchase in moral and ethical ways that would contribute to sustainable and responsible consumption (Gentina et  al., 2021). Right mindfulness takes into consideration the ability to let go of ego and prior assumptions, which is an important value for the required ongoing adjustment to impermanence and to ethical decision making (Pless et al., 2017). It moves away from the preservation of selfhood in various forms of pursuits that can lead to selfish intentions (Van Gordon et  al., 2018). It is important that whatever mindfulness interventions are taking place in organizational contexts, the moral principles underpinning the Noble Eightfold Path and its instrumental nature in fostering a form of virtue ethics (Gowans, 2015) should be emphasized. In the next section of the chapter, the practice of the Middle Way is introduced to unpack possible ways to balance and navigate aspects of attachment styles associated with an increased risk of psychological distress in response to the COVID-19 outbreak (Moccia et al., 2020) that can influence organizational behavior.

The Middle Way In Buddhism, the Middle Path (Way) (Pāli: Majjhimāpaṭipadā) reflects a moderate way to avoid extremes of self-mortification and indulgence (Schroeder, 2004, p.  13). This also “avoids the extremes of nihilism (which says that all entities are non-existent in reality) and eternalism (which says that some or all entities, in reality, have an existence independent of conditions)” (Burton, 2001, p. 182). Buddhist economists perceive wealth from the viewpoint of the Middle Path. Wealth alone is not evil, as long as its accumulation is non-harming, because organizations cannot contribute to society or serve people without having the means to do so (Welford, 2006). Money in particular and resources, in general, should be a means to the end, not an end in itself (Gill, 2014, p. 141). This approach can provide an alternative lens through which to view

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neoliberal, capitalist ideology in management, and the pursuit of material growth and wealth has been dominating management and economic thinking (e.g., Lovins et al., 2018; Pirson, 2017; Pio & Waddock, 2020) to shift thinking based on values that promote other-focused orientations and collective action to move beyond the focus on the managerial elite (e.g., Bell & Bridgman, 2018; Kornberger & Mantere, 2020; McLaren, 2020; Pio & Waddock, 2020). Fenner (1995) links systems thinking and Buddhism through the Middle Way—avoiding extremeness to avoid incomplete knowledge. Fenner (1995) highlighted how the systems-cybernetic approach of systems thinking shares similarities to the Middle Way via insight into openness and the avoidance of extreme positions, where knowledge is attained with insights that identify antecedent causes and conditions of a given phenomenon (Shen & Midgley, 2007). The Middle Way can also be applied to resist temptations to act in one’s own interest to the detriment of the common good, to balance profit, to create sustainability, to encourage non-coercive leadership, and to provide a balanced approach to shortand long-term commitments (Vu, 2021b). The Middle Way has much to contribute to contemporary managerial approaches as it is a balanced approach, “correcting any strong deviations to either the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ away from the ‘middle’ course, locally interpreted in context” (Shen & Midgley, 2007, p. 172). It does not represent a ‘half-hearted’ effort but a combined vigorous, sincere external action and internal attitude of serenity and willingness to accept outcomes (Vallabh & Singhal, 2014, p. 765) in response to the impermanent nature of phenomena. In other words, the Middle Way can guide moderation of attachment to a certain desire or perception that could limit reflexive orientations to acknowledge the significance of experience that leads to openness and a form of reflective intervention in crisis as disruptive events and moments enable the formation of perception and thought anew (Bube, 2021). Apart from the Middle Way to navigate extremes and attachments, context-sensitivity—the ability to perceive cues to contextual demands in different situations (Bonanno et al., 2020)—is a key component of resilience and self-regulation in unprecedented times (Lenzo et  al., 2021). This chapter will now introduce the notion of skillful means that can facilitate skillful and contextual mechanisms in response to crises.

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Skillful Means Skillful means (Pāli: Upāya) in Buddhism is a technique and a method of interpretation that is relevant and applicable in contemporary organizational workplaces. Skillful means refers to the ability to adapt the teaching of Dharma according to individual circumstances (Mitchell, 2008). The Buddha demonstrated the Dharma in a variety of forms of karmic reasoning, with a variety of choices of words, and a wealth of skillful means toward the path of enlightenment (Kern, 1989; Lindtner, 1986) with the intention to teach non-attachment through skillful means. Buddhist stories about skillful means helpfully address spiritual and religious diversity. For example, in the Brahma Vihara (Rhys-Davids, 1899), the Buddha encounters two young Brahmins who are confused about their Hindu teachings. The Buddha guides them on how to reunite with the Hindu god—Brahma. This instruction apparently contradicts the Buddha’s philosophy of “non-self,” which includes the metaphysical being Brahma (Schroeder, 2004). The inconsistency here refers not to the truth in the abstract but to the response to manifestations of suffering. This skillful means refers to the Buddha’s ability to shift viewpoints and wisdom unbounded by any single doctrine or practice. It exemplifies Buddhist compassion. Pye (1978) states that the same Buddhist doctrine can be either a barrier or a door, depending on how it is practiced, and the effectiveness and value of any content in the doctrines do not conflict with how the Buddhist Dharma plays itself out in people’s lives. As such, skillful means yields a context-sensitive approach without limiting any knowledge or means to attain knowledge with the assumption that there is no single teaching or practice sufficient to cover the various karmic differences in the world (Schroeder, 2004). For instance, free expressions of personal emotions or critical expressions may very likely be considered offensive in Eastern face-saving cultures compared to Western cultures (Agyekum, 2002), which can influence cross-cultural management practices. Skillful means can help individuals to skillfully adapt positive perceptions flexibly, without extreme attachments to expectations, thus stimulating a context-sensitive mindfulness approach (Vu et al., 2018). Silence, as a skillful means, for example, can facilitate reflexivity,

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self-­decentralization, and processual transformation, subject to different interpretations, understandings, and enactments from different individuals (Vu & Fan, 2021). Skillful means can be used as an approach to cope with contextual challenges (Vu & Burton, 2021; Vu & Tran, 2021; Vu, 2021a) by skillfully interpreting what is right and wrong, and what is better in that particular situation. For instance, skillful means can be applied to contextualizing work by negotiating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Such contextualization refers to the prioritization of civic and domestic orders (well-being in  local communities) over the fame and industrial (global standards for CSR practices) and the green orders (environmentally sustainable practices) in CSR implementation in Vietnam (Shin et al., 2021). Skillful means can offer a technique for transferring managerial practices in ways that respect organizational and individual differences (Vu et al., 2018). Such an approach would promote a more reflexive strategy in dynamic, ill-structured, ambiguous, and unpredictable systems or in routine-based and history-dependent ones (Cyert & March, 1963; March & Simon, 1958). Skillful means represents a “mindful” tool (Vu et al., 2018) to more flexibly and practically balance paradoxes within organizations. Since in contemporary contexts or in crisis managers often face multi-foci realities and complex organizational issues, it is useful to have mindful observations “from the within” and critical thinking “from the outside” by acknowledging past experiences, reassessing the present situation, and exploring future opportunities and challenges (Hernes & Irgens, 2013; Shotter, 2006; Zundel, 2013). Skillful means emphasizes a process of change and transformation since Buddhist wisdom is embodied in the process of responding to the world (Schroeder, 2011), which can foster constructive dialogue and understanding in organizational context, conflict, and crisis. There is no universally effective managerial practice applicable to every context. Skillful means makes sense of the context skillfully on the basis of compassion and non-attachment (Vu et  al., 2018). The concept of skillful means can be particularly helpful in facilitating skillful and contextual interpretations of challenging and paradoxical ethical issues, just as the 14th Dalai Lama has explained:

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In principle, from the Buddhist point of view, one needs to be sensitive to the individual contexts so, sometimes you have contexts where the benefit to the individual has to be weighed against the wider implications of the actual society, the wider community. Also, one has to take into account the damaging effects of a particular cause of action as opposed to the benefits the individual will reap. Or the benefits to the community have to be weighed against the damage to the individual. The main point is not to confine your evaluation purely to a single situation but rather to look at its broader implications. (quoted in French, 2007, p. 657)

Non-Self Non-self (Pāli: anattā) in Buddhism refers to the ability to let go of the ego or self and associated desires causing human suffering (Goleman, 2003). The notion of non-self in Buddhism is developed from the theory of emptiness in asserting that all phenomena exist in dependence on each other (Thurman, 2005). Emptiness theory helps to explain why there is no self in the relational nature of the universe and how emptiness is form, and form is emptiness (Streng, 1967). In Buddhism, there is a metaphysical position that denies the ontological reality of the self (Ho, 1995) which indicates why individual ego or self-hood has no independent or inherent existence but exists in relation to all others in a context of continuous change (Cooey, 1990). Moving away from self-centeredness within non-self can facilitate the understanding of interconnectedness, which is crucial in contemporary management to identify complex systems dynamics so that necessary organizational changes can be adopted quickly (Metcalf & Benn, 2012, 2013). For instance, rival companies (e.g., Ford, McLaren, Unilever, Rolls-Royce, Airbus), instead of focusing on their self-interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, have come together to make ventilators for the NHS, which shows how the right tools in the right hands and with the right need made all the difference in navigating the challenges of the pandemic while making social impacts (Trotman, 2020). The notion of non-self extends moral responsibility beyond individual motives (Fasoli, 2017), to be responsible for other individuals without

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individual greed, aversion, or delusions of the existence of a ‘self ’ (Purser & Milillo, 2015). This perspective moves beyond most contemporary Western theories of the self that imply a form of hyper-individualistic conception of the self (Berger, 1983; Rawls, 1999), focusing on self-­ actualization and self-fulfillment in ideas of moral cosmopolitanism, idealization, abstraction, and acontextuality that maximize own interest without obligations to make society better (Ivanhoe et al., 2018). Non-­ self is somewhat similar to Follett’s (1930, 1998/1918) philosophy of ‘togetherness’ and ‘collective will’ that shows how through appreciating interdependence and the group principle instead of individualism, the individual can find his/her true self. Non-self helps to recognize how we are a part of the larger society, grounded in a humanistic approach with a shared connection with others (Ivanhoe, 2017). Vu and Burton (2021) found that non-self can facilitate the idea of a contextual-relational-­ processual perspective to encourage individuals to cultivate self-­ decentralization through continuous contextualized practice and learning. It can be a strategy for moral reasoning that moves beyond moral rationalization (interpreting the immoral action as less immoral), moral decoupling (dissociating immoral judgments from job-related performance judgment), and the overemphasis on judgments relating to the self-concept (Cowan & Yazdanparast, 2021). Therefore, organizational practices should aim at promoting a culture and psychological contracts that extend beyond an emphasis on the desired self that can colonize organizational members’ identities and humanity in organizations (Johnsen & Gudmand-Høyer, 2010; Vu & Burton, 2021). Promoting the self as de-centered can enhance organizational capacity for compassion (Madden et  al., 2012) since individuals can modify their roles, behaviors, and group norms from self-interest to spread compassion through the organization via their interaction with other stakeholders (Grant & Patil, 2012; Rynes, et al., 2012). However, in reality, bringing non-self into organizational practices can be problematic when there is an over-attachment to the practice of nonself (Vu, 2021a; Vu & Burton, 2021). Individuals can experience strong pressures to ‘re-center’ the self through a temptation to strategize selfidentity as an ‘enlightened’ version of self as a kind of leadership brand (Vu & Burton, 2021) by constructing a fantasized identity with

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self-justified reasoning to facilitate the ‘enlightened’ version of who they want to be (Brown & Toyoki, 2013). For instance, individuals can utilize karmic reasoning to justify self-serving or individualistic behavior so long as the ‘ends’ are perceived as collective and social (e.g., justifying bribery on the basis of good intent and positive community outcomes). This reflects how morality can be reducible to psychology as it matters little what we do since wrongdoings are acceptable as long as our attitudes and dispositions are correct (Reichenbach, 1990, p. 27). There are struggles within the practice of non-self that would likely dissolve when individuals are no longer disrupted by discerning, non-­ discerning, or dualistic perceptions, and acknowledge the absence of an absolute self-existent substance or a substratum in all phenomena (Vu & Burton, 2021).

Concluding Remarks This chapter introduces a selected number of Buddhist practices that embrace other-centeredness and context-sensitivity in response to unprecedented times. Hyper-individualism remains one of the biggest challenges in dealing with crises. For instance, individualistic orientations were found in incidents of terrorist attacks (Daniel et al., 2013) and during the global financial crisis in 2008 (Sortheix et al., 2019), when self-­ protection values overrode collective efforts facilitating coping mechanisms. Unger (1977) suggests that people tend to revert to hyper-­ individualism and potentially find refuge in neo-tribalism when they see the sovereignty of the state consistently undermined by corporate power. Self-seeking behaviors have made the COVID-19 pandemic much more dangerous, which highlights the need to stop romanticizing market society and hyper-individualism (Klinenberg, 2020). Hyper-individualistic orientations can be navigated by Buddhist-enacted practices. Compassion mindfulness training and the notion of non-self embrace other-centeredness that highlights the importance of other-focused orientations and collective action to move beyond individualism and a need for a change in contemporary organizations to move beyond the dominance of the managerial elite (e.g., Bell & Bridgman, 2018; Kornberger & Mantere,

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2020; McLaren, 2020; Pio & Waddock, 2020), which partly contributed to instrumental and capitalist ideology influencing materialism and individualistic orientations (e.g., Lovins et  al., 2018; Pirson, 2017; Pio & Waddock, 2020). Furthermore, the Middle Way approach can be activated to suppress temptations and the pursuit of material growth and wealth to attain a more balanced approach that focuses more on othercenteredness and sustainable long-term orientations and outcomes. Perhaps, by revisiting the Middle Way of wealth creation proposed by Payutto (1994): (i) wealth should not be acquired by exploitation but in a morally sound way; (ii) wealth should be saved and protected as an investment for the further development of livelihood and as an insurance against future adversity; (iii) wealth should be used to support the self, social harmony, and community welfare; and  (iv) wealth should not become an obsession. Organizations and policy-makers can start thinking about alternative ways of balancing and managing wealth to better prepare for unprecedented times and to navigate within the context of ‘the new normal.’ On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic reflects a phenomenon of transience, interdependence, and unpredictability. Context-sensitivity remains important in workplaces to navigate such unpredictability. A skillful means approach offers an alternative way for organizations to context-sensitively address challenges in crisis. A skillful means approach helps managers gain a practical sense of collective awareness without self-­ fixations (Brummans et al., 2013, Vu et al., 2018) to be in full “contact with the realities and needs of the situation without self-centered ego or by preconceptions or methods” (Rosch, 2008, p. 153). It also embraces flexibility by understanding how phenomena operate in impermanence to articulate a more contemplative approach that facilitates eventfulness of situations, temperance, sensitivity, and reflection (Vu et  al., 2018) rather than imposing fixed interpretations or organizational policies that are based on predetermined outcomes or past experiences that may no longer be relevant in the context of the ‘new normal.’ Skillful means can also facilitate learning from the different perspectives of different organizational players, in turn facilitating collective mindfulness, which helps both managers and organizational members understand the context better (Vu et al., 2018, p. 588). It is, however, important to highlight that

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skillful means does not imply making sense of the context by all means. Skillful means can demonstrate its whole meaning and power in practice only if it is initiated in the relevant context out of compassion (Vu et al., 2018; Vu & Gill, 2018).

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Part III Confucianism

4 Harmony in Taiwan’s Covid Response and MacIntyrean Goods Irene Chu

Introduction Whilst the Covid pandemic has been literally catastrophic in terms of the number of people dying and becoming ill, there are, however, some positives to be discerned in the darkness. For example, the interruption to normal life has enabled many people to rethink their relation to what was previously a taken for granted way of living, resulting in what has been termed “the Great Resignation” (Financial Times, 2022). A recent survey (Microsoft Corporation, 2021) claimed that 41% of the global workforce were considering giving notice and changing their job, with there being a growing sense that “Americans are rethinking their work-life balance”. An area of particular interest is how different countries have handled the pandemic and especially trying to analyse the factors behind the different

I. Chu (*) Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_4

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Covid Statistics for Selected Countries

Deaths per 100, 000

3.0 USA

2.5

UK

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–

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150 200 Cases per 100, 000

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Fig. 4.1  Covid statistics for selected countries (data from https://coronavirus.jhu. edu/, visited on 02/02/2022)

responses. In this respect, countries in the Far East have generally had lower case and death rates than those in the West, as shown by Fig. 4.1. This figure shows Covid cases and deaths per 100,000 people in countries selected to illustrate the contrast between Eastern countries influenced by Confucianism, such as Taiwan and China, and Western countries such as the UK and US. The rates for the Eastern countries are strikingly lower than the Western countries and it is this difference, focusing on Taiwan, that this chapter seeks to explore. Taiwan’s response has been especially praised since its rates have been amongst the lowest in the world (The Guardian, 2021a). Many reasons for this have been proposed, such as previous experience with the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the ability to close borders as an island (Summers et al., 2020). In addition, elements of Confucianism, such as an emphasis on duty to others rather than individual rights (Kim et al., 2022), have also been credited with being behind this success, and these are of more interest for present purposes. Comparisons have been made between “collective Asia” and the “hyper-individualistic West” (Dessein, 2022), and the Confucian relational self has been used to explain how Eastern societies sacrifice the small self of the individual in favour of the big self that is society (Chu & Vu, 2021).

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However, in this chapter we will investigate a different aspect of Confucianism, that of harmony, and the role that this may have played in Taiwan’s Covid response. To do so, we will bring in the results of a recent empirical study by the author (Chu & Moore, 2020), which investigated whether concepts from the Western moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre were relevant in the Confucian society of Taiwan. These will be used to illuminate my argument and demonstrate how a combination of Eastern and Western concepts can also lead to a harmonious whole. I will develop a new slant based on MacIntyrean concepts—that eudaimonia or human flourishing results from a balance of internal and external goods and that the Confucian concept of harmony enables this balance to be more on the side of internal than external goods in Taiwan compared to the West. However, I recognise that such concepts as Confucian harmony and MacIntyrean internal and external goods may need some introduction and so I will briefly review aspects of Confucianism and MacIntyre’s work before summarizing the results of the empirical study and then presenting my central argument.

Confucian Harmony Under Confucianism, the consummate life is advanced and all things in the world flourish when human feelings are brought into productive harmony (Ames, 2011). The concept of harmony (he) has been cited as being probably the most important in Confucian culture, whilst also arguably the least studied (Li, 2006). It is both a metaphysical and an ethical concept, which emphasizes how the world operates and prescribes how human beings should act (Li, 2008). Harmony between people is regarded as the ultimate goal of personal and social life and is a fundamental value throughout Confucian teaching. It is the “underlying principle of all relationships, the reason why all virtues can be fully realized” (Yao, 2000, p. 173), and social harmony is the basic and overlapping goal of personal, familial, organizational, communal and political lives (Ip, 2009). This notion of harmony is explicitly linked not only to the good of individuals but also to that of larger social units, such as families and society in general (Ivanhoe, 2002). The emphasis is on a more communal

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conception of the good, with the Confucian notion of the self being more relational than individualistic (Ivanhoe, 2002; Ames, 2011). Collective values and interests are prioritized over those of the individual, and consequently social relationships are paramount, taking account of such factors as renqing (empathic reciprocity) (Zhu, 2015). The importance of social relations is also stressed by Rosemont and Ames (2016) in their proposal that Confucianism can be better understood as a role ethic (lunli) rather than a form of virtue ethics, which better characterizes Western autonomous individualism. The emphasis on social relatedness and social roles is also seen in the Confucian concept of the “relational self ”, a very different self from that of the more liberal and individualistic West (Hall & Ames, 1998; Ho, 1995; Yu, 2007; Hwang, 2000). The Confucian relational self is embedded in a social network, can be interpreted only in connection with the community of which s/he is a part (Chan, 2008), and is achieved only in relationship with others. The starting point for these social relations is the family, the governing central metaphor in Chinese culture (Rosemont & Ames, 2016), giving rise to the important concept of family reverence or filial piety which transfers legitimacy to the underlying hierarchy (Hamilton, 1990). This reverence for the family is considered to be the most valued and almost sacred form of relationship (Cheng, 1944), with family interests and relationships being prioritized above others. However, this traditional Confucian thought extends beyond the Western ‘nuclear’ family to encompass five fundamental relationships (wu lun)—those between the emperor and officials, father and son, older brother and younger brother, husband and wife, and between friends (Lau, 1979, 1995). These are all familial in that even the relationship between friends is regarded as being between older and younger brothers, and emperors ruled the state like a family and were often called “Father Kings” (Ip, 2009). Whilst these role-­ based relationships are hierarchical, they also have obligations and responsibilities associated with them. Nonetheless, Confucianism relies upon hierarchy, and the appropriate patterns of deference that define it can be seen as a necessary condition for achieving familial harmony. It is only when this hierarchy involves coercion that relationships are compromised (Ames, 2011).

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In order for relationships to be harmonious, three of the most important Confucian cardinal virtues have to be considered, those of ren, yi and li—benevolence, appropriateness and propriety respectively. These three components “define what is morally acceptable in human society” (Ip, 2009, p. 464) and are the fundamental traits of a morally good individual’s character. However, harmony is not to be understood in the sense of sterile sameness, but rather in the sense of bringing together diverse components to make a harmonious whole, in the same way that music is made up of different notes and food of different ingredients (Rosemont & Ames, 2016). Harmony is distinct but not separable from the concept of the doctrine of the mean (zhong), commonly viewed as centrality and commonality (Yu, 2007), maintaining perfect balance and “the universal basis of every harmony” (Sim, 2007, p. 103). The concept of Confucian harmony has also been applied to business organizations (Ip, 2009; Li, 2006; Romar, 2004). Drucker argued that “the essence of the corporation is social, that is human, organization … it is not based on raw materials or gadgets but on principles of organization—organization not of machines but of human beings, i.e., on social organization” (Drucker, 1983, p. 31). Thus organizations are “essentially a series of human relationships of specialized people performing specialized tasks and organized into specialized functions” (Romar, 2004, p.  204). When all the roles and relationships are performed correctly, society will be organized correctly and harmony will result. It is not, however, only within the firm that relationships need to be considered. Those between firms are obviously also important and, when these relationships are harmonious, there will be a mutual benefit to both (Li, 2006). Taking a wider perspective, the concept of harmony can also be extended to the market, with monopoly being considered to be in conflict with the spirit of harmony (Li, 2008). Clearly there are other aspects of Confucianism which may have been important for Taiwan’s Covid response but, for reasons to be explained in the discussion section, harmony will be my focus. I move on now to briefly introduce aspects of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre.

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MacIntyre’s Conceptual Framework Contemporary philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s importance as a philosopher of virtue is undisputed (Moore, 2015, p. 101), and he is the most widely cited writer after Aristotle in the field of virtue ethics in business (Ferrero & Sison, 2014). Born in Scotland in 1929 and having lived and worked in the US for many years, his importance as a contemporary philosopher of virtue is undisputed (Moore, 2015, p. 101). His international status is demonstrated by the existence of an international academic society devoted to his work and also by the use made of his work across the social sciences (Beadle & Moore, 2011). He is extensively read outside philosophy (Beadle & Moore, 2020; Beadle, 2017), for example in business ethics (e.g. Beadle, 2002; Bernacchio, 2018; Beadle & Moore, 2006; Sinnicks, 2019, 2020) and organizational thought (e.g Alvesson & Willmott, 1992; Anthony, 1986; Du Gay, 1998, 2000; Mangham, 1995; Tsoukas, 2018), including strategy-as-practice (Tsoukas, 2017) and leadership theory (Crossan et al., 2017). MacIntyre builds on Aristotelian concepts, starting with that of mankind’s telos or goal in life being to achieve eudaimonia, which MacIntyre described as “blessedness, happiness, prosperity. It is the state of being well and doing well, of a man’s being well-favoured himself and in relation to the divine” (2007, p. 148). This is made possible by the virtues, which MacIntyre (ibid., p. 148) summarizes as “… precisely those qualities the possession of which will enable an individual to achieve eudaimonia and the lack of which will frustrate his movement toward that telos”. Of central importance here is the virtue of practical reasoning or phronesis, with the emphasis on decisions being made through shared social deliberation of ends and means, and shared social action through practices. This stress on the social context is also apparent in MacIntyre’s definition of practices as “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity” (2007, p. 187), and the exercise of virtues within practices allows individuals to realize the goods internal to that practice, including both “the excellence of the products or services and the perfection of the practitioners in the process” (1994, p.  284,

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2007, pp. 189–190). MacIntyre does not qualify “perfection”, but it can be considered to be equivalent to moral development or flourishing. Thus internal goods are derived from practices and can be considered to include both the excellence of products of the practice and the perfection of the individual in the process (MacIntyre, 1981/2007, pp. 189–190). They make themselves felt in the sense of satisfaction that results from a job well done, being “bound up with an authentically experienced emotional engagement with work” (Fisher & Byrne, 2012, p. 80). These are in contrast to external goods, such as money, power, status and success, which are goods in the sense that they are used instrumentally to obtain other goods. “It is characteristic of what I have called external goods that when achieved they are always some individual’s property and possession … characteristically objects of competition in which there must be losers as well as winners” (MacIntyre, 1981/2007, p.  190). MacIntyre argued that internal goods are more fundamental to human flourishing than external goods but that they have typically become neglected in the pursuit of the external goods (Moore & Beadle, 2006; Moore, 2011, 2012). MacIntyre introduces the example of a child being taught to play chess to illuminate these concepts. Initially, the child is provided motivation by being given sweets, both for playing and additionally for winning. However, if this remains the child’s motivation, they have no reason to not cheat so as to get the additional sweets if the cheating is successful. Nevertheless, in time the child may come to value playing chess because of the internal goods involved—“analytic skill, strategic imagination and competitive intensity” (MacIntyre, 1981/2007, p. 188)—and so now has reasons for not just playing to win for the extra sweets, but to play so as to excel in the way demanded by the game. If the child now cheats, they are not defeating their opponent but rather themselves. In this example, the sweets are examples of external goods, which can be attained in ways other than winning at chess, whilst the goods internal to chess playing can only be attained by playing chess. Internal and external goods have been linked with Weberian value and instrumental rationality respectively (Fisher & Byrne, 2012; Townley, 2002). In this light, internal goods are the reward for the individual from their value rationality driven action, a positive feeling experienced when in harmony with institutions “by enjoying a fit with societal values”

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(Weik, 2019, p. 329). They can also be considered as a “moral phenomenology”, an ephemeral experience associated with a distinctive mode of being which the practice affords (Higgins, 2010). Thus goods, both internal and external, are afforded by practices. However, practices cannot exist for long on their own and need to be housed within institutions if they are to survive: Institutions are characteristically and necessarily concerned with what I have called external goods. They are involved in acquiring money and other material goods; they are structured in terms of power and status, and they distribute money, power and status as rewards. Nor could they do otherwise if they are to sustain not only themselves, but also the practices of which they are the bearers. (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 194)

MacIntyre illustrates the difference between practices and institutions with the following examples: “Chess, physics and medicine are practices; chess clubs, laboratories, universities and hospitals are institutions” (MacIntyre, 2007, p. 194). The institutions in which practices are housed need to be concerned with external goods, such as reputation, profit and most generally success, in order to be able to sustain not only themselves but also the practices of which they are the bearers. MacIntyre’s framework thereby points to an integral tension within practice-institutions between the pursuit of internal goods by practitioners and of external goods by managers and the organizational form, which is why MacIntyre argues that virtues such as justice, courage and truthfulness are needed if practices are not to be corrupted, and the right ordering and balance between the pursuit of internal and external goods is to be maintained. MacIntyre himself has indicated the application of the practice-­ institution framework to business-like activities in his examples of “productive crafts” such as “farming and fishing, architecture and construction” (1994, p. 284). While he maintains that certain business activities such as those in the financial sector can “never be a practice” (cited in Wyma, 2015; see also MacIntyre, 2015), he has provided an example of industrial production which meets the demands of his definition of a practice in Cummins Engine Company (2016, p.  172; see also Beadle, 2017). Thus, he seems to have accepted the proposal originally made by Moore

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and Beadle (2006), and expanded on in Sinnicks (2019), that any organization housing a genuine practice may be re-described as a ‘practice-­ institution combination’. However, within the framework that he offers, MacIntyre is also very sceptical about the autonomy of the modern liberal individual and stresses the importance of the social and cultural order and its constraining effects on agency (MacIntyre, 1999). He also notes that throughout the world “modernity has lessened or destroyed the dominance of older, more traditional institutional forms” (MacIntyre, 1990, p. 3). Thus, we have the concept of practices affording internal and external goods, with eudaimonia being furthered by a balance of these. However, practices need to be housed within institutions in order to be maintained, and institutions are necessarily more concerned with the external goods needed for survival. Consequently, we have a tension, and virtues such as courage, honesty and kindness are required if the practices are not to be corrupted by institutions as a result. In this regard, MacIntyre distinguishes between ‘Morality’ with a capital M and ‘morality’ with a small m. Morality is “the moral system peculiar to and characteristic of early and late capitalistic modernity” (MacIntyre, 2016, p.  114), “a set of impersonal rules, entitled to the assent of any rational agent whatsoever” (2016, p. 65). It is characterized by emotivism, described as “the doctrine that…all moral judgements are nothing but expressions of preference” (MacIntyre, 1981/2007, pp. 11–12), which “entails the obliteration of any genuine distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relations” (1981/2007, p. 23). In contrast, morality with a small ‘m’ is related to the Aristotelian concept of considering the achievement of goods qua human beings, which enables the pursuit of eudaimonia or human flourishing (MacIntyre, 2016, p. 117).

Empirical Study Findings Before bringing together these concepts from Confucianism and the MacIntyrean ethics, the results of a recent empirical study by the author (Chu & Moore, 2020) will now be summarized, since these reveal interesting tendencies within Taiwanese society relevant to this chapter. The

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study took the form of 39 semi-structured interviews with founders, managers and employees of a total of seven small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan, focusing on their attitudes towards success and excellence as proxies for MacIntyrean external and internal goods. Admittedly the survey took place before the Covid pandemic, but I contend that the findings are relevant since they illuminate fundamental aspects of Taiwanese culture influential within workplaces both before and during the pandemic. The empirical findings gave support to the proposition that MacIntyrean virtue ethics are meaningful in business organizations in the Confucian society of Taiwan, and this was apparent for three reasons. First, interviewees could make sense of the teleological1 nature of their organizations, even if they tended to refer to organizational purpose in rather general terms. They described organizational objectives in relation to both profit and social responsibility, the latter particularly related to caring for their employees. Second, the interviewees could differentiate between excellence and success and, by implication, between internal and external goods, the former in terms of both the quality of the goods or services being produced and the ‘perfection’ of practitioners through the pursuit of individual excellence, and the latter in terms of the profit needed to ensure the continuing survival of the organization. Interestingly, there was also a consensus on the fact that success was viewed more as a communal result whereas excellence was more of an individual goal, reflecting the communal nature of social relationships in Taiwanese society. Third, there was consensus around the need for there to be a balance between internal and external goods and also between profit and the social responsibility of the organization, both in terms of treating employees well and making a contribution to wider society. In this way, there was a clear link between the goods produced by the organizations and the common good of the community. The consensus about the need for balance is clearly related to the concept of harmony. At a macro-level, it was found that the logics of family, religion2 and market were strongly influential, with those of family and religion being complementary to each other and that of the market being held for the most part in creative tension with these. According to Besharov and Smith (2014), this could be expected to produce extensive

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conflict within the organizations, since they are in a contested position— that of a high degree of centrality of multiple logics but a low degree of compatibility. However, this was not observed during the study, and potential reasons for this can be best explored by considering the cultural factors operating within Taiwan. These suggest that if logics such as Confucianism and the family are salient within the SMEs studied, then the identities, goals and schema associated with these non-market logics will also be influential within them. Consequently, whatever the reasons for aspects of Confucianism and the family, such as collectivism and strong social relations, being promoted within the SMEs, the outcome was that the associated mindsets were also influential in the observed balance in the pursuit of internal and external goods. Since the family is the dominant organizational form in Chinese society (Rosemont & Ames, 2016), it is not surprising that various aspects of the logic of the family are adopted within SMEs in Taiwan. The study found that the idea of the organization as family was actively promoted, as exemplified by the use of familial titles such as ge (older brother) or jie (older sister) to invoke the social relations involved in wu lun. The strength of these social relations was supported by the result that excellence was found to be very important for the interviewees. They made explicit statements on their concern about doing a good job, being dutiful and being excellent at the personal level and contributing to communal success, all with the aim of accomplishing the obligations of their role. It was also clear that SME owners regarded themselves as heads of families, and this was combined with their own acknowledgement of the wider moral obligations of their role. Confucian social relations are not predicated on the basis of individualism and equality but rather on what is appropriate for the specific relationship. Most relationships are, by their very nature, hierarchical, especially those within the family and thus, by extension, those based on the family such as those found within the SMEs studied. Consequently, Western concepts such as obedience, compliance and deference to authority need to be viewed in this light rather than as just blind obedience to authority, since it is accepted that if the person in the higher position does not fulfil their responsibilities, then the basis of the relationship can be called into question.

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There was clear evidence for the influence of Confucian role ethics and the relational self, whereby relationships not only impose obligations and responsibilities on those within them, they also demand that individuals consider renqing (empathic reciprocity) and constrain their self-interest to achieve harmony according to the principles of ren-yi-li, being benevolent and sincere (ren), making appropriate decisions (yi) and performing proper actions (li). This supports Romar’s (2004) contention that Confucianism, with its focus on aspects of social relations such as trust, reciprocity and mutual benefits, can offer a moral foundation to both intra-firm and inter-firm arrangements. Thus, it can be argued that interviewees’ preference for a balance between success and excellence demonstrates the instantiation of non-­ market and market logics by way of a harmonious pursuit of both internal and external goods. However, it is important to appreciate that, as described above, this concept of harmony does not imply bland uniformity but rather an acceptance of differences and an ability to blend them into a harmonious whole (Li, 2006). This was evident in the tensions reflected on by interviewees, and also indicates a degree of individual and organizational agency in choosing how to balance such tensions. This interplay between different logics was also shown by Bhappu (2000, p.  413), who “demonstrated how the profound respect for the institution of family insulates Japanese organizations from the full pervasiveness of the ‘market’ logic”. While this therefore also occurs in other cultures, it is in combination with the Confucian institutional logic, with its strong social relations and role ethics, that it becomes significant in Taiwan. These factors come together to provide Taiwanese SMEs with their unique characteristics, such as power relations and social responsibility (Redding, 1990), and form the basis of their identity. However, this is not to contend that Taiwan is the only location where such harmony is maintained between these opposing logics. It may well be the case that SMEs in other countries are also more successful than their larger counterparts in holding a balance between the pursuit of internal and external goods. However, the argument here is that the Confucian concepts of role ethics and harmony are important factors in enabling Taiwanese SMEs to maintain this balance, whilst other

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organizations may also do this successfully by other means in other parts of the world where Confucianism is not influential.

Discussion For both historical and cultural reasons, Taiwan’s economy is dominated by SMEs, which employ 78% of the total workforce (SME Administration Taiwan, 2019) compared with 58% in OECD countries (OECD, 2017). This stems from state control of heavy industry after the Chinese Civil War (Gold, 1988) and a strong cultural preference for working for oneself. As such, the results of the study outlined above can be argued to be representative of Taiwanese society in general. These results present a useful picture of Taiwan’s society as one where the Confucian concept of harmony enables the logics of religion and family to be held in productive tension with that of the market. Whereas Western theories such as that put forward by Besharov and Smith (2014) propose that organizations which are significantly influenced by multiple logics with a low degree of compatibility will experience extensive conflict, this was not found in the Taiwanese SMEs studied. Although a degree of contestation was found, this was more in the nature of the exploration of different viewpoints before a consensus was reached. This demonstrates the fact that Confucian harmony is not to be thought of as bland and stale uniformity and conformity. Instead, more fitting analogies are the idea of music being the result of the complex interplay of diverse sounds from a range of instruments or tasty food being the result of combining a variety of ingredients using different cooking techniques. Important though this concept of Confucian harmony is, how does it relate to Taiwan’s response to the Covid pandemic? Although it is obviously oversimplistic to reduce complex situations to single factors, I argue here that this Confucian concept of harmony is a main factor in Taiwan’s response.3 The key to this is to be found in the interviewees’ view on the need for a balance between the pursuit of internal and external goods, echoing the salience of the market logic being balanced by those of religion and the family. In Western economies, there was and is a concern that lockdowns cannot be maintained over long periods due to the

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damage to the economy that would result. Indeed, this was often viewed as a trade-off, where a choice had to be made between the interests of the economy and those of national health systems. There is a viewpoint that if the economy is not able to function fully and thus generate external goods, then fundamental damage will be done to society. Admittedly, government responses in terms of supporting individuals and businesses negatively impacted by the pandemic have been unprecedented, but there are widespread calls for economies to be reopened as soon as possible, especially in more libertarian countries such as the UK and the US. This contrasts greatly with the situation in Taiwan. Many factors have been cited as reasons for Taiwan’s comparative success, ranging from previous experiences gained during the SARS outbreak in 2003 to the rapid closing of international borders. In this latter regard, Taiwan is obviously something of a special case. Other countries which are islands, such as the UK, have often complex and deep trade links with neighbouring countries, which means that closing borders is a far more complex issue. In contrast, due to Taiwan’s relative estrangement from mainland China, there is far less dependency on goods, such as food, entering the country by sea accompanied by lorry drivers. Such factors obviously played an important role in Taiwan’s national response, but it is my argument here that Confucian factors, most importantly that of harmony, are paramount in what can be termed “Confucius vs. John Stuart Mill?” (Festing et al., 2021, p. 1). One such often cited factor is that of the self. The relational self has been mentioned above as an important part of Confucian societies, as is reflected in the Chinese saying “sacrifice the small self in order to achieve the big self ”, meaning that personal interest should be subordinated to the common good (Pye, 1992; Busiol, 2016). In terms of Covid, the most obvious manifestation of this is the wearing of face masks, which was indeed not an unusual sight in Taiwan even before the Covid pandemic. Opposition to mask wearing is widespread in Western societies, especially amongst those who hold a more individualistic view of society where the rights of the individual are held to override the interests of the majority. In contrast, the idea of constraining self-interest is a central characteristic of the Confucian relational self, where the obligations and responsibilities associated with the role ethics of wu lun play an

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important part in the goal of achieving harmony within society. This is achieved in practice according to the principles of ren-yi-li. Ren or compassion for others is demonstrated by a concern not to pass infection on to other people. Yi is making an appropriate decision which results in li, the correct action of wearing a mask. This resulted in the near-universal wearing of face masks in public (The Economist, 2020) and also even acceptance of the public shaming of individuals not wearing masks (CNBC, 2020; Festing et al., 2021). In the workplace, it is clear that the sense of collectivism enhanced the effectiveness of policies such as temperature screening, hand sanitizing, social distancing and contact tracing (Pandey & Yu, 2022). However, it must be recognized that matters of trust led to two opposing phenomena. Firstly, a major factor in the success of the national response to Covid has been cited as the building up of trust in the state. Policies such as intensive contact tracing, government intervention in mask production and use of digital media reinforced the degree of trust in authority already emphasized by Confucianism (Pandey & Yu, 2022; Kim et al., 2022). However, secondly and in the opposite direction, a lack of trust within the workplace and a culture of presenteeism made itself apparent in many people not working from home as much as would otherwise have been the case (The Guardian, 2021b). The Confucian emphasis on the family has consequences for paternalism, trust and loyalty, and results in a restriction of social cohesion beyond family units and discourages a wider spirit of community (Whitley, 1999; Ip, 2009). It is the concept of harmony within society which counters this lack of trust outside the family and which stabilizes the social system (Lin et al., 2013). These phenomena can also be taken as demonstrations of another Confucian concept, that of the golden rule, which can be summed up as “do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself ” (Lau, 1979). This clearly has parallels in other traditions, such as the Buddhist Middle Way and the Aristotelian golden mean, and it is the latter that enables us to connect these Confucian notions to that of MacIntyre and return to his concept of the balance between internal and external goods. In the introduction, mention was made of “the Great Resignation” where many people have taken the disruption caused by Covid as an opportunity to take stock of their lives and redirect their energies to more

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meaningful pursuits. This can be interpreted in MacIntyrean terms, and the key point here is that MacIntyre is pointing out that it is internal goods which are intrinsically valuable for themselves and which contribute directly to eudaimonia or human flourishing. In contrast, external goods are only instrumental in that they enable the ongoing survival of the institutions which house the practices affording internal goods. For example, the SMEs studied in Taiwan are driven by the logic of the market to make the external good of profit needed to survive and also pay not only the wages of the people working within them but also taxes to the state. The state is then able to provide the infrastructure needed for society to function, and the external good of wages in turn enables families to prosper, bringing the internal goods of familial love to those involved. A balance between internal and external goods is needed, and the virtues are crucial in this regard for recognition of the importance of this balance and the goal of eudaimonia. In a similar fashion, it is the Confucian concept of harmony which ties together the differing elements such as the relational self, ren-yi-li and the golden mean, which play a crucial part in Taiwanese society and have formed the backbone of the country’s successful response to the Covid pandemic.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that Taiwan’s successful Covid response was due to a variety of factors, but that these were underpinned by the Confucian concept of harmony. Clearly it cannot be denied that geographical factors naturally played a part, as well as historical learnings. However, the societal characteristics which were arguably the most important part of Taiwan’s response were significantly influenced by Confucian concepts such as the relational self, role ethics and ren-yi-li, which are all held together by the notion of harmony. I contend that there is a parallel in the work of the Western moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and the balance required between the pursuit of internal and external goods. Whilst not ignoring MacIntyre’s view that there are “intractable and incommensurable differences” between Confucianism and Aristotelianism (MacIntyre, 1991, p. 113),

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we consider the main contribution of this chapter to be that it draws attention to this parallel. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that Eastern and Western philosophical traditions have much in parallel, the use of this concept to draw attention to aspects of countries’ responses to Covid is new. Taiwan’s successful response, underpinned by Confucian harmony, contrasts markedly with that of the libertarian behaviour of Western countries such as the UK and the US. MacIntyre considers that in the West the separation of facts and values in the Enlightenment led to a rejection of Aristotelian concepts of eudaimonia (human flourishing) and telos (purpose), over-dependence on rationalism, and the destruction of traditional beliefs. In turn, these have resulted in ‘Morality’, an overemphasis on external goods as reflected in the preference for the interests of the economy over those of peoples’ lives and the subsequent death rates. Whilst such an argument might be considered to be extreme by some, it is clear that the differences depicted in Fig.  4.1 are extreme. Surely it is sensible to try to find the deep-seated reasons underlying such differences, and in this light is the philosophical bedrock not worthy of exploration?

Notes 1. The term teleological is used in the sense of the interviewees recognizing the purpose or goal of the organization. 2. Although Confucianism is often considered to be a philosophy, it is widely described as a religion—“the Confucian, Hinduist, Buddhist, Christian and Islamist religious ethics all belong to the category of world religion” (Weber, 1948, p. 267). Confucianism has also been described as fulfilling the criteria of religiosity or spirituality as a belief in a religion or a philosophy (Branine, 2017) and as “atheistic human-centered religiousness” (Ames, 2011). Dyck (2014) also includes Confucianism in a list of the world’s largest religions and so consequently its categorization as a religion can be justified for our purposes here. 3. We do not suggest that the actions of people in Taiwan are completely driven by Confucian concepts such as harmony and the relational self. Rather, our representation should be viewed in the same way as Weber’s ideal types, that is, as an abstract representation of nevertheless real characteristics forming parts of a unified analytical construct (Brubaker, 1984).

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5 Confucian Rituals and the Workplace: Fostering Self-Refinement and Making Our Shared World More Habitable in Unsettled Times Daryl Koehn

My approach is analytical. I seek to identify various ways in which rituals (understood from a Confucian perspective) undergird and support ethical behavior and a meaningful life. While I provide some real-world examples of the operation of these various modes of support, I make no attempt here to formulate and then test these hypothesized causal relationships. Instead, I focus on explicating what the causal (a term which I use loosely) relations between rituals and ethics might be and how they might work in practice inside and outside of corporations.

D. Koehn (*) Department of Philosophy, Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_5

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Part One: A Typology of Rituals Rituals are extremely complex and include festivals, initiations, confirmations, exchanges, and so forth. As one would expect, scholars disagree about the definition of the term “ritual,” a term historically connected with the equally controversial notion of “religion” (Goody, 1961). While many behaviors or actions could be ritualized, scholars of almost every ilk agree that not every repeated or habitual action is a ritual. Rituals appear to be special forms of behavior that are set apart from other quotidian behaviors. They tend to be at least somewhat formalized and have some basis or grounding in tradition. That is not to say, though, that rituals cannot or do not alter over time. Indeed, they seem to have a situation-­ specific dimension in many cases (Smith, 1982), so as our situation changes, our rituals do so as well. From the beginning of human industry, rituals have had some connection with the sacred, although the sacred need not be understood as involving a transcendental god. Rituals also function as attempts to find meaning in life and death and to secure protection or happiness in a human life prone to contingency and accidents. Bell (1997) usefully groups rituals into six genres. While some rituals may fall into more than one genre, her categorization is helpful for getting a handle on the wide range of ritual action. The six categories are “life cycle” rites; calendrical and commemorative rites; rites of affliction or suffering; political rites; rites of exchange and communication; and feasting, fasting and festival rituals (Bell, 1997). Life cycle rites are rites of passage connected with birth, coming of age or initiation in adulthood, marriage, and death. Examples of such rites would include church confirmation ceremonies, bar and bat mitzvahs, funerals, and baptisms. In general, “life-cycle rituals seem to proclaim that the biological order is less determinative than the social” (Bell, 1997, p. 94). Typical calendrical rites include periodic, regularly occurring events connected with agricultural sowings and harvesting, seasonal changes in the light and weather, and key events in the history of specific religions (e.g., the Jewish Passover seder; Islam’s commemoration of Mohammed’s emigration from Mecca to Medina) (Bell, 1997). Many of these rites aim

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at controlling nature or harmonizing the human community with the larger cosmos. The genre rites of affliction includes practices designed to appease malign spirits responsible for bringing misfortune to some person or group and to return conditions to a state of normalcy (Bell, 1997). Such rites may seek to sway the gods to ease suffering by bringing rain or to restore social relations among human beings or between humans and the spirit world with a view to ending disease or pestilence. Exorcisms performed at the individual or collective level fall into this category. A fourth category—rites of exchange—involves humans giving gifts with the hope and expectation that others, in particular the divine, will reciprocate by bestowing favors (Bell, 1997). These hoped-for favors run the gamut from doing well on exams to preserving a person’s good fortune lest it become depleted. The exchange may be largely devotional— for example, the Hindu puja where the supplicant tries to foster a generally beneficent relation with the divine—or more transactional, such as the Taiwanese repayment of debt ritual. In the latter, the gift-giver burns special spirit money in the expectation that the gods will re-deposit life-giving symbolic “funds” in the gift-giver’s destiny account. Sacrificial practices typically fall within this category of rites of exchange as well. The fifth ritual type centers on feasting, fasting, and festivals. As the name suggests, these rites involve the conspicuous consumption of food (deferred in the case of fasting) with an emphasis on the “public display of religion-cultural sentiments” (Bell, 1997, p. 120). Dancing and music frequently figure in these rituals. Native American potlatch ceremonies, Muslim Ramadan and Advent communal fasting, carnival and Mardi Gras can be placed into this category. These rituals embody a variety of purposes. Ramadan is sometimes interpreted as a disciplining of desire, while carnival and Mardi Gras both maintain social distinctions while playing with them (Bell, 1997). A final category is that of political rites. These are public ceremonies that display and, in some cases, construct power (Bell, 1997). These include coronations, inaugurations, pledges of allegiance, political conventions, parades displaying military might, and regime- or ruler-­ sanctioned public punishments (e.g., beheadings, placing criminals in the stocks). This type of rite can serve to signify the transfer of power after

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an election or the ascension of a particular candidate or to establish the ruler’s divine right of rule (e.g., the ceremonies in which historically the Japanese emperor became divine). Political rites both symbolically depict or construct a group of people as a discrete and coherent community with shared goals and values and manifest the legitimacy of these values by showing that they accord with an underlying source of value (the will of the people; the order of the cosmos) (Bell, 1997).

 art Two: Ethical Dimensions of Confucian P Rituals and Their Relevance in Our De-symbolized World I turn now to the ethical dimensions of Confucian rituals. That Confucius cared deeply about rituals is incontrovertible. The Confucian Analects depict the Master as praising the Classic of Odes and encouraging his students to study classical texts on the arts and music (Confucius, 1998, 1.15; 2.2; 8.3; 16.3; 17.9).1 To give but a few examples: Confucius reflects on proper versus improper forms of music for shaping our character (15.11; 17.18); carries out sacrifices in what he takes to be the proper way (10.8; 15.1); discusses the best way to dress for certain occasions (15.9) and to speak in various contexts (10.1); and demonstrates the correct way to receive guests (14.39) and to enter a sacred space (9.3). Furthermore, Confucius famously reports that at age thirty, he took his stance (2.4). “Stance” (li) refers to a general posture or rank that one realizes as part of becoming genuinely human, of attaining personhood. We determine and exhibit our stance through ritual action (li), a term often translated as rites, ceremony, or manners (Hall & Ames, 1987, p. 85). The Master tells his own son to study the Book of Songs and Book of Ritual. If the son does not learn what they have to offer, he will not be able to understand what it means to take a stance (16.13) or to refine himself (8.8). Examples of most of the types of rites discussed in Part One occur in the ethical writings of Confucius. In general, Confucius refuses to speculate on spirits or the will of the gods (Confucius, 1998, 3.12; 11.12), so

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he tends not to endorse appeasement rites or to connect rituals with a transcendental personal or father god. However, as I will show, he does link rituals to the order of the cosmos or heaven and earth. It is precisely this linkage that establishes a tight connection between rituals and ethics and makes rituals relevant to a meaningful, satisfying life within workplaces, institutions, and communities. For Confucius, rituals have several key ethical aspects. First, ancient Chinese rulers evolved formalized actions or practices to imitate sensible cosmic rhythms and processes. Rituals were an attempt to harmonize human existence with the larger cosmos. Over time these rituals expanded beyond the ruler to include the larger court and community and home, increasing the social dimension of rituals and assigning individuals their distinctive parts or roles. Those who failed to learn and to understand rituals literally did not know how to take their stance (Hall & Ames, 1987, p. 86). For rituals encourage and require people to pay attention to what they are doing in relation to what others are doing in the context of the whole. They thus embody a kind of proto-justice insofar as we cannot render other people their due if we do not recognize their existence and purposes. Second, the character for li includes a component often used to evoke a sacred or sacrificial context. Ritual actions which “had originally constituted a code of rites and ceremonies governing specific religious observances came to embody the total spectrum of social norms, customs, and mores, covering increasingly complicated relationships and institutions. The focus of ritual actions shifted from man’s relationship with the supernatural to the relationship obtaining among members of human society, and their application was extended from the court to all levels of civilized society” (Hall & Ames, 1987, p. 86). In essence, the entire realm of human relations was sacralized by the spreading of rituals designed to bring the human realm into alignment with ordered patterns objectively present in the cosmos and nature. By the time Confucius is writing, spiritual development occurs not through transactions with the gods. As noted above, he was notoriously reluctant to speak about gods, spirits, and so forth. Instead, achieving social harmony and self-refinement occurs through mindful, carefully structured social intercourse. The li “came to be regarded less as modes of hieratic action than as paradigms of human relations” (Gimello, 1972, p. 204).

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No doubt the enacting of self-refining ritual practices can degenerate into a kind of virtue-signaling or moral-preening. However, Confucius himself stresses that he is not a sage. The process of refining the self and of acquiring virtue is lifelong. Furthermore, the truly correct rite is to ask questions (3.15), to probe for meaning, to admit mistakes (9.25), and to investigate with others the significance of human relations and activity. Confucius insists upon the need to think about and inquire into rituals because we cannot become more humane individuals merely by mechanically going through the motions of bowing, displaying correct manners, wearing correct clothing, adopting proper forms of address, and so on (17.11). Performing rituals requires a sincere heart (8.2; 17.11). In other words, a ritual isn’t a ritual unless the individual performing it is seeking a deeper meaning that will enable them to recognize others, to engage with objective dimensions of nature, and to be at home in the world (Han, 2020). A third aspect of Confucian rituals is the connection between taking a stand and the body of tradition. The Chinese words li (ritual) and t’i (body) share a common character—the li phonetic referring to a “ritual vase” (Hall & Ames, 1987, p. 87). Both ritual and body have a form, although this form is less geometric and more dynamically organic. For Confucius, a ritual organically embodying the past recognizes that our predecessors have invested in a formal practice. At the same time, such a ritual invites us to find our own meanings, which, in turn, become part of that body of tradition. The simplified Chinese character for body consists of the character for man and root, implying that our ritual actions, institutions, and traditions are the root of our embodied humanity and community. While rituals stabilize our communities because their forms are repetitive, they also provide a necessary flexibility. They are not written in stone but are part of a living tradition. As we face new challenges and conditions, our traditions and rituals can and should evolve accordingly. This flexibility enhances communal stability during times of upheaval by allowing our traditions to bend, not to break. There is a fourth key dimension of Confucian rituals. Confucius consistently emphasizes that a satisfying life filled with meaningful activity and work involves a turn away from materialism and toward self-­ refinement (4.9). Of course, we all need a modicum of wealth to buy

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food, to pay for insurance and rent, and so on (12.7). However, Confucius insists that only the small-minded or mean-spirited person obsesses about wealth acquisition, while those who are on the road to virtue focus on self-perfection (7.37; 12.16; 15.2). In that respect, Confucian ethics can be said to organize itself around a particular good or end—self-­refinement. While realizing this good is a matter of development or process, the process is not infinitely open-ended in the way in which material acquisition or wealth-getting is. Confucius envisages us concentrating not on making money but on ritually making a life for ourselves, a life embodying an order and coherence reflective of the larger objective order of the natural cosmos and of a harmonious human community. At one point, Confucius compares this realization of our personhood or selfhood to carving a piece of jade (1.15). The metaphor is telling in four ways. First, since carving jade requires working with the stone’s given colors and veins or fault lines, each person’s realization of self—the virtue known as ren—will be unique. Second, in every case, other people on the road to virtue will be able to perceive the beauty of the other’s character or “carved jade.” The skill and commitment that has been invested in making that life will be visible to others. In that sense, the carving is objectively beautiful. Third, our past choices are like cuts in the jade. They become a permanent part of our character or form. Fourth, rituals are an inherent part of the carving process, for they enable us to find the meaning and significance necessary to guide us on our journey to selfhood. When making a life for ourselves is our focus, our energy is directed and necessarily limited. Some options will not even appear on our radar because they lack meaning for us and thus exercise no attraction. It also needs to be stressed that Confucian ethics envisions the possibility of ritualizing many aspects of our lives. Rituals are not limited to an annual festival or even weekly religious services. Rituals include many informally institutionalized activities. For example, our modes of addressing each other can be ritualized. We speak to our ninety-year-old Aunt Betty or the corporate CEO differently than we talk to our three-year-old nephew, and we do so for what we take to be significant reasons. Throughout Asia, great emphasis is placed on children learning appropriate kinship terms and social forms of address. While rituals include festivals and all of the other activities specified in Part One, they can equally

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include informal activities such as Saturday house-cleaning or morning trips to the gym if these are performed in a mindful, symbolic fashion— that is, in a manner that promotes recognition of our fundamental humanity and honors the beauty of persons and durable things. Confucian rituals are perhaps even more relevant now than in the past, given two distinctively modern developments—rampant consumerism and what Han (2020) terms the “compulsion of production” in the West. Han (who grew up in Korea, a country where Confucianism is still very much alive) attributes both of these trends to the disappearance of ritual (Han, 2020). Han’s analysis qualifies as very Confucian insofar as he understands rituals as a form of symbolic perception. Genuine symbols always involve recognition. The ancient Greek word symbol refers to a clay tablet that a guest-friend would break in half, keeping one section for himself and giving the other to a friend as a token of respect. When the two would meet, they would produce their tokens and fit them together, thereby recognizing each other as friends. Confucius similarly construes rituals as symbolic for he talks about the process of self-refinement as one of developing an ever-deeper recognition of one’s real self that requires rituals. We meet our true self, so to speak, through a ritual-enhanced process of coming to grasp how we objectively fit into the cosmos and our family and community. For Confucius, recognition is not to be understood merely as a repeated encounter with something but rather as a deeper knowing of a person or thing. We move from an initial and contingent perception of something to a knowing that elevates the transient into permanence. This is why by age seventy, Confucius can act rightly with assurance (which is not the same as arrogance). He knows exactly where he stands in the world (2.4). Rituals can thus be characterized as “symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world” (Han, 2020, p. 2). By facilitating recognition—the grasping of that which is permanent and enduring—these techniques help us create a world that is durable rather than fleeting. Modern life and our workplaces revolve around data and information processing, both of which lack “symbolic force” (Han, 2020, p. 2). Increasingly our workplaces have become transient sites of production. Many companies are downsizing office space, a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Pontrefact, 2021). Many employees no longer

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have an office or even a permanent cubicle to which they can relate in a durable way. Instead, they are expected to reserve a temporary cubicle on those days when they work at the office instead of from home. Rituals of the sort Confucius promotes take transience and seek to make it habitable. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have complained that they have lost track of time and can no longer remember when events occurred (Stenson, 2021). This lack of memory is likely due, at least in part, to our loss of rituals. Quarantine procedures have meant that we have not been able to go to church, use Sunday matinee concert tickets, or celebrate holidays with friends and family. Workplace rituals such as the 10 am informal gathering in the break room, the Friday weekly meeting, or the after-work drink at a nearby pub have disappeared entirely or have become far less regular, emptying these events of their ritual essence. Insofar as formal and informal ritual engagements structure human time, their loss has made it difficult to situate ourselves in the flow of existence. We feel as if we are floating unmoored in the ethernet. Consequently, it is not surprising that recent mental health studies of the general population (which includes employees) have documented increased levels of depression, irritation, confusion, and feelings of isolation (Pfefferbaum & North, 2020) We are increasingly data-rich and ritual-poor (Han, 2020). As a result, lasting things—which acquire meaning through repetitive use in rituals and which stabilize our lives because they remain the same, allowing us to relate to these things repeatedly—are vanishing. Genuine or worldly things grow old as we age. In rituals, we use things—for example, a ceremonial tea cup or the silk temple cap favored by Confucius. But when we rampantly consume, we literally use things up. A cellphone is not a thing like the antique table we inherited from our grandparents, a chalice used at communion, or a special cap for visits to the temple. Phones are disposable items, to be updated and then discarded. Our current compulsion to produce new, disposal items destroys the enduring quality of things (Han, 2020). Companies produce ever more stuff, intentionally undermining the endurance of things with a view to encouraging greater consumption. Even before the pandemic struck, companies’ desire to become ever more efficient had created a workplace of continual churn. Planned obsolescence has meant that employees’ computers are replaced

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every couple of years; employers continually roll out new software that employees are expected to master in short order. Software functions as just another bit of stuff to be used up and then discarded. There are very few durable goods—what Han (2020) describes as real or genuine things—in the twenty-first-century workplace. Unlike ramped up production and consumption, ritual practice encourages us to treat both other people and material things with respect. In this era, though, we commoditize everything including our emotions and values, reducing these to items for consumption. Companies proclaim that we can change the world through consuming their products. Values become merely ways to signal that we are virtuous. Such virtue-­ signaling does little to build lasting community or to engender respect for the world. It merely puffs up our egos. We are even encouraged to commoditize ourselves, with some universities urging students to develop themselves as “brands” before they go on the job market (Kansas State University, n.d.) Our de-symbolizing and de-ritualizing of the world feed each other and lead to communication without any real community. Han (2020, p. 6) approvingly quotes Mary Douglas: One of the gravest problems of our day is the lack of commitment to common symbols … If it were merely a matter of our fragmentation into small groups, each committed to its proper symbolic forms, the case would be simple to understand. But more mysterious is a widespread, explicit rejection of rituals as such. Ritual has become a bad word signifying empty conformity. We are witnessing a revolt against formalism, even against form.

Unconstrained, narcissistic subjective creativity takes the place of shared symbolic actions. Insofar as true rituals of the sort Confucius promotes are symbols involving recognition of a shared, communal world, rituals distance us from our individual selves. Creativity and innovation, by contrast, feed individual egoism (Han, 2020). We have become obsessed with novelty, rushing from one thing to another, changing jobs frequently, and binge-watching shows in a superficial fashion (Starosta & Izydorczyk, 2020). Shallowness has replaced slow, restful, and deep perceptions. Such shallowness supplants religion with its shared rituals.

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Religion is derived from relegere, which means to take note or to pay attention (Han, 2020). Rites are a way of cementing, through recognition, that to which we should be attending in a still way. The compulsion of production throws up image after image, to be consumed, liked or disliked, and never to be viewed again. It is not surprising, then, that a significant number of employees suffer from attention deficit disorder (de Graaf et al., 2008). As rituals disappear, so, too, does our ability to pay attention in a sustained way. A final point about the ethical value of rituals: Confucius is consistently skeptical about relying upon the law alone to foster and maintain community. While one can govern through fear of punishment, it is far better if people strive for self-refinement, a process of ritualized self-­ correction. By connecting virtue with regularly practiced differentiating rituals, Confucian ethics aims at engendering a robust sense of shame within the body politic (Wong, 2011). The repetitiveness of rituals can serve to remind people of their duties and roles and in that manner keep a sense of shame alive. In addition, by “providing conventionally established, symbolic ways to express respect for others, ritual forms give participants ways to act on and therefore to strengthen their dispositions to have respect for others” (Wong, 2011, p. 772). Rituals give actions precise form, thereby making it possible for individuals to conform their practice in an ever more perfect way. In Confucian ethics, perfect practice makes perfect, fostering excellence or de. From what I have written thus far, it should be clear that Confucianism does not ground ethics in abstract principles of justice or equality but in a given community’s highly specific customs and practices (Wong, 2011). It might be objected that rituals are tied to a specific past and location and, for precisely this reason, Confucian ethics have little to contribute to the resolution of our ethical issues in this era of rapid change. This criticism is longstanding. The ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi contended that traditions as such have no normative power, for they arise and disappear. However, while it is true that Confucius looks to early Zhou rituals, he does so with an eye to his community’s present and future. Confucius willingly alters rituals in the process of making them his own and in order to address current concerns. For example, he endorses the substitution of a less expensive skull cap for ritual performances. What matters is

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wearing some special dress to show respect; such clothing should not be so costly that the poor cannot afford to engage in rituals (9.3). Furthermore, we never take on a tradition lock, stock, and barrel (Chan, 2000). Every generation is somewhat selective in what it opts to retain from its predecessors. In building on earlier instantiations of inherited rituals, successive generations inevitably alter them over time in the process of preserving them. Such change need not imply that traditions have no normative power, given that we preserve some traditions precisely because they embody virtues that we continue to find attractive.

 art Three: Implications of Confucian Rituals P for the Workplace in Unsettled Times This admittedly schematic overview of rituals within Confucian ethics enables us to understand why Confucianism’s emphasis on rituals is not merely a conservative gesture of traditionalism but rather a serious attempt to identify a key mechanism for cultivating and preserving virtue within a stable, respectful, and harmonious community—be that the family, the workplace, or the body politic. Managers and employees could readily introduce rituals into the workplace. For example, a manager could introduce a Thursday morning social hour with donuts where people could talk informally about what challenges they were facing at work or perhaps at home. Such a ritual could even be incorporated as a regular hybrid Zoom meeting aimed at developing an esprit de corps among all employees, including those who are working remotely. As long as such social hours were conducted respectfully and did not result in any kind of employee retaliation, they could encourage participants to find meaning in their shared business activity, thereby supporting self-refinement. More formal rituals could be adopted as well. Medtronic’s founding CEO Earl Bakken required every new employee to make a virtual trip back to the garage where Bakken and his brother-in-law Palmer Hermundslie began the business that eventually became Medtronic. After ritually traveling back in time to where the business began, recent hires would receive (at a formal company-wide meeting) a bronze medallion engraved with

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the words “toward full life.” This welcoming ritual with its durable medal served to remind employees to embody the company’s mission of improving patients’ lives. In addition, Medtronic would hold an end of year meeting at which a few patients would tell their stories of how their lives were transformed for the better by Medtronic inventions (Yeh & Yeh, 2004). Variants of these Medtronic rituals have endured for around fifty years. Our life, including workplace activities, can have a shape and coherence in part because so much of it can be ritualized. Of course, there is a potential danger here. As we have seen during the current COVID-19 pandemic, some individuals have gone overboard in adopting safety rituals—obsessively cleaning their hands, wearing three masks, refusing to go outside, and so on. What keeps Confucian rituals from degenerating into a form of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)? OCD repetition is not truly a ritual in the Confucian sense. Certainly, there is repetition. However, there is no symbolic recognition or integration with tradition. Instead of connecting the behavior with a search to understand how nature and communities operate, the obsessive’s thinking veers toward a quasi-magical way of coping with anxiety—as long as I adhere to this particular form of behavior, I will be safe, my world won’t crumble, and so on. Confucian ethics, by contrast, would have us develop new, meaning-­ rich rituals for managing anxiety and risk in the workplace. During a pandemic, employees could learn to greet amenable customers or coworkers with a friendly elbow bump rather with a handshake. Perhaps Company X could internally call the bump “The Somewhat Safer Greeting,” an acknowledgment of the objective, cosmic reality that no amount of elbow bumping will ever guarantee 100% safety. Leaders might encourage employees to think of employer mask mandates in Confucian terms—that is, each time we put on a mask, we should think about how this small gesture helps protect both coworkers’ lives and our own. As we contemplate the deep connections between mask-wearing, respect for persons, and community health, the daily donning of the mask begins to evolve into a true Confucian ritual and ceases to be an annoying hassle. Workplace elbow bumps and mask-wearing enable us to

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maintain harmonious relations with fellow employees and other stakeholders while curtailing paralyzing fear about social encounters. Another valuable workplace ritual is going into a physical office every day or at least several times a week. Confucian ritualism depends upon what Han (2020) designates as “real sites.” A real site—be it a workplace or temple—is a specific local place for community gathering and reflection.2 In the old villages, people would come together regularly to sing under the wild pear tree (Nádas, 2006) and to share stories, concerns, joys, and sorrows. Rituals enable individuals to learn collectively to perceive things as a community, not just as single free agents. When real places disappear, we lose a sense of community and some of our ability to empathize with others. It is striking in this regard that an increasing number of corporations (e.g., Microsoft; BNY Mellon; American Express; Adobe; Amazon; Netflix; Apple) have publicly committed to requiring workers to return to the office for at least several days a week because they have found that in-­person meetings allow for culture building and foster more creatively productive discussions (Vasel, 2021; The Hubble Team, 2022; Taylor, 2022). Companies are desiring these face-to-face interactions, even if they lose some productivity. Some employees also desire such a return because, working remotely, they have felt disconnected from the company culture and from what is going on in the business and marketplace. The office exposes them to informal learning opportunities, which they do not get when they work exclusively from home. In addition, face-to-­face regular interaction lessens employees’ sense that they are invisible to leadership and lacking any mentors or even basic guidance from leaders (Lencore, n.d.). A Confucian might even see the return to the office as especially important now, given that COVID-19 has shifted so many of our daily human activities online. The pandemic has accelerated the move away from real sites and toward impersonal globalized markets and events. Internet-based grocery stores and bookstores mean we no longer have to shop at our city market, replete with local craft items and produce, or our neighborhood bookstores featuring local authors. Instead of going to the neighborhood grocery or bookstore, many of us have been shopping exclusively online. As the virus spread, religious services, plays, operas, and art openings began to be beamed around the world so that

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individuals could attend virtually. While I would not say categorically that the space of the internet is not and never could be a real site supported by and supportive of meaning-rich rituals, I do think that there are impediments to it becoming such. In a real site, meaning (which includes the correct perception of character) is collectively uncovered in a physical, geographical location. Employees enact (or fail to enact) their virtue, and others get to know who they truly are. It takes time, though, for people to reveal themselves and their concerns. Self-refinement requires lingering. From a Confucian perspective, informal chats at the elevator are not a waste of time but rather an opportunity to become more humane. Prior to the pandemic, coworkers would often stay to talk for a bit after in-person meetings. But now when the Zoom meeting ends, employees quickly exit to attend to other business or to rush off to their next online meeting. Although online meetings may produce efficiency gains, Confucius would worry, I think, about a diminution of our ability to jointly come to an appreciation of what is going on in our business and in the marketplace at large. The presence or absence of Confucian rituals in individuals’ working lives has another, rather more subtle effect. Han (2020) posits that the disappearance of rituals has gone hand in hand with the rise of a bourgeois fixation on working. Some aspects of working are very repetitive, which is why many tasks are now being performed by robots or artificial intelligence systems. This form of working relies upon calculation, a linear mode of reasoning that can be captured in algorithms. Thinking, by contrast, always involves an element of non-linearity, of play, of indeterminacy. Thinking opens itself up to possibilities, creating a space for new concepts or perspectives. Given that the future always has the ability to surprise us—recall some of the unexpected events accompanying climate change, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the emergence of COVID-19—thinking is essential. It lets us engage with the future in a way that simple repetition and calculation never can (Baehr, 2002). Confucian rituals support thinking because they, too, involve play. Symbols never admit of only one interpretation. For that reason, rituals of all sorts, including workplace rituals, are a natural home—a real site— for playful thinking. When we embrace rituals, we experience the pleasure of recognition. That pleasure, in turn, encourages greater engagement

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with and respect for ritual. The result is a virtuous circle of ever-­deepening understanding of ourselves and the world. In addition to promoting communal harmony, shared learning, and thinking, rituals’ deep connection with playful thinking opens the door to humor as well. While it might be thought that rituals suppress humor by squashing spontaneity, stipulating adherence to particular forms, and reinforcing authority (Yao, 2000), the wiggle room introduced by rituals’ symbolic character lets humor flourish. Indeed, many of Confucius’ allusive sayings and interpretations of ritual are written in informal and lively Chinese and reflect the Master’s very wry sense of humor (Harbsmeier, 1990). Confucius’ ethical attentiveness to ritual did not make him an unremittingly sober prig. When told that a certain minor citizen Lin Fang was complaining about a supposedly ritually inappropriate sacrifice to be offered to Mount Tai, Confucius exclaimed, “Alack and alas…! Who would ever have imagined that Mount Tai was inferior to Lin Fang?” (3.6, quoted in Harbsmeier, 1990, p. 142). Confucius here gently pokes fun at Lin Fang’s presumptuous judgment that the sacrifices that the grand and ancient Mount Tai has been receiving for centuries are in some way inferior. Although rituals can and should be criticized, Confucius thinks we should first try to grasp what a particular ritual seeks to convey before presuming, like Lin Fang, to condemn it wholesale. To the extent that Confucian workplace rituals promote a mode of playful and allusive thinking, they can be seen as an ethically valuable aspect of the workplace. Humor can challenge unhelpful or fossilized thinking patterns (Minsky, 1980) and can inject novel perspectives into analyses and conversations. Moreover, disparate individuals may discover they have more in common than they initially realized when they find themselves laughing at the same jokes or situations (Brown & Levinson, 1978). In this respect, laughter can foster social bonding. True, humor is sometimes wielded as a savage weapon to reinforce authority or to ostracize individuals or groups. So it should not be treated as inherently ethically good (Kim & Plester, 2019). Still, in some cases, humor is not only a powerful reinforcer of communal harmony but also a way to look at workplace and business issues in new and unexpectedly insightful ways.

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Conclusion It is telling how bereft people felt when COVID-19 forced the cancellation of scheduled weddings, pushed graduation ceremonies online, made funerals difficult, and led companies to issue orders to work remotely. As shared cultural rituals disappeared, many responded by creating their own group or personal rituals—the virtual Christmas morning brunch; the socially distanced Super Bowl or World Cup party; urban Italians’ nightly singing of songs from their balconies. It is not naive, therefore, to stress the importance of rituals in the workplace as well at this time of massive upheaval. Distinctive, local rituals help combat the flattening of the world, the hell of sameness in which every moment seems but a repetition of earlier moments. Introducing Confucian rituals supports the thinking we need in chaotic and turbulent times. These rituals make for flexible stability and further respect for persons, and provide employees with specific forms of behavior that can be practiced as part of a process of self-refinement. Some repeated activities (e.g., regularly going into a physical office) enable rituals to evolve while simultaneously creating a real space for employees and stakeholders collectively to discover meaning. Rituals’ symbolic quality can support an element of humor, which can be welcome when turbulence leads people to feel anxious. It is no accident that Confucius himself evolved his thinking about rituals during a period of civil war. He believed that the Zhou dynasty was justified in overthrowing the Shang dynasty because the Zhou possessed “the mandate of heaven” (tianming) (Wong, 2011). From early on in Chinese culture, rulers could legitimately retain their power only if they were able to preserve peace and harmony through governing in an exemplary and harmonious fashion. Confucius believed that the Zhou dynasty governed in such a fashion. Consequently, he looked to what he took to be the best of the Zhou rulers’ rituals and sought to reinterpret and reinvigorate them with a view to overcoming the chaos of his time (Csikszentmihalyi, 2020). His insights can help us learn to take our stance in the world as well.

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Notes 1. When referring to Confucius, I provide specific Analect numbers to enable readers to find relevant passages in this dense work. 2. Confucian rituals presuppose highly particular sites. Various rites of respecting one’s ancestors occur in the local temple, typically located in the middle of the city in which these ancestors were born and died. The annual Ming Qing festival requires families to sweep and clean the graves of their dead relatives. Again, these graves are what Han terms genuine “sites.” Moreover, the cleaning requires that descendants physically visit and sweep the graves. Confucian ethics organizes itself around difference, and one central difference is geographic location. For Confucius, location was, in a sense, everything. Those who were born in areas far beyond the guojia or central ruling court were deemed to be ungovernable and wild because they had not been exposed to civilizing rituals. In our neoliberal world, however, a person’s location does not matter. Or, more precisely, what tends to matter are only factors such as a country’s access to harbors or natural resources. Neoliberalism does not differentiate states or corporate workplaces by their rituals or, equivalently, their levels of ethical self-­ refinement. Modern economic and work life ushers in a certain flattening out of the ethical world. To put the point alternatively: rituals are differentiating in a way that economic processes are not. Market dynamics build upon things already given—a deep harbor or the presence of rare earth minerals. Confucian ethics, by contrast, itself differentiates the world through processes of self-refinement.

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6 Humanistic Leadership in the Confucian Context: Philosophical Foundations and Empirical Implications George Gotsis

Introduction The COVID-19 situation poses unique challenges to leadership practice that require innovative and promising responses to unpredictable events arising at the global level (Fowers et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2020; Yang, 2020a). To effectively cope with new societal demands, caring, compassionate and humane relationships have to be forged, fostering collaborative and participative decision-making processes. Such distributed outcomes of decisions are expected to emanate from relational leadership approaches that permeate authority structures, job design, task allocation and stakeholder outcomes (Proctor-Thomson, 2019). This major transformation necessitates the emergence of leaders who envisage a substantial shift from dehumanizing, instrumental and objectified ways of acting

G. Gotsis (*) Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_6

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in favour of creating humane spaces that secure psychological safety and eliminate emotionally and mentally detrimental effects on followers (Newton, 2019). Such a shift in leadership focus can be enacted through humanistic leadership, an emergent construct that draws on humanistic management, which focuses on humanity, virtues and shared human needs. Employees are thus viewed as persons intended to flourish in the context of social relationships imbued with ethical values that are respectful of inalienable human dignity (Frémeaux & Michelson, 2017; Mea & Sims, 2019; Meyer et al., 2019; Pirson, 2020). Humanistic leadership is based on two main pillars, human dignity and shared well-being resulting in ethical health of both individuals and communities. This leadership style enables sustainable human flourishing through protection of human dignity, promotion of societal welfare and environmental sensitivity (Pirson, 2019). The aim of this chapter is to argue that the Confucian tradition can foster such a view of humanistic leadership. We thus posit that Confucian virtuous leadership is intrinsically humanistic. Liu and Stening (2016) claim that in accordance with Confucian principles, Chinese society will be in a position to operate more harmoniously, efficiently and fairly. In this respect, the enactment of the typical Confucian virtues of ren (humaneness, benevolence), yi (righteousness), li (propriety), zhi (wisdom) and xin (trustworthiness) is more pertinent to social settings that reflect a cultural continuity with the Confucian philosophical tradition in view of addressing business ethics challenges in times of intense interconnectedness of nations, cultures and societies. Despite the various challenges that accompany this endeavour, this process of virtuous leadership development is embedded in a societal context in which competing value and belief systems, namely the socialist political ideal, the self-­centredness of the market economy and the traditional Confucian values, strive for preeminence in their symbiotic relationship (Yang, 2012). Confucianism places an emphasis on personalized social relations governed by reciprocities, trust formation and mutual benefits, thus providing robust moral foundations to business and organizational arrangements. Confucian cultures evidence a social role ethics based upon relational, embedded selves emerging in networks of empathic reciprocity (renqing)

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that constrain self-interested pursuits in view of achieving social harmony, in accordance with the core virtues of benevolence and sincerity, appropriateness in decision-making and performing proper actions. In their appraisal of the possibility of applying a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics approach to a societal context in which Confucianism is influential, Chu and Moore (2020) convincingly argue that despite potential conflict, the Confucian tradition remains effective in enabling a process of harmonization of, and maintaining a balance between, the opposing institutional logics to which contemporary firms are subject. This chapter is structured as follows. In the first section I discuss various versions of Confucian leadership theories by focusing on virtuous leadership in a typically Confucian context. Unlike more general studies that analyse Confucian leadership as supportive of various leadership styles, Confucian leadership is primarily based on the centrality and priority of virtues in orientating leading and following. In the next section I seek to examine the virtue of humaneness as it remains the cornerstone of virtue ethics in the Confucian tradition. Humaneness is conceptualized in both the classical Confucian and the Neo-Confucian moral literatures, and as such it is elevated to a pillar of Confucian virtue ethics in both the pre-Qin era and subsequent intellectual developments. Having embedded the virtue of humaneness in its philosophical context, I proceed to examine the construct of humanistic leadership as enacted in typical Confucian contexts, by placing an emphasis on the precise way this leadership style is elaborated in the extant organizational research.

 onfucian Virtues and Leadership C in Organizational Literature Confucian leadership can be traced back to Confucian philosophy and ethics. Confucian ideas and practices are explicated with respect to the core value of humaneness. More specifically, individuals are strongly admonished to engage in character cultivation in view of becoming dutiful citizens and virtuous leaders who treat others with kindness, impartiality and fairness. Such a virtuous character exemplified through

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benevolent leadership reflects the Confucian vision of a harmonious and just society (Yang et al., 2008). Humane-oriented leadership in Asian cultures based on benevolence, generosity and kindness has been found to be akin to servant leadership. Hirschy et al. (2014) examined the relationship between humane orientation and the Confucian doctrine of ren to elucidate humane-oriented leadership in Confucian cultures, as well as to denote the viability of servant leadership in this societal environment. Drawing on typical Confucian values, Tsui et al. (2004) identified six attributes that a benevolent leader should exhibit: creativeness and risk-­ taking, forging relationships, articulating a shared vision, displaying benevolence, monitoring proper functioning and being authoritative. Chan (2004) plausibly argued that Confucianism endorses additional virtues such as sympathy, forgiveness, humility, affability, trust, self-­ fulfillment, harmony and righteousness, as the main features of a benevolent leader. In a similar vein of reasoning, Hunsaker (2014) demonstrated the salience of Confucian values for shaping Koreans attitudes, thus supporting the emergence of spiritual leadership within a Confucian context. Grounded in the notion of junzi engendering the ideal of moral excellence, Confucian leadership has been indicated as embodying these resources supportive of ethical leadership (Ip, 2011).Ying (2020) contends that Confucian meritocracy incorporates egalitarian qualities that foster leader moral growth substantiated through universal inclusion and participative politics. Confucian virtues and moral character strengths have been found to be supportive of service leadership in a Hong Kong educational organization (Shek et al., 2015). Hwang (2013) argues that Confucian ethics pertaining to people of moral excellence nurtures the practice of benevolence as universal moral obligation towards organizations and communities. Despite these beneficial dimensions of Confucian leadership, elements of authoritarian yet benevolent paternalism often result in favouritism, commensurate with the overarching value and belief system of societies that endorse paternalistic leadership styles (Mansur et al., 2017; Mingzheng & Xinhui, 2014). For instance, Selvarajah and Meyer (2020) demonstrated that leadership excellence in Vietnam is imbued with Confucian principles of directive

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and paternalistic leadership, as well as with Dharmic Buddhist and Hindu values akin to self-leadership ideals. In their pivotal review of Chinese philosophy and contemporary leadership Ma and Tsui (2015) demonstrated how the main Chinese philosophical schools are related to contemporary leadership theories. In examining the leadership behaviours of fifteen prominent Chinese business leaders, the study identified the influence of both Confucian and Daoist values in leaders’ moral integrity, benevolence, trust in followers and empowerment. The authors proposed that leaders with a Confucian mindset were prone to espouse transformational leadership, paternalistic leadership, leader–member exchange or individualized consideration towards subordinates. Leaders inspired by Daoism were expected to engage in laissez-faire, servant, authentic, empowering or paradoxical leadership. In contrast, Chinese leaders who adhered to legalism were more likely to adopt transactional leadership, initiating structure, path-­ goal and bureaucratic leadership styles.

 onfucian Virtues: Contemporary Relevance C of Confucian Virtue Ethics Tradition to Leadership and Management Literatures It is widely held that both Confucius’s and Mencius’s views of the good life are based on premises reflecting the priority of virtue, despite their divergence on the intrinsic value of non-moral goods for leading a virtuous life (Back, 2018). The good life for Confucians is one that affirms the manifestation of happiness through the cultivation of virtues in view of balancing personal and communal pursuits, material needs and ethical precepts, human desires and ritual propriety. The Confucian paradigm of the ideal life remains essentially humanistic, thus significantly differing from hedonist and utilitarian theories grounded in self-centred motivation (Xinzhong, 2018). Ancient philosophers were seeking to discuss ethics in terms of self-­ growth, so as to embody their ideas in real life. Ancient (Greek and Confucian) traditions share this feature of practicality, of the practical

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nature of virtue ethics focusing on how the espoused conception of the good life could be efficacious in dictating ideals of human coexistence (Yu, 2010). Even more importantly, the cultivation of benevolence should be manifest in virtuous conduct. This process of psychological actualization of virtuous character and ethical awareness through virtuous acts is reflective of the importance of innate dispositions in informing ethical attitudes (Chen, 2010). Wisdom, so much valued in organizational literature, is considered a pivotal virtue in the Confucian tradition. The goal of self-cultivation is, among others, the acquisition of wisdom. Confucius insisted that a separate human capacity is needed in the absence of which ren remains incomplete: this innate capacity is zhi, translated as wisdom/knowledge. Wisdom is a specific quality: the mental capacity to know others and to act accordingly. In a broader sense, wisdom is imbued with metaphysical connotations, originating in ultimate reality and endowed by heaven (Analects 9.29, 6.23). Yang (2016) explores the implications of wisdom in the writings of Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), a Confucian scholar in the Northern Song dynasty. Operating jointly with self-cultivation and humaneness, wisdom triggers a process of cognitive development and attitudinal integration that entails beneficial effects for oneself and others. According to the Cheng brothers, Cheng Hao (1032–1085) and Cheng Yi (1033–1107), humans can become the embodiment of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faithfulness because these virtues are embedded in our nature. In contrast to the Humean distinction between fact and value, these Neo-Confucian scholars contended that we have an innate disposition to act virtuously because of our virtuous nature: the latter is not viewed as an abstract metaphysical entity, but as a life-giving activity (sheng) that imbues the ten thousand things (Huang, 2003).

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 onfucian Virtuous Leadership C in Organizational Theory As already indicated, Confucian virtues are primarily viewed as character traits or innate dispositions. Drawing on Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics traditions, Hackett and Wang (2012) identified six cardinal values that permeate values-based leadership. The virtues of courage, temperance, justice, prudence, humanity, and truthfulness were perceived as cardinal, universal, interrelated and supportive of ethical and affective leadership traits. Virtuous leaders exhibiting these virtues were expected to behave ethically, experience life satisfaction and ensure leadership effectiveness. Wang and Hackett (2016) highlighted that this set of virtues claims universal validity because it embodies the shared features of virtue ethics traditions. Wang and Hackett (2020) expand on this perspective by advancing the view of a virtues-centred moral identity comprising two intertwined dimensions: the six virtues of courage, temperance, justice, prudence, humanity and truthfulness epitomized by a virtuous person, and the dimension of how this person enacts virtue in a variety of contexts. In this respect, developing character through a virtues-based moral identity has the potential to elucidate the construct of virtuous leadership, as applied to both Western and Eastern settings. Confucian values play an important role in influencing business leadership in many significant respects, in particular through shaping virtuous behaviours (Yuan, 2013). Yang (2020b) highlights the importance of traditional Chinese admonitions for developing a virtuous administrative ethics. Beyond typical Confucian virtues of ren, yi and li, counsels to officials and magistrates include a focus on trustworthiness, incorruptibility, diligence, prudence, endurance, impartiality and loyalty. These values are reflective of the rule of morality which emphasizes cultivation of moral selves through moral education, as well as the endeavour to become a role model that exemplifies this ethos in practice. Contemporary dehumanized public administration can substantially benefit from this ideal of governance that exhibits a low degree of reliance on strict law enforcement to ensure justice and fairness in public service delivery.

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Humanistic Leadership in a Confucian Context  he Philosophical Premises: Humaneness in Ancient T Confucian Literature Confucianism is concerned with treating others with humanness (ren), by exhibiting an administrative ethos founded on propriety (li). The first tenet was emphasized by Confucius and Mencius, while the second acquired more importance in the thought of Xunzi (300–230 BC). Zhang (2015, pp. 287–288) posits that humanness shaped the fundamental category of Confucius’s humanism (renxue) centred on the need for self-cultivation. Hu et al. (2021) analysed 132 classic Confucian works derived from Siku Quanshu, a large compilation of writings during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), in view of calculating the frequency of ren and li in those books by employing big data methods. Their findings showed that ren culminated in the Sui and Tang dynasties’ moral literature (581–907), whereas li reached its peak in the Wei and Jin period (265–420), both virtues being discredited during the Yuan dynasty (1269–1378). Cua (2014, pp. 327–328) plausibly argues that Confucian virtues culminate in the person of junzi, construed as the paradigmatic individual who serves as an exemplar for practical conduct. Junzi is deemed the role model of an ethically superior person and the embodiment of virtues, thus intervening between abstract reasoning and the actual world of individuals striving to emulate this ideal person. Humaneness embodies universal attributes that help social agents move beyond rigid social demarcations, thus displaying an openness to otherness (Neville, 2012). In the Tang dynasty, Han Yu (768–824) promoted the idea of humaneness as displaying compassion for others, yet during the Song dynasty the famous Cheng brothers, Cheng Yi (1033–1107) and Cheng Hao (1032–1085), advanced a conceptual shift in identifying humaneness with human nature, insofar as they perceived humaneness as the summation of all cardinal virtues. The ardent philosophical debate between Zhang Shi (1133–1181) and Zhu Xi (1130–1200) helped heighten an innovative view of humaneness as a virtue of the heart/mind that integrated both affective and ontological

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components of human nature (Tillman & Soffel, 2010, pp. 132–134, 144–148). Huang (1996) claims that it was the prominent Neo-­ Confucian scholar Zhu Xi who achieved a reflective equilibrium between this virtue and the emotional state of interpersonal love because in his thought, the idea of the good was inextricably associated with the social conception of the right. Undoubtedly, Zhu Xi contributed to moralizing the entire universe and inculcated in social life the benchmark of the cardinal Confucian virtues, ren, yi, li and zhi. These virtues are not only reflective of the innate goodness of human nature, but also constitute the ontological basis for self-cultivation in both private and public spheres, and hence the interdependence between the subjective virtues and the prevailing social norms (Zheng, 2020, p. 342).

Reconstructing Confucian Humanism Confucianism remains an administrative philosophy rooted in humanism and values-based rationalism that proffers the rationale for maintaining social harmony (Xu & Wang, 2018). Shen (2014) identifies in the process of the fading of earlier political theology the rise of a humanistic ethos placing an emphasis upon creativity, moral effort and responsibility. Tang (2015, pp. 84–85) posits that Confucianism is a kind of idealism based on humanism as its prerequisite, given that everyone can instil in his heart the ideal of the true, the good and the beautiful. The emphasis on the primary virtues of ren, yi and li incarnates the ideal of the ethical meaningfulness of human existence, substantiated through self-cultivation, harmony and virtuous government (Shen 2014, p. 50). Subsequent developments reinforced this line of reasoning. Fan (2010, p. 148) argues that Confucianism as a kind of religious humanism promotes a weak anthropocentric account of man that is cosmic principle-­ oriented. Tu (2013) highlighted the significance of the revival of Confucian humanism as a spiritual resource that enables self-­ understanding, in particular through shaping a self-reflexive identity that transcends the constraints of instrumental rationality. Confucian ethics is reflective of the ideal of Confucian humanism that fosters individualized

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care, inimical to the tenets of instrumental reason (Song, 2002). Confucianism encompasses a cosmopolitan dimension by considering humankind as an entire political community governed by the rule of law. This view involves multilevel humanistic connotations by envisaging humankind as a community of relational, moral selves. Furthermore, in acknowledging equal moral worthiness for all human beings and affirming the inviolability of human dignity, Confucian humanism is supportive of the ideal of the cultural diversity of humanity, by cultivating the aspiration of perpetual peace and social harmony (Chen, 2020). In this direction, Q. Liu (2009) advocates a deeper self-­ transformation of the Confucian tradition in view of becoming a truly universalistic humanism. This genuine humanism, Liu argues, will be in a position to alleviate the defect of Western instrumental reason though an emphasis on moral emotions that affirm our deepest humanity, by showing unconditional respect for the welfare of all. This view was justified by typical proponents of contemporary Confucian philosophy. For instance, Xiong Shili’s (1885–1968) students, Tang Junyi (1909–1978), Mou Zongsan (1909–1995) and Xu Fuguan (1902–1982), who insisted on the contemporary relevance of the Lu-Wang school of Neo-Confucianism, underscored its value as a genuine humanistic tradition (Hon, 2015, p. 33). Xu Fuguan deeply appreciated human dignity, culminating in administrative ethics by realizing the ideal of rule by virtue that is respectful of inalienable individual rights (Elstein, 2021, pp. 211, 215).

 perationalizing Confucian Humaneness: O Studies on Confucian Humanistic Leadership Humanistic leadership is grounded in humanism, a paradigm shift in management theory that seeks to provide the foundations of human well-­ being as the ultimate goal of organizational activity, by affirming the inherent dignity of the human person, by integrating ethical concerns into decision-making, by engaging in an open deliberation on the moral legitimacy of managerial success, as well as by addressing the interests of

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stakeholders (Pirson & Lawrence, 2010). Drawing on the notion of humanity as an essential component of effective leadership in service economy, Zhu et al. (2021) suggest that this ideal is enacted in practice by developing followers, addressing their needs and empowering them, which is conducive to multilevel beneficial outcomes. Applying Confucian principles to humanistic leadership theory provides a new impetus towards enriching the underlying rationale of this conceptual construct. The Confucian tradition, which places the virtue of humaneness at the centre of its comprehensive teaching, tends to ethically harness the instrumentality of contemporary leadership which reduces virtue to a reasonable constraint of the profit motive. Confucian morality appears to share certain affinities with mainstream Western ethical traditions centred on the priority of human development through moral autonomy, such as the Kantian emphasis on duties and on categorical imperative (Kudaibergenova et al., 2015). Honglei (2012) claims that Confucian administrative ethics encompasses five primary dimensions: humanity-oriented management though cultivation of wisdom, leadership in accordance with primary virtues, conducting business with righteousness, ensuring social harmony through wisdom, and finally, applying the doctrine of the mean in coordinating activities. Insights on humanistic leadership can be found in the extant literature on Confucian business ethics. Y. Zhang et al. (2009) introduced an integrative model for Chinese management, incorporating Neo-Confucian values underlying a responsible and humanistic management, entwined with a dynamic leadership process. The authors hold the view that a harmonious managerial approach grounded in ethical and emotional values can provide a sustainable alternative to the dominant economic paradigm. Cheng (2011) articulated a revised form of Confucian leadership grounded in a philosophy of humanity that is in a position to address both utilitarian and deontological concerns, thus reconciling competing business imperatives. Chou and Cheng (2020) explore humanistic leadership adopted by a typical Confucian leader who displays humanistic care for subordinates and intends to pursue the common good. Humanistic leadership encompasses five dimensions that are aligned to the five cardinal Confucian virtues. Putting people first is reflective of the virtue of ren. Prioritizing

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justice over profitability is commensurate with the virtue of yi. Leading by example in conformity with moral codes of conduct is based upon the centrality of ritual order, of the virtue of li. The need for implementation of humanistic principles is consistent with the virtue of zhi. Last but not least, treating others with impartiality and displaying integrity and honesty ensues from the virtue of xin. Confucian humanistic leadership is highly committed to being people-­ centred by adhering to primary ethical values, as well as by resisting profit maximization as the sole organizational goal. To effectively implement Confucian virtues in social interactions, humanistic leaders seek to enhance the happiness of others. Confucian humanistic leaders instil in their followers the ideal of becoming potential humanistic agents through socialization procedures and symbolic activities, by showing unconditional respect for the whole person, thus exhibiting humanistic concern for all. In so doing, Confucian leaders are treating subordinates with moral integrity and honesty, behaving as role models enacting virtue that others strive to emulate. Concomitantly, a network of mutually beneficial relationships is shaped in view of serving the common good through shaping bonds of social trust. Adopting a similar lens, Bo Yang et al. (2020) introduce a functional framework for Confucian humanistic leadership that is both universally applicable and culturally sensitive. The authors systematically examine three leaders and their companies, in view of demonstrating the feasibility of practising humanistic leadership in the Chinese context. In so doing, they develop a coherent framework of Confucian humanistic leadership consisting of five interrelated attributes that reflect the cultural embeddedness of enacting humanistic leadership. Confucian humanistic leaders display compassion and humanity in treating subordinates, just as they would like to be treated as holistic human beings. Deriving profit by acting virtuously helps leaders to address critical ethical dilemmas. Both of these attributes ensure that Confucian humanistic leaders treat followers with compassion and righteousness, through creating synergies from which various stakeholders can significantly benefit. Furthermore, developing others by cultivating their innate potential indicates that Confucian leaders perceive self-cultivation as a primary aspect of overall well-being. Aligning knowledge management with actual

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praxis implies that these leaders are in a position to realize personal growth as manifested in business behaviour. Equally importantly, balancing alternative courses of action affects the pursuit of the common good through a holistic strategy that considers a multiplicity of perspectives, societal needs and group interests. Beyond China, humanistic leadership is implemented in other societies of the Confucian cluster. Ono and Ikegami (2020) elaborated a coherent theory of humanistic leadership embedded in the Japanese cultural context. Findings of the study delineated the nature of humanistic leadership entrenched in indigenous (namely Confucian, Taoist and Shinto) values, in view of creating a corporate philosophy based on both individual and communal well-being. Humanistic leadership is enacted through virtuous behaviours aimed at promoting welfare, facilitating cognitive awareness of one’s deficiencies through openness to others, enhancing self-improvement and respecting human dignity. A Japanese humanistic leader forges bonds of trust, and displays fairness, integrity and genuine concern for followers, thus generating positive sum games that increase social welfare. Equally importantly, this leadership philosophy reflects three fundamental components of Japanese spirituality: maintaining independence while encountering other cultures, integrating wisdom and respecting harmony by enabling cooperation for advancing prosperity. In a similar vein of reasoning, H.Y. Kim et al. (2020) articulated a conceptual model of South Korean humanistic leadership focusing on the indigenous philosophies of Korean society (in particular, Korean Neo-Confucianism, the Dangun legend in the famous medieval epic Samguk Jusa narrating first Korean state formation, and jeong affective and emotional ties). The authors specified the nature of leadership attributes that influence perceptions of humanistic leadership in the Korean context. They defined those character strengths that enable a South Korean leader to further social welfare. Such leader attributes encompass developing self and others, forging trusting relationships with stakeholders, and fostering societal well-being by undertaking prosocial and environmental responsibility. A profound understanding of humanistic leadership premises necessitates the embodiment of indigenous cultural factors in comprehensive theories that effectively combine both the

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culturally sensitive and the universally shared aspects of humanistic leadership.

Discussion As already argued, Confucian virtue ethics is important to today’s organizations. Confucian ethics is grounded in hierarchy, responsibility, strong reciprocities, and the virtues of ren, yi, li and xin as attributes of social agents that pursue the common good. Confucian ethics is consonant with the very essence of firms as value-creating entities based upon hierarchical relationships (Romar, 2013). Applying Confucian ethics to business settings yields ethical behaviours, enhanced performance and organizational reputation. Confucianism is in a position to foster humane organizations by supporting ethical conduct rather than self-interested aspirations for material gain, as well as through enhancing personal responsibility stemming from a coherent role ethics. Chu and Vu (2021) demonstrated that in Taiwan, Confucian values place an emphasis on the need for benevolent action entrenched in the core virtues of ren-yi-li that are effective in constraining self-interest. The centrality of Confucian role ethics and the focus on personalized relations are underpinned by the entwinement of compassion, decision-making and moral action epitomized in these cardinal virtues, as well as in familial piety. In addition, the concepts of inner balance and social harmony, applied to the societal level, are reminiscent of a relational, embedded self whose self-regulation process enables compassionate responses to new challenges. Our findings are consistent with Park et al. (2019), who underscored supportive leadership as akin to the cluster of Confucian societies (China, Japan, Korea and Singapore), yet they attributed the rise of participative leadership in China to a shift in cultural values, from Confucian to Western ones. Given the relative paucity of research on Confucian humanistic leadership, I have commented on studies centred on the virtue of humaneness, introduced in organizational settings. To implement Confucian virtues in social relationships, humanistic leaders seek to enhance the happiness of others through refraining from self-interest that appears detrimental to

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others’ welfare. Confucian humanistic leaders are expected to show compassion in their treatment of subordinates, develop others by cultivating their innate potential, and perceive self-cultivation as a primary aspect of ethical well-being. Confucian humanistic leadership accomplishes this turn in organizational theory, from economistic and instrumental to humanistic paradigms of leadership. Equally importantly, the emphasis on social harmony through reconciling opposing interests affects the pursuit of the common good, by employing a holistic strategy intended to account for a multiplicity of societal needs. I hold the view that a harmonious leadership approach grounded in sound ethical and affective virtues is of the utmost importance in unprecedented times of crisis, because of its innate potential to provide a viable alternative to the dominant management paradigms based on instrumental reason. Confucian humanistic leadership seems to resonate strongly with the concept of eupsychian leadership founded in existential psychology (Bland & Swords, 2021). Based on post-conventional ethics, eupsychian leadership is relational, participative and collaborative. These leaders are open-minded and resilient, showing appreciation of, and respect for, the personal identities of subordinates by exhibiting compassion, kindness and attitudinal transparency. Such leader attributes are expected to generate higher levels of followers’ intrinsic motivation, prosocial behaviour and subjective well-being, as outcomes of humanistic leadership. An interesting point I examined is to specify philosophical foundations of humanistic leadership, by stressing the added value of Confucian humanism. Confucian humanistic leadership is embedded in debates engendering the importance of Confucian humanism in an era in which organizations face unpredictable situations. Contemporary Confucian philosophy plays an important role in providing the impetus towards new directions in organizational research primarily, yet not exclusively, in an indigenous context. Confucian humanism is an invaluable resource in coping with such conditions of adversity and, more specifically, in meeting new challenges, typical of such unprecedented times of which we have to be more than indifferent witnesses.

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 he Need for Confucian Humanism T in Unprecedented Times: Enacting Confucian Humanistic Leadership during the New Pandemic Operationalizing humanistic leadership in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic remains a challenging yet promising endeavour. As already argued, humanistic leadership principles are framed as most appropriate for creating adaptive systems and processes that empower employees and promote resilience, innovation, and employee transformative growth, well-being and performance. Confucian humanistic leadership in particular embodies the dimension of humaneness/benevolence, which comprises an invaluable symbolic resource in coping with new challenges in these times of unprecedented crisis. Benevolent leader attitudes are exemplified through procedures reflecting respectful treatment of followers, so much needed in times of occupational fatigue, increased burnout and low psychological safety. Rošker (2021b) posits that in the context of seeking sustainable solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Confucian emphasis on relational values is expected to offer alternative ways of elaborating upon a model of a more caring society, in the sense of a cohesive community based on the recognition of our obligation for mutual care, as well as on the ethical awareness of our vulnerability that necessitates an ethics of interdependence. Originating in the Confucian relational virtue of humaneness (ren), this ethical awareness can nurture a deeper sensitivity and empathy for our fellow human beings who experience pain and persistent suffering (Rošker, 2021a, p. 74). Drawing upon the current pandemic as an illustrative example, Tan (2021) employs the Confucian notion of mindfulness as a coping mechanism to reduce occupational stress. Underlying this disposition remains the virtue of humaneness, exemplified in an ethics of interdependence and mutual support. In this respect, mindfulness is invested with a potential that motivates us to transcend narrow self-­ interest and demonstrate deference, empathy and altruistic love towards others.

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In a similar vein of reasoning, Allinson (2020) advances a new ethical paradigm based on Confucian humanism. In his view, social duty appears more efficacious in addressing global threats to human life than the concept of individual rights. Confucian ethics nurtures our inherent sociality and an ethics of duty which denotes that the moral responsibility of being truly human is based upon the experience of compassion. Accordingly, we may infer that, by appealing to this strong sense of moral duty towards our fellow humans, Confucian humanistic leadership can actualize a caring and compassionate organizational climate, in the absence of which the existential threat to our innate identities can be hardly mitigated in these times of global uncertainty. Despite the serious challenges it poses, the COVID-19 pandemic may afford us the opportunity to act with more authenticity resulting in conscious, caring and creative initiatives as the genuine manifestation of our humaneness at both the organizational and societal level.

Implications for Practice Confucian humanistic leadership is not devoid of a variety of practical implications. A stream of literature focuses on denoting ways of applying humaneness to business practices. For instance, Tian et al. (2021), drawing on Confucian normative ethics, attempt to operationalize the junzi (the noble man) concept at the business level, by demonstrating that the implementation of this worldview yielded positive effects on firm performance. In so doing, they develop and validate a scale comprising five dimensions reflecting the core Confucian virtues, ren, yi, li, xhi and xin. Embedded in a Confucian worldview, this culturally sensitive orientation is important to the endeavour of maintaining sustainable advantage over time. Confucian humanistic leadership remains a promising alternative to existing economistic paradigms. Drawing on the cardinal Confucian virtues, Chon and Hao (2020) elaborate a model for the hospitality industry that embodies a vision for humanity, righteousness orientation and disdain for pure benefit. Confucian leaders were inspired by humility, politeness and virtue, thus shaping cooperative networks with

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stakeholders, imbued by the principles of ren, yi and li. Chen and Eweje (2020) suggest that managers should embrace the Confucian virtues of xinyong (trust) and lijie (empathy), in view of fostering the virtue of ren as an intrinsic value. In so doing, managers are prone to become ideal Confucian ethical persons (junzi) intrinsically motivated by a sense of moral obligation to act virtuously. I thus advance the view that Confucian values involve a strong potential for a responsible, humanistic management, so much needed in a competitive and dehumanized world. Cao (2021) illustrates the typical case of a Confucian entrepreneur operating in a Chinese context, who is successful in pursuing both righteousness and profitableness. In congruence with the Confucian ideals, profit-seeking is viewed as an integral part of the wholeness of life based on self-cultivation and the development of virtues. Such contributions that suggest ways of enacting Confucian humanism advocate for a common good approach to leadership benefiting from the promotion of ethical and affective virtues. Equally importantly, the Confucian emphasis on social harmony remains of the utmost importance in orientating the philosophy of international business relations by highlighting the intrinsic value of multilevel social cooperation. X. Liu et al. (2021) suggest that Chinese enterprises should employ constructive strategies based on the values of harmony, humaneness and the doctrine of the mean (Zhongyong) in managing cross-cultural conflict, in particular during the COVID-19 pandemic. By displaying a deep respect for all stakeholders and local communities, Confucian humanistic leadership is supportive of sustainability initiatives, so much needed in turbulent times. For instance, S. Kim (2019) argues that Confucianism favours an alternative vision of political economy in which politics, economy and morality are entwined under the overarching value of social harmony. By developing institutional mechanisms focusing on the moral priority of considering the basic needs of the vulnerable members of society without underestimating the importance of individual merit and contribution, Confucian humanistic leadership is in a position to harmonize competing societal demands. The very essence of sustainability is situated at the crossroads of reconciling opposing distributive values (basic needs, equality and meritocracy), under the cohesive principle of social harmony.

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The ideal of social harmony is perceived as a compass in directing philosophies of international relations in an era of persistent political tensions and increasing conflict substantially threatening the very existence of humankind itself. Far from implying uniformity, Confucian harmony allows for a diversity of strategic interests and distinct loci of power that share the need for a multilevel symbiotic relationship based on renewed humanism, in view of mitigating the current unprecedented struggle for increased geopolitical control.

 ecommendations for Future Research R and Conclusions One possible avenue for further research would be to elaborate upon Chinese humanistic leadership based on other indigenous streams of thought. For instance, Daoism encapsulates a value system that can broaden our understanding of different leadership styles. Daoism involves more flexibility and adaptability compared to the relatively rigid Confucian doctrines when applied to small business settings (Hennig, 2017). In contrast, McDonald (2012) posits that Confucianism has now gained considerable prominence over competing streams of organizational scholarship drawing on Communism, Daoism, Legalism or Mohism. Employing a comparative framework, we are able to proffer permeating insights into the underlying assumptions of leadership practices, as well as on their effects on corporate ethics and sustainability, thereby prompting innovative solutions to persistent environmental and global challenges in an ambivalent, post-COVID-19, reality. Humanistic leadership is invested with a strong potential to promote humane, compassionate and inclusive responses to new societal demands. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, humanistic leadership practices are framed as appropriate for shaping virtual spaces that empower employees and promote resilience, innovation and transformative growth (Lehr & Vaughan, 2021). Not infrequently rooted in virtue ethics tradition, humanistic leadership is intertwined with cultural connotations. This chapter provides a framework for assessing the role of Confucian

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virtues in informing leadership practices based on moral awareness, intrinsic worthiness of, and unconditional respect for, stakeholders. Confucian humanistic leadership is deeply entrenched in a cultural tradition that envisages a harmonious, socially responsible and sustainable business environment. Endorsing a culturally sensitive approach to humanistic leadership based upon the universal moral asset of humaneness remains a promising option in addressing the challenges accompanying these fluid times of unprecedented global crisis.

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Part IV Pedagogy

7 Zen Koan Pedagogy: A Spiritual Approach to Management Education Tianyuan Yu and Albert J. Mills

Introduction Zen Buddhist tradition had permeated Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian cultures for millennia before it was transmitted to the West in the twentieth century. Nowadays, ‘Zen is no longer an exotic Eastern monastic religion’ (Low & Purser, 2012, p. 352). Over 500 Zen centers have been established throughout North America, Europe, and Australia (Low & Purser, 2012), drawing increasing attention from the Western business world. Researchers and practitioners propose that organization

T. Yu (*) Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS, Canada e-mail: [email protected] A. J. Mills Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, Canada University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_7

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management and leadership can be enhanced by learning from Zen Buddhist teachings and practices (e.g., Lesser, 2005; Low & Purser, 2012; Sadler-Smith & Shefy, 2004, 2007). Among all kinds of Zen teaching practices, koan study figures prominently as a more discursive interaction between teachers and students (Heine & Wright, 2000). This teaching practice is one of the best-known and most distinctive elements of Zen Buddhism (Heine & Wright, 2000). Koan is the Japanese translation for Chinese gong-an (公案), literally meaning ‘public case.’ Koans are recorded sayings, teachings and dialogical encounters between Zen Buddhist masters and disciples in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907  CE) and the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). These koans were compiled and published in the Song dynasty as Chinese classical koan collections (e.g., Records of the Transmission of the Lamp 景德传灯录, Song dynasty history of Zen Buddhism in China 五灯会元). Some popular Chinese koan collections used in modern Western Zen centers include Blue Cliff Record (碧岩录) and The Gateless Gate (无门关). Western Zen centers also use traditional koans from Japan and Korea, as well as modern koans taken from aspects of everyday life. Koans are conceived as both the pedagogical tool by which enlightenment is brought about and an expression of the enlightened mind itself (Heine & Wright, 2000). Koans are often enigmatic and shocking spiritual expressions, as they are designed to induce enlightenment by putting the Zen practitioner in a dilemma unsolvable by the rational, intellectualizing, dualistic mind. Some of the best-known traditional koans used in Western Zen centers include, for example, ‘Does a dog have Buddha-­ nature?’ ‘What was your original face before your parents were born?’ and ‘What is the sound of one-hand clapping?’ As Horn (2000, p.  280) describes, ‘[d]riven into an ever more desperate corner by his [sic] repeated futile attempts to solve what cannot be rationally solved, the practitioner finally breaks through.’ In this chapter, we argue that Zen koan pedagogy, a traditional Zen Buddhist teaching practice originating in the East, provides a spiritual and promising approach to management education. We illustrate the features of Zen koan pedagogy by presenting a textual analysis of a classical Chinese koan, followed by a video analysis of a contemporary Western

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dharma talk, demonstrating how the essence of koan tradition is inherited by modern Western Zen masters. We then discuss how we explore Zen koan pedagogy in management education during the Covid-19 pandemic, gaining insights for spiritual teaching practice that can be healing and empowering in a time characterized by unprecedented uncertainty and stress.

Features of Zen Koan Pedagogy Zen koan pedagogy is a holistic and spiritual teaching practice that emphasizes participants’ whole-being engagement with life dilemmas or bewildering questions. Such dilemmas or questions are expressed and tackled through improvised verbal or nonverbal methods as manifested in authentic dialogues or interactions between participants. This teaching practice requires tremendous compassion and wisdom generated from deep reflexivity of all participants in pursuit of collective awakening. Below we summarize features of Zen koan pedagogy in terms of four aspects: (1) a holistic and spiritual approach that demands a meditative mind, (2) utilizing both verbal and nonverbal methods, (3) a living tradition transmitted from the East to the West, and (4) emphasizing spontaneity and creativity.

A Holistic and Spiritual Approach Zen koan pedagogy is a holistic approach that demands whole-being engagement and embodied experience. Based on the first author’s autoethnographic field study at American Zen centers (Yu, 2021), we find that Zen koan pedagogy stresses not only intellectual but also physical, emotional, and spiritual engagement. Zen teachers contend that working on koans without doing zazen (sitting meditation) will make koan study merely intellectual work. Since a koan is a dilemma that is unsolvable by the intellectualizing mind, Zen practitioners have to resort to their inner wisdom through meditation. It should be noted, however, that Zen does not negate intellectuality. Rather, a sole reliance on the intellectualizing

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mind is not sufficient for one to see their Buddha-nature, which is beyond intellectuality. This is because the intellectualizing mind tends to be trapped in dualistic thinking, which is the dominant way of knowing in modern Western science. By contrast, the Zen Buddhist way of knowing incorporates nondual thinking (or ‘non-thinking’) and other modes of knowing such as sensing, feeling, intuiting, and higher-order knowing stemming from ego-transcendence. In Zen centers, this state of mind is usually achieved by engaging in koan study combined with other meditative practices such as zazen (sitting meditation), kinhin (walking meditation), chanting, samu (physical work), and dokusan (private interview between teacher and student). In fact, Zen meditation can be practiced not only when sitting, walking, or chanting, but also when cooking, eating, cleaning, speaking, and literally each and every moment. Zen centers are known for their emphasis on daily zazen practice. When doing zazen, a Zen practitioner can be counting breaths, reflecting on a koan, or just sitting. Zen centers also regularly hold intensive meditation periods such as Sesshin (meditation for either two days or one week) or Ango (prolonged meditation lasting for three months). In addition, Zen classes and ceremonies typically start with zazen for a short period of time (ranging from five minutes to 30 minutes or more, depending on the situation).

Verbal and Nonverbal Methods Aligned with this emphasis on whole-being engagement, Zen koan pedagogy features nonverbal teaching methods as well as verbal methods. Japanese Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki (1958) classifies the ancient Chinese Zen koan teaching methods under two general categories: verbal methods and direct (nonverbal) methods. The verbal methods include paradox, going beyond opposites (i.e., nonduality), contradiction, affirmation, and repetition. The nonverbal methods are a display of physical force such as exclamation, gesture (e.g., holding up a finger), facial expression (e.g., raising eyebrows, blinking eyes), striking, punching, stamping feet,

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and any improvised actions depending on the immediate context (e.g., picking up a flower, blowing out a candle, knocking down a bottle). Exclamation (or shouting), for example, is a classical nonverbal teaching method. Master Linji Yixuan (?-866 C.E.), the founder of Chinese Linji Chan (now Japanese Rinzai school of Zen), was renowned for leading students to enlightenment by shouting (Quotations from Chan Master Linji Huizhao from Zhenzhou, n.d.). Linji’s shout was so famous that it later became known as the ‘Linji shout,’ often juxtaposed with another famous nonverbal teaching method created by Master Deshan Xuanjian (780–865 C.E.), namely the ‘Deshan blow’ (i.e., striking someone with a stick). It should be noted, however, that violent teaching practices such as shouting and striking, which might have worked well in ancient China, might not translate well to modern Western societies. Teachers should take care to contextualize koan teaching methods that involve violence. Whether it is a shout, a blow, or other shocking expressions, the aim is to lead the students to enlightenment, that is, to let go of one’s dualistic thinking. A shock in the right place at the right time, therefore, can be an opportunity for Zen practitioners to be awakened. The key is to creatively utilize these methods in a mutually respectful way without the teacher abusing authority over students. Below we exemplify the verbal and nonverbal methods through a specific example, a famous koan recorded in the Song dynasty history of Zen Buddhism in China which tells the story of Deshan Xuanjian’s enlightenment experience: Deshan was born of a Zhou family and claimed to be an expert in The Diamond Sutra. He lectured on this sutra so frequently that his contemporaries nicknamed him “Diamond Zhou.” Later, hearing about the prosperity of the Zen school in the south, he became indignant and said, “How many of us have spent thousands of kalpas in studying Buddhism and have not been able to attain Buddhahood. Those southern devils are bragging of pointing directly at the mind, of seeing one's true-nature and attaining Buddhahood immediately! I am going to raid their dens and caves and exterminate the whole southern school, in order to requite the Buddha’s kindness.”

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Carrying two baskets of his commentaries on The Diamond Sutra, he left for the south. On his way, he encountered an old woman selling ­mind-­refreshers (点心 “dim sum”). Deshan laid down his load and wanted to buy some mind-refreshers. The old woman, pointing at the baskets, asked, “What are you carrying in your baskets?” Deshan answered, “My commentaries on The Diamond Sutra.” The old woman said, “I have a question. If you can answer it, I will give you mind-refreshers for free. But if you cannot, please pass on to another place. Now, The Diamond Sutra says: ‘The past mind is unobtainable, the present mind is unobtainable, and the future mind is unobtainable.’ Which mind, I wonder, does Your Reverence wish to refresh?” Deshan had no word to respond. He went on to Longtan [literally meaning “dragon pond”] where Zen Master Longtan Chongxin was teaching. Upon arrival at the Dharma Hall, Deshan remarked, “I have long desired to visit the Dragon Pond. Now that I am here, I see neither pond nor dragon.” Master Longtan came out and said, “You have indeed arrived at the Dragon Pond.” Deshan again had nothing to respond. He decided to stay on at Longtan. One evening, as Deshan was attending the master, the master said, “Now it’s late night, why don’t you retire?” After wishing the master good night, Deshan went out, but returned at once, saying, “It’s pitch dark outside!” Master Longtan lit a candle and handed it over to Deshan. But just as Deshan was about to receive the candle, Longtan suddenly blew out the light. At this point, Deshan was completely enlightened, so he prostrated to the master. The master asked, ‘What have you seen?’ Deshan said, “From now on, I have no doubt about the words of all the Zen masters.” (Puji普 济, 1252, vol.7)

This interesting koan incorporates a number of Zen teaching methods as classified by Suzuki (1958), such as ‘paradox,’ ‘going beyond opposites,’ ‘contradiction,’ ‘affirmation,’ and ‘nonverbal method.’ The saying in The Diamond Sutra cited by the old woman is a paradox in itself: ‘What the Tathagata [the Buddha] speaks of as “mind” is not mind but is called “mind”. And how so? Subhuti [a disciple of the Buddha], The past mind is unobtainable, the present mind is unobtainable, and the future mind is unobtainable’ (The Diamond Sutra金刚般若 波罗蜜经, n.d., Chapter 18). Mind is not mind yet is still mind. The

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past, present, and future do not exist yet still exist. Such paradoxes are typical in The Diamond Sutra as the Buddha’s teachings. In fact, they are so typical that one can even say that the whole point of Zen Buddhist teachings is paradox. And paradox is the truth of life. As Lesser (2005, pp. 231–232) comments on how Zen informs workplace practice: ‘Being an effective leader, manager, or worker requires that you embrace skills and attitudes that appear to be in conflict. […] Embracing paradox is not really any different from accepting what is, accepting the truth of our situations and of our lives. […] If it’s not paradoxical, it’s not true.’ The old woman’s question puts Deshan in a dilemma. The only way out is ‘going beyond opposites,’ that is, through non-dualistic thinking. As Suzuki (1958, p. 275) argues, ‘so long as the intellect is to move along the ordinary dualistic groove, this [being trapped in a dilemma] is unavoidable.’ In Deshan’s case, he seemed to be trapped by dualistic notions such as mind vs. no mind; past, present, and future; unobtainable vs. obtainable. Hence, he failed to produce an instant, direct response to the old woman’s challenge. When Deshan first arrives at the Dharma Hall, Master Longtan’s response to Deshan’s defiant remarks is both a ‘contradiction’ and an ‘affirmation.’ Deshan challenged the reputation and authority of Master Longtan by claiming there was ‘neither pond nor dragon.’ Master Longtan contradicted this negation by simply affirming that ‘you have indeed arrived at the Dragon Pond.’ Master Longtan’s simple response seemed to be so powerful that Deshan had no word to rebut but to humbly stay on as a disciple of the master. This koan story culminates in an incident when Deshan attains ‘complete enlightenment’ through Master Longtan’s ‘nonverbal method’— blowing out the candle. Nonverbal methods are meant to lead the student to awakening, that is, letting go of one’s dualistic thinking or certain attachment. Whether a shout, a blow, or other shocking expressions, these nonverbal methods demonstrate the famous Zen teaching philosophy, namely ‘pointing directly at the Mind-Heart, seeing one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood immediately’ (Fahai, n.d.).

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A Living Tradition The use of koan study is thought to embody the enlightenment experience of the Buddha and Zen masters through an unbroken line of succession, spreading from China to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and then in the twentieth century to modern Western countries (Heine & Wright, 2000). Below we provide a video analysis of a dharma talk to illustrate how the Zen verbal and nonverbal teaching methods are inherited by contemporary Western Zen masters. Video-based methods involve microscopic analysis of recorded pieces of naturally occurring activities and interactions, informed by ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), microethnography (Streeck & Mehus, 2005), and conversation analysis (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2009), which are all approaches in sociology that conduct microanalysis of the social interactions through which people interpret and organize their everyday life. We contend that video-based methods are particularly suitable to capture the spiritual elements of Zen teaching. An obvious feature of video as data resource is that it includes both audible and visible elements, enabling researchers to attend to not only spoken discourse, but also visual cues such as body postures, gestures, gaze (Gylfe et al., 2016), and emotions (Liu & Maitlis, 2014). As Crane et al. (2015) suggest, video-­ based methods offer an opportunity to study how the emotional and spiritual climate is co-created in the field. In this study we use a simplified transcription system (Table  7.1) adapted from the transcribing conventions and notation systems of conversation analysis (CA) (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2009). CA aims to capture Table 7.1  Transcription system (adapted from Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2009) ((word)) [word =word (3.0) (.) Word °word° WORD ↑↓

Transcriber comments and descriptions Starting point of overlapping speech No break or gap between words or turns Silence measured in seconds Pause of less than one second Emphasis Especially quiet A section of speech noticeably louder than that surrounding it Shifts into especially high or low pitch

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all of the qualities present in actual speech, such as length of silences, overlapping speech acts, and qualitative features such as rising pitch, volume, added stress, and noises and utterances by speakers other than words. In addition, we include transcribers’ comments in our transcription system to capture visual cues in the video clips. Extract 7.1 is from a YouTube video clip of the dharma talk given by Master Dae Kwang on August 17, 2011, at the Empty Gate Zen Center, Berkeley, California (Empty Gate Zen Center, 2011). We chose this video clip because 1) it records a contemporary Western Zen teacher’s teaching practice at an influential Western Zen center and 2) it is short yet incorporates a variety of koan teaching methods as categorized by Suzuki (1958), demonstrating how the ancient Chinese koan pedagogy is very much alive in the twenty-first-century West. In this video Master Dae Kwang talks about ‘Zen and reincarnation.’ He firstly describes how people became intrigued by the idea of reincarnation when they became familiar with Hinduism and Buddhism. He Extract 1 1 M 2 3 4 5 6 7 P1 8 M & multiple P’s 9 M 10 11 12 13 M & multiple P’s 14 M 15 P1 16 M & multiple P’s 17 M 18 19 20 21

so (.) here’s the secret about reincarnation = there is no past and there is no future ((waving his left hand)) = the past and the future do not exist (5.0) ((slightly nodding, then scanning the participants, with a silent smile)) ↑but (.) here is the trick (3.0) ((reaching out to the participants and laying his right palm upward)) give me one second of the future (3.0) well we’ve been seeing you for a long time= =ho ho ho ho ((waving head, then again staring at the participants and reaching out his right hand)) now give me one second (2.0) just one (1.0) you can’t give me a nanosecond of the future actually = that’s even easier = °cause it’s a lot smaller°= =ho ho ho ho ho ho ((laying down his right hand and sitting back)) too much for me= =AHA HA HA [HA HA HA [that’s right (2.0) and the same thing is true about the past=you can’t give me even one second of the past (.) not one (3.0) ↑you can’t even give me you coming into this room this evening (3.0) so that’s the secret of reincarnation (4.0) ((with a silent smile)) reincarnation means wake up just now (.) because this is it right

Extract 7.1  Transcript of the video clip of a dharma talk given by Master Dae Kwang.

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then brings up the topic of ‘past, present, and future’ (M  =  Master; P = participants numbered in the order of first to speak). Extract 7.1 incorporates the following koan teaching methods as classified by Suzuki (1958): contradiction, paradox, going beyond opposites, affirmation, and non-verbal method. The first segment of this extract (line 1–4) is both a contradiction and a paradox. By denying the very existence of the past and the future (1–2), Master Dae Kwang contradicts forthrightly the common sense of ‘time,’ as well as the notion of ‘reincarnation.’ To augment the effect of this negation, he waves his left hand to express an utter dismissal (2). By asserting this contradiction as ‘the secret about reincarnation’ (1), Master Dae Kwang is in effect presenting a paradox—a paradox much the same as the sayings in The Diamond Sutra: ‘The past mind is unobtainable, the present mind is unobtainable, and the future mind is unobtainable.’ Nodding slightly and scanning the participants with a silent smile (3–4), Master Dae Kwang seems to be seeking, for as long as five seconds (3), those who may be ‘enlightened’ by this paradox. Apparently, he is not satisfied, as manifested by a shift to a highpitched ‘but’ (4). Hence comes the next ‘trick’ (4), which is another pedagogical move: ‘going beyond opposites,’ combined with a ‘nonverbal method’ (i.e., reaching out to the participants; see line 4–5). Breaking the silence by asking an unexpected question with an abrupt gesture, Master Dae Kwang is driving the participants into ‘an ever more desperate corner’ ‘to solve what cannot be rationally solved’ (Horn, 2000). Consequently, the participants are facing the same dilemma that Deshan encountered when being questioned by the old woman: being trapped by dualistic notions of the past, present, and future while being pressured to respond immediately. The tension between Master Dae Kwang and the participants becomes so strong that even a three-second silence is unbearable (6). One of the participants eventually tries to reduce the tension by self-­mockingly commenting on what is going on (7). Others take this opportunity to laugh off some embarrassment (8). Nonetheless, Master Dae Kwang waves his head and will not let the participants pass (9). He insists on the question (10) and pushes it further by asking for just ‘a nanosecond of the future’ (11), which is ‘a lot smaller’ and thus seemingly ‘even easier’ than one second (11–12). This extremely dualistic question begins to work, as

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some laughter is heard from the participants (13). Master Dae Kwang knows he can stop pressing the participants for the moment. Just as the master lays down his hand and sits back (14), one participant suddenly comments that something (seemingly easy and small) is ‘too much’ for him (15). Then the master and all participants burst into a loud laughter (16), a laughter that seems to completely release the remaining tension. As discussed previously, the only way out of a koan dilemma is through non-dualistic thinking instead of the conventional ‘either/or’ thinking. By realizing the paradox involved in the topic, the participants seem to have experienced an enlightening moment. Master Dae Kwang immediately affirms this realization (17) and goes on to summarize ‘the secret of reincarnation’ (20). After presenting a lot of contradictions and negations in his previous talk, the master now gives many affirmations: ‘that’s right’; ‘the same thing is true’ (17); ‘that’s the secret’; ‘wake up just now’; ‘this is it’ (20–21). As if these were not affirmative enough, the master even stresses the word ‘is’ in the final affirmative statement ‘this is it’ (21). As Suzuki (1958, pp. 282–283) stated, ‘Zen appears to be nothing but a philosophy of negation and contradiction, whereas in fact it has its affirmative side, and in this consists the uniqueness of Zen.’ Indeed, affirmation is a typical Zen response to many difficult questions, as recorded in Zen koans and Zen Buddhist sutras. For example, at the beginning of The Diamond Sutra, Subhuti asks a key question about how one can control his mind, and the Buddha simply answers that one should ‘thus control his mind’ (The Diamond Sutra, n.d., Chapter 2).

Spontaneity and Creativity Although we use the term ‘pedagogy,’ we do not see Zen koan teaching practice as a prescribed formula or a series of teaching techniques. ‘Truly meaningful education cannot be prescribed’ (Kumar & Downey, 2018, p.  66). The Buddha says that ‘a dharma teaching is like a raft’ which should be cast aside once we reach the other bank of the river (The Diamond Sutra, n.d., Chapter 6). This is where the Zen koan pedagogy differs from the popular mindfulness training techniques such as MBCT

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(mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) or MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) which usually include a set of prescribed, standardized procedures (e.g., Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2011; Crane et al., 2015). That being said, Zen Buddhist teaching does not reject techniques or tools. On the contrary, all kinds of ‘skillful means’ (see, e.g., Vu & Gill, 2019) are valued in Buddhism as ‘dharma gates’ that lead to the awakened way. As a line in the ‘Four Great Bodhisattva Vows’ goes, ‘dharma gates are countless, I vow to wake to them’ (see Aitken, 1992). This tremendous freedom, spontaneity, and creativity is prevalent in modern Western Zen centers exploring the ancient Eastern Zen koan pedagogy. For example, physical activities such as yoga and tai chi have been introduced to intensive Zen meditation programs to nurture a meditative mind. Moreover, Western Zen teachers create their own koans in addition to using classical Chinese and Japanese koans. Zen teacher Jun Po Roshi, for instance, creates the famous ‘emotional koan’ practice (aka ‘ego deconstruction koan’) that directly links koan study to one’s emotional conundrum. Gleig (2019) suggests that emotional koan exemplifies an ongoing trend of a powerful synthesis of Eastern Zen wisdom and Western psychological insight that unites spiritual awareness and emotional maturity. It is ‘a dialogue practice that uses enigmatic questions to awaken one to Clear Deep Heart-Mind, our deepest self, which includes unconditional compassion’ (Hollow Bones Order, 2018, p.  7). Jun Po Roshi believes that through the emotional koan practice, one can transform negative emotional reactions into wise, compassionate responses and alleviate suffering. Zen teachers Egyoku Roshi and Myonen Roshi take a different approach and create ‘householder koans’ (Marko & Nakao, 2020). In their coauthored book they suggest that ancient Chinese and Japanese koans are known to be difficult for Westerners to construe due to cultural gaps, whereas ‘householder koans’ are created by twenty-first-century Zen practitioners living a lay life in the West who deal with the challenges of relationships, raising children, work, money, love, loss, old age, and death. Furthermore, Western Zen practitioners learn to create koans spontaneously. For example, in his interview with me (the first author) in June 2019, Jun Po Roshi responded to my question of ‘what is enlightenment’ by simply repeating back the question, immediately making it a koan for

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me to work on. On another occasion, I observed how Egyoku Roshi in her Zen class at Zen Center of Los Angeles encouraged the participants to create koans on their own, after reading the ‘householder koans.’

 xploring Zen Koan Pedagogy in Management E Education During Covid-19 Currently we are in the early stage of exploring Zen koan pedagogy in management teaching practices with students completing a management undergraduate degree. I (the first author) teach management undergraduate courses at a small liberal arts university in Atlantic Canada. Starting in the fall term of 2020 when all courses were moved to an online teaching mode due to Covid-19, I began to experiment with four recurring, Zen-informed activities in ‘Managing diversity: Gender and other issues,’ a seminar course that examines issues faced by women and minority groups in the workplace. Course topics include discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, and other grounds. This is a course particularly suitable for applying Zen koan pedagogy, as it is designed to be a) a highly participative seminar course, b) of a small class size under 25 students, and c) focusing on authentic dialogues on difficult topics. I aim to build a learning community where members develop and share compassion and wisdom with each other. I encourage the expression of emotions, and personal experience is valued as a legitimate knowledge base. These are conveyed in the ‘welcome letter’ posted on the Moodle course site: My name is Tianyuan Yu 于天远, your teacher and fellow traveler on this diversity-learning journey. As I type these words, I recognize that the current situation in our country and in the world is causing many of us to feel a host of emotions—anxiety, confusion, fear, frustration, hurt, grief, anger, and guilt, etc. In light of this recognition, I designed an assessment framework that is less focused on grading and more on learning, healing and empowering. Please know that you are very much valued and your participation matters. I invite you to bring your own experience to enrich one another. Let us begin this journey of learning together.

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The four recurring Zen-informed activities are: sitting meditation, reflexive learner activity, bewildering question, and council practice. Students are actively engaged in these activities despite the challenges posed by a virtual teaching and learning environment.

Sitting Meditation Directly borrowing from zazen as a spiritual practice and nonverbal method, I do a three- or five-minute sitting meditation at the beginning of each 75-minute session (for longer sessions I would recommend ten-­ minute meditation at the minimum). Sitting meditation, even for a very short time, enhances one’s capacity for deep listening and authentic dialogue. The practice of ‘just sitting for five minutes’ is so handy that it was utilized in my interviews with Zen practitioners in 2019 for a research project, leading to some exceptionally candid conversations. The interviewees appeared to be deeply reflexive and honest, willing to show their vulnerability to me, a stranger to them. In my class I ask the students to ‘just sit,’ keeping their back straight and breathing slowly. Students could do breath-counting if it helped concentrate the mind. Alternatively, they could try thinking of nothing and observing the mind. So far students’ feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, indicating that sitting meditation helps them clear the mind, be in the moment, and engage in non-judgmental dialogue. For example, a comment in the Student Rating of Instruction Questionnaire (i.e., a senate-­ approved, anonymous student evaluation of teaching) reads: ‘…She [i.e., the instructor] also does this “three-minute meditation” to clear our minds because some course material is very heavy.’ Moreover, we find that this practice is particularly appreciated by those who need accessibility accommodations. Some express explicitly in class that they tend to be constantly distracted and that they are grateful for this simple meditation practice which helps regain focus.

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Reflexive Learner Activity Self-reflexivity and self-understanding are essential for Zen practitioners and are aligned with the meditative mental state. Instead of merely ‘gaining’ knowledge from the outside world, Zen practitioners look into the world inside, and drop their dualistic thinking to reveal their true nature. These are conceptualized by the Zen Buddhist saying ‘seeing one’s Buddha-nature and attaining Buddhahood’ (见性成佛), which is considered to be the path to enlightenment, a central theme of Zen Buddhism. In the field of education studies, self-reflexivity within educational process is the core of autobiographical theory (Pinar, 2012). I include in my class four to six reflexive ‘learner activities’ (LAs), all of which are designed to stimulate self-reflection on the issues to be discussed in the course. These LAs are similar to homework assignments, requiring students to write up autobiographic responses to various questions about diversity experiences. For example, one LA asks students to think about groups (e.g., schools, summer camps, churches, community work groups, companies) where they were minority members in terms of gender, race, age, disability, or any other dimensions (if the students have never been minority members, they can talk to someone who is a member of a minority group). Students are asked to explain the situation and reflect on their emotional experiences, interactions with group members, work performance, and so on, in relation to the concepts and theories in course materials. Another LA asks students to interview someone (preferably one who is very different from the interviewer in terms of diversity dimensions) and identify both differences and similarities between the interviewer and the interviewee. At the end of the semester, I ask the students to write down their reflexive thoughts on a number of questions regarding their learning process in this course. I find that these LAs not only prompt thoughtful conversations initiated by students in class, but also foster a closer connection between class members. Through sharing personal diversity experiences, the students and I gain a deeper understanding of each other on a human level, as well as of the discussion topics from a theoretical perspective.

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Bewildering Question Inspired by the Zen koan tradition and the ‘householder koan’ practice innovated by Roshi Egyoku, in each session I ask one or two students to raise a ‘bewildering question’ for class discussion. The ‘bewildering question’ is the wording I choose as a substitute for the seemingly exotic term ‘koan.’ I explain that the question can be either related to the designated readings for the session or more generally about diversity management. But it must be a baffling question. Students are encouraged to share their personal experiences or observations as the basis for raising the question. Sometimes students need a little more prompting by the instructor to raise a good question. For example, one student initially prepares the question as ‘Do you think discrimination exists in every country?’ After a few email exchanges with me, she eventually changes her question to ‘What drives discrimination?’ a de facto koan that later leads to an amazing class-wide dialogue. In reviewing an early version of this chapter, my colleague Dr Ashwani Kumar commented that he uses a similar exercise in his teaching as ‘meditative inquiry.’ In addition to email exchanges before class, Dr Kumar would also encourage students to keep exploring questions until they come to a question that brings about silence in the class. I consider this an exciting way to further explore the ‘bewildering question’ approach in my future teaching practice.

Council Practice ‘Council practice’ (aka ‘listening circle’ or ‘talking circle’) weaves ancient practices and wisdom traditions throughout many different cultures and has been practiced by Western Zen centers as well as by indigenous communities. It involves bringing individuals together in a circle to talk one at a time, listen deeply, and share stories about love, loss, fear, triumph, challenge, hope, and other experiences. With minor modifications, it can be done in a virtual environment. I see council practice as a powerful tool that facilitates deep listening. In Zen terms, it offers a space where individuals practice ‘not-knowing’

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and ‘bearing witness’ (Zen Center of Los Angeles, n.d.). Moreover, when practiced with regularity, council practice can diffuse tension, increase resilience, and create a deeper sense of community and connection. In the course syllabus I emphasize the following: I envision our class as a learning community that not only learns about but also practices equity, diversity and inclusion. This is the place in which every voice is heard, no one is invisible, and everyone is valued. […] There is an immense need, now more than ever, to slow down and listen, to recognize and bear witness to our shared humanity, to seek cooperative solutions to our collective challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Students comment that council practice creates the most engaging class they have had in an online teaching environment, as it ‘allows everyone a chance to be vulnerable’ and ‘removes the fear of judgement’ (Student reflection, Winter 2022). It also creates a collective learning platform wherein class members including the instructor can learn from each other: I liked the council practice. It was a great way to foster an interactive environment and I enjoyed when the professor would contribute. […] I love being a part of the MSVU community because there are so many different students from all walks of life in class with me and it was wonderful being able to learn from them. (Student reflection, Winter 2021)

More importantly, for students who used to be marginalized in class discussions due to various reasons (e.g., language barriers, fear of expressing disagreement, introvert personality, discussion being dominated by a few), council practice offers a formal communication mechanism through which their voice can be heard. For example, below is a quote from another student’s reflection: Through the council practice, I have had the opportunity to engage and listen to others and their own experiences. The council practices taught me more than just aspects of diversity and inclusion but also helped me feel comfortable speaking in class regularly. Talking in class discussions has not always been easy because I'm rather timid and keep to myself. However, …

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how respectful my classmates were helped me share and enjoy speaking to the class. (Student reflection, Fall 2021)

Overall, we find that these Zen-informed activities lead to a spiritual teaching/learning experience that can be healing and empowering in unprecedented times. It is healing because authentic dialogues on difficult topics with a meditative mind stimulate deep reflexivity and reveal our Buddha-nature, which heals our hidden trauma and ongoing suffering. It is empowering because we gain strength and faith from the self-­ healing process and become fearless in showing our true selves. This healing and empowering teaching/learning process is reinforced by a supportive learning community that shares compassion and wisdom, working toward collective awakening. We believe that such a healing and empowering teaching/learning experience is the type of education we need during unprecedented times as well as in the post-Covid era.

Conclusion In this chapter, we argue that Zen koan pedagogy, which has hitherto been largely neglected by Western management education, can inform holistic and spiritual education that is healing and empowering. We agree with Low and Purser (2012) that Zen koan study offers a unique opportunity for training the mind to tolerate the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions embedded in modern organization management. This is particularly significant in the conflict-ridden and increased VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) educational environment brought by Covid-19. We explicate Zen koan pedagogy in terms of four aspects: (1) a holistic and spiritual approach, (2) verbal and nonverbal methods, (3) a living tradition, and (4) spontaneity and creativity. Using Suzuki’s (1958) categorization of Zen teaching methods as a conceptual tool, we conduct a textual analysis of a classical Chinese koan and a video-based analysis of a dharma talk to demonstrate how koan tradition is transmitted from the East and inherited by Western Zen teachers. We then describe how we explore Zen koan pedagogy in management education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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It should be noted that there are special requirements for the instructor who leads the Zen-informed teaching activities as suggested in this chapter. Due to the nature of Zen-informed pedagogy as a highly spiritual and improvisational approach, the instructor needs to invest in the teaching process their whole-being engagement, drawing heavily on their life experiences and overall capacity for compassion and wisdom. It not only requires an intellectual mastery of course materials, but also demands significant emotional and spiritual maturity on the instructor’s part.

References Aitken, R. (1992, Summer). The Bodhisattva Vows. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. https://tricycle.org/magazine/bodhisattva-­vows/ Crane, R.  S., Stanley, S., Rooney, M., Bartley, T., Cooper, L., & Mardula, J. (2015). Disciplined improvisation: Characteristics of inquiry in mindfulness-­ based teaching. Mindfulness, 6(5), 1104–1114. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12671-­014-­0361-­8 Empty Gate Zen Center. (2011, August 23). Zen and Reincarnation [Video]. YouTube.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSukrB3q63M&t=8s Fahai. (n.d.). Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch 六祖坛经. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall. Gleig, A. (2019). American dharma: Buddhism beyond modernity. Yale University Press. Gylfe, P., Franck, D., LeBaron, C., & Mantere, S. (2016). Video ethnography. Strategic Management Journal, 37, 133–148. Heine, S., & Wright, D. S. (Eds.). (2000). The Kōan: Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism. Oxford University Press. Hollow Bones Order. (2018). Mondo Zen: Ego deconstruction Koans. Unpublished teaching manual. Horn, V. S. (2000). Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen curriculum. In S. Heine & D.  S. Wright (Eds.), The Koan: Texts and contexts in zen Buddhism (pp. 280–315). Oxford University Press. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2009). Conversation analysis. Polity Press. Kumar, A., & Downey, A. M. (2018). Teaching as meditative inquiry: A dialogical exploration. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 16(2), 52–75. Lesser, M. (2005). Z.B.a.—Zen business administration: How zen practice can transform your work and your life. New World Library.

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Liu, F., & Maitlis, S. (2014). Emotional dynamics and strategizing processes: A study of strategic conversations in top team meetings. Journal of Management Studies, 51, 202–234. Low, A., & Purser, R. (2012). Zen and the creative management of dilemmas. Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, 9(4), 335–355. https://doi. org/10.1080/14766086.2012.744543 Marko, E. M., & Nakao, W. E. (2020). The book of householder koans: Waking up in the land of attachments. Monkfish Book Publishing. Pinar, W. (2012). what is curriculum theory? (2nd ed.). Routledge. Puji普济 (Ed.). (1252). Song dynasty history of Zen Buddhism in China 五灯会元. Quotations from Chan Master Linji Huizhao from Zhenzhou 镇州临济慧照 禅师语录. (n.d.). Records of the Transmission of the Lamp 景德传灯录. (n.d.). Sadler-Smith, E., & Shefy, E. (2004). The intuitive executive: Understanding and applying “gut feel” in decision-making. Academy of Management Executive, 18(4), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.5465/AME.2004.15268692 Sadler-Smith, E., & Shefy, E. (2007). Developing intuitive awareness in management education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 6(2), 186–205. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMLE.2007.25223458 Streeck, J., & Mehus, S. (2005). Microethnography: The study of practices. In K. L. Fitch & R. S. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 381–404). Lawrence Erlbaum. Suzuki, D. T. (1958). Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series). In C. Humphreys (Ed.), The complete works of D. T. Suzuki. Rider & Company. The Diamond Sutra金刚般若波罗蜜经. (n.d.). Vu, M.C. & Gill, R. (2019). “Letting go of the raft”—The art of spiritual leadership in contemporary organizations from a Buddhist perspective using skillful means. Leaderhip, 15(3), 360–380. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ 10.1177/1742715018761931 Williams, J. M. G., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(01), 1–18. Yu, T. (2021, July 29–August 4). The wounded healer: Feminist leadership nurtured by American Zen Buddhism. paper presentation. Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2021 [Virtual]. https://2021.aom.org/meetings/virtual/2BkfzGpTnJB3YuhmH Zen Center of Los Angeles. (n.d.). Core values. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://zcla.org/about/governance/core-­values/

Part V Methodology

8 Designing and Implementing Ecological Models in Organisation Studies: Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Approach (FCM) Jacqueline Jing You

Introduction Spirituality in the workplace manifests itself in several forms, including values, sense of purpose, sense of connection with others and sense of well-being (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2003). In a spiritual workplace, people tend to seek interesting and meaningful work that allows them to learn, develop, and have a sense of competence and mastery (Fry, 2004), whereas a non-spiritual workplace features low morale, high turnover, burnout, frequent stress-related illnesses and rising absenteeism. Empirical studies show that companies with strong corporate cultures are often considered spiritual workplaces, performing better than those with weak corporate cultures, even when facing adverse situations (Garcia-Zamor, 2003). This is in part because spirituality is a “non-­reality that stands in opposition to the material world” (Krok, 2008, p. 644) and acts as a

J. J. You (*) Durham University Business School, Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5_8

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coping mechanism. For example, Roberto et al. (2020) find that spirituality is positively correlated with resilience during crises since it provides much-needed emotional and cognitive support for coping (Williams et al., 2017) and learning (You, Vu & Williams, 2021), such as hope, optimism, peace and comfort. Similarly, Cummings and Pargament (2012) highlight the importance of both religion and spirituality in reducing the relation between work stress and negative outcomes. In spite of the degree to which spirituality and religion are compatible in the workplace, they are not identical (Cash & Gray, 2000; Garcia-­ Zamor, 2003). According to Mitroff and Denton (1999), spirituality promotes universal and broadly inclusive values, while religious belief can be viewed as intolerant and divisive. Although spirituality is not observable, “the basic feeling of being connected with one’s complete self, others, and the entire universe” (Mitroff & Denton, 1999, p. 83) implies that spirituality reveals various forms of interconnection and interdependency. As Garcia-Zamor (2003) explains, when the workplace environment connects with one’s spiritual life, the greatest worker happiness occurs, which in turn promotes positive interpersonal behaviours in organisations (e.g. mindfulness, selflessness). Krok (2008) points out that people with a high level of spirituality tend to address problem-solving by seeking social connections, which is particularly important when organising resilience in the face of adverse situations (e.g. Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003; Williams & You, 2022; You, 2021). For example, the Covid-19 pandemic occurring outside the core activities of businesses and organisations has significantly disrupted workplaces, including organisational routines and primary tasks designed to support organisational functioning for survival. To cope with disruptions, members of organisations engage in collective sense-making of emergent situations and work together to respond appropriately (e.g. Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003). In the context of coordinative work, appropriateness is framed as “a heedful interrelating” (Weick, 1993) or “respectful interactions” between people, emphasising the relational qualities (e.g. trust, commitment) that operate in the coping process (Williams et al., 2018; You, 2021). Furthermore, organisations are not self-sufficient entities. They operate in a complex and diverse task environment (Dill, 1958; Duncan, 1972) formed and shaped by a wide variety of actors (e.g. customers,

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suppliers, competitors, regulatory groups, socio-political components and technology). The growing diversity that manifests itself in people, ideas and infrastructure has increased in the various types of formal and informal religious and spiritual expression practised by workplace members (Cash & Gray, 2000). The study of how management has been influenced by religious faith and beliefs has a long and well-known history (Dyck & Purser, 2019). Although a wide variety of measures have been developed, such as spiritual values (compassion, mindfulness, meaningful work, transcendence and perceptions of spiritual values exhibited by the organisation [Kolodinsky et al., 2008]), little is known about how various mechanisms facilitate coordinative work in responding to crises, with each crisis differing in nature. This chapter proposes the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) approach as a useful methodological tool to capture the causal mechanisms that produce resilience in the face of stressful demands (e.g. cognition, emotion and behaviours) and how various spiritual coping mechanisms interact in the workplace. FCM was first developed by Kosko (1986), who drew fuzzy causal functions with real numbers [−1,1] on cognitive maps (e.g. Axelrod, 2015; Eden et al., 1992), to investigate the dynamics of the Middle East peace process by means of computation. A fuzzy causal function is a non-­ linear function that transforms the weight of causes, for example of concept A on concept B, into an in-between value [−1,1] (Jetter & Kok, 2014). A positive (negative) arrow from concept A to concept B indicates that an increase (decrease) in concept A leads to an increase (decrease) in concept B. An absolute number [0,1] on a cognitive map indicates the strength of the connections between the concepts (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). This method was originally published in technical journals (e.g. Taber, 1994; Papageorgiou, 2013) which focused on fuzzy mathematics and artificial intelligence. Over the last two decades, there has been an increase in the application of FCMs in various disciplines, including environmental management (e.g. Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004), social-­ ecological resilience (Gray et al., 2015), urban resilience (Olazabal & Pascual, 2016) and firm resilience (Williams et al., 2020; You, 2021). The increasing popularity of the FCM method is attributable to several of its properties. First, FCM allows “an unlimited number of concepts and reciprocal causal relationships” (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004, p. 46).

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Concepts can be generated from a wide variety of resources, such as interviews, text analyses and conversations (Jetter & Kok, 2014). This not only enables researchers to capture large and diverse data but also allows them to explore any interrelations and interactions among them. Second, FCM is beneficial in data-poor situations because it enables informants who have a deep understanding of a particular phenomenon to construct links among concepts (Gray et al., 2015; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Capturing knowledge graphically in FCMs allows informants to focus on explanations of cause–effect relationships among concepts, which helps them become better aware of their own mental models. Last, FCM allows quantitative analyses in which the strengths of weighted causal relationships in individual cognitive maps are aggregated into a unified ‘social’ cognitive map. Doing this balances experts’ various perceptions of the same or similar phenomena and overcomes any limitations of expert opinions, thus making the results more reliable (Jetter & Kok, 2014). This chapter is organised as follows. First, it provides a theoretical background to FCM and shows how it is useful in theory development and hypothesis formation. Second, it provides some practical recommendations on designing and implementing FCM in empirical studies. Given that workplace spirituality is a form of resilience in the sense of managing adversity, the chapter illustrates the method by using two case studies of organisational resilience. Third, it discusses limitations of FCM and a future direction that can lead to improvements in the FCM method.

The Theoretical Foundations of FCM FCM, as originally introduced by Kosko (1986), is a qualitative approach alternative to dynamic systems (Carvalho, 2013) which aims to structure people’s knowledge in a way that allows them to predict change in concepts represented in a cognitive map (Axelrod, 2015). The theoretical foundations of FCM are rooted in causal cognitive mapping and the fuzzy causal function. Cognitive mapping in the organisation and strategy fields has been acknowledged as a useful methodological tool to understand a wide range of organisational phenomena (e.g. Bougon et al., 1977; Eden et al., 1992; Daniels & Johnson, 2002; Hodgkinson et al., 2004). This is partially

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because cognitive mapping reveals how different concepts, including abstract ideas and unquantified variables, can be connected by links and arrows indicating the causal relationships among them (Eden & Ackermann, 2004; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Knowledge constructed in the form of concepts represents an individual’s understanding of how the world around him or her is organised. Therefore, cognitive maps can be considered external representations of one’s internal mental models concerning given problems (Jones et al., 2011). However, these pose challenges in highly uncertain situations (e.g. Covid-19) because individuals and decision-makers have less knowledge of their casual structure and their stable deterministic and stochastic mechanisms. To capture the causal mechanisms and their dynamics affecting decision-­making amid uncertainty, Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) has been developed as an addition to “the toolbox of future studies” (Jetter & Kok, 2014). The fuzzy causal function is a non-linear function that transforms the weight of causes of one concept on another into an in-between value [−1,1] and allows a feedback loop (Carvalho, 2013; Jetter & Kok, 2014; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). An FCM is a graphical representation of a system which visually illustrates the relationships among key concepts in it, including feedback relationships. There are three principal components of FCMs (Jetter & Kok, 2014; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004; You, 2021): 1. Concepts: A node in an FCM represents a concept which corresponds to a variable (e.g. an attribute, factor or event) in the problem studied. 2. Causal relations: A link between two concepts in an FCM represents a cause–effect relationship between two concepts. When there is a causal effect of concept A on concept B then A is called a causal concept and B an effect concept. A positive relationship between two concepts indicates increases in the causal and effect concepts, while a negative relationship indicates that an increase in the causal concept leads to a decrease in the effect concept. 3. Causal values: Each positive or negative relationship can be associated with a numerical value, which represents the strength of the causal relation.

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Although both FCM and system dynamics modelling involve causal mapping with feedback loops, FCMs are more appropriate for studies where there are fewer ideal data (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Compared to a system dynamics model, FCM is a participatory approach that allows participants to build their own models based on their knowledge, experience and observation. Rather than making quantitative predictions of what is expected as in a systems dynamics model, an FCM is a human-­ trained neural network (Carvalho, 2013) providing qualitative information on causal relationships among variables which facilitates pattern predicting based on the conditions of these relationships in system diagrams. FCMs are therefore particularly useful in theory development, especially when certain phenomena in organisations are difficult to observe and to experiment with (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004; You, 2021). For example, individual FCMs can be aggregated into a social cognitive map by adding the values representing relationship strengths. Not only does this balance experts’ various perceptions of the same or similar phenomena but it also improves theoretical precision, thus making the results more reliable (Jetter & Kok, 2014). Although FCMs are not substitutes for statistical techniques, the strengths and signs of relationships among concepts in FCMs provide new testable predictions and facilitate hypothesis formation, which in turn contributes to accelerating theory development.

Designing and Implementing FCM Studies Step 1: Planning an FCM Study While FCMs are valuable, they are not always the most suitable methodological approach. A first step is to evaluate whether or not they are appropriate. For example, while FCMs have the advantage of comprehending as many knowledge sources as are required, with diverse knowledge and different degrees of expertise, causal relationships in FCMs are not specified and tested with parameter estimation procedures as in other types of causal modelling (e.g. structural equation modelling). Therefore, FCMs can only be used as exploratory modelling to study unexplored

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areas, including sensitive topics or ones involving ethical dilemmas. The second decision point is evaluation of how to obtain an FCM and the associated sample size. For example, Özesmi and Özesmi (2004) argue that there are at least four ways of generating FCMs: questionnaires, written texts, existing causal relationships and interviews. Regarding sample size, an average accumulation curve made using Monte Carlo techniques shows the relationship between the total number of variables and the total number of interviews. For example, thirty interviews can generate approximately 140 variables but more interviews do not generate more variables.

Step 2: Obtaining FCMs This chapter uses interviews as an example to illustrate how to create FCMs. Interview questions are typically open-ended. For example, a question might be formulated as ‘What are the variables/factors affecting your decision to form a business relationship with other organisations? How do these variables affect each other?’ The interviewee will name the most important variables, which will be listed on a large piece of paper. Once the interviewee feels that there is nothing more to add, he/she will be asked to explain the relationships between the variables, and links, arrows and numbers [−1,1] will be suggested indicating directions and strengths of causal relationships. During the process of constructing an FCM, more variables and associated relationships can be added to the map. Similarly, FCMs can also be created by a group deciding together on the important variables and the causal relationships between them. This allows discussion of the variables and the signs and magnitudes of the relationships.

Step 3: Analysing FCMs Guided by graph theory, each FCM can be coded into an adjacency matrix in the form A(D) = [aij] (Harary et al., 1965; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Figure 8.1 and Table 8.1 show how the connections are coded. For example, the seven variables in Fig. 8.1 are listed on both the vertical

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Fig. 8.1  An example of a fuzzy cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020)

and horizontal axes to form a square matrix (Table 8.1). When a connection exists between variables, the value is coded in the square matrix (between −1 and 1). −0.09 is entered in cell a13 because of a causal decrease in the effect of variable 1, ‘mutually beneficial interaction with partners’, on variable 3, ‘cost of managing relationships’. By using matrix addition, individual cognitive maps can be augmented and aggregated into a social cognitive map (Laszlo et al., 1996; Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). This involves superimposing the maps onto each other and summing the values on the connections between the variables. Aggregating individual maps provides a comprehensive representation of how the system works, which may not be completely captured in a single individual’s map (Nakamura et al., 1982). When there are conflicting connections with opposite signs it will decrease the causal relationship. To compare and contrast individuals’ FCMs, the structure of the individual FCMs can be analysed, including their density (clustering co-­ efficiency) and centrality (both their in-degree and out-degree) and the

1. Mutually beneficial interaction with partners 2. Valuable partners 3. Cost of managing relationships 4. Logistical costs 5. Unfair distribution of value 6. Government policy 7. Resilience

+0.7

0 0

0 0

0 +0.17

0

+0.18

0 0

−0.14

+0.01

0 0

−0.09

0 0

0

0

0

0

+0.14

0 0

0

0

0

5. Unfair 4. Logistical distribution costs of value

0

+0.02 +0.14

0

+0.28

−0.09

3. Cost of 2. Valuable managing partner relationships

0

1. Mutually beneficial interaction with partners

Table 8.1  An adjacency matrix coded from the fuzzy cognitive map

0

0

0 0

0

0

0

0

−0.57

−0.07 −0.14

−0.88

+1.71

+1.19

6. Government policy 7. Resilience

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characteristics of the relational structure (hierarchical vs. democratic). The density of an individual cognitive map (D) is an index of connectivity, which helps in understanding how connected or scattered the map is. This can be calculated using the number of connections divided by the maximum number of connections between N variables (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). If the density of a map is high then the interviewee sees a large number of causal relationships among the variables. Stakeholders can be compared to see which groups have more relationships among the variables. If more groups perceive more relationships, they will have more options available to change things. These groups may, therefore, be catalysts for change. D=

C N  N  1



Centrality represents the overall contribution of a variable in the fuzzy cognitive map in terms of the connectivity of the variable with other variables and the cumulative strength of the connections. It is calculated by summing its out-degree (out-arrows) and in-degree (in-arrows):

Ci  td  i   od  i   id  i 



The out-degree is the accumulative strength of a variable that influences other variables A ij, and N is the total number of variables: N



od  i    Aik k 1



In contrast, the in-degree is the sum of the absolute values of the other variables that affect a variable: N



id  i    Aki k 1



In addition, a hierarchy index (h) (MacDonald, 1983) of FCMs is calculated to understand the level of adaptation of the maps:

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 od  vi     od  vi    12 h   N  N  1 N  N  1 i  

169

2



When h is equal to 1 the map is fully hierarchical and when it is equal to 0 the map is fully democratic. The implication is that the more democratic the map, the more adaptable it is perceived to be in responding to change (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004).

Discussion FCMs can be used both inductively and deductively. For example, You (2021) inductively uses the FCM method to obtain the opinions of high-­ level managers on how their organisations cope with disruption in the context of business ecosystems. Williams et al. (2020) deductively use FCMs to investigate small firms’ resilience on a remote island drawing on Instrumental Stakeholder Theory. The main advantage of using FCM is that it allows respondents to participate and provide their inputs by addressing three questions: (1) Which variables matter? (2) Why do they matter? and (3) How do they interact? This section will use two cases to illustrate the use of FCMs.

Case Illustration 1 The aim of the study is to investigate how small enterprises on a very remote island cope with the shocks and disruptions they face. Seven FCMs are produced and aggregated into a social cognitive map (see Fig. 8.2) which includes ten variables originally derived from Instrumental Stakeholder Theory and twelve new variables. The results show that the impact of these variables on resilience varies, with some being positive and some negative, and with different magnitudes and intensities. As Özesmi and Özesmi (2004) note, condensing is needed when there are more than twenty variables in a map because too many are

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Fig. 8.2  An example of a social cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020)

counterproductive for insights to be gained. Following Graph Theory, condensing is conducted by grouping related variables together and replacing subgraphs (as shown in Fig. 8.3) (Harary et al., 1965).

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Fig. 8.3  An example of a condensed social cognitive map. (Williams et al., 2020)

Case Illustration 2 The aim of the second case is to investigate how organisations cope with disruptions by utilising external connections with other organisations (You, 2021). In a two-stage data collection, semi-structured interviews were conducted in the first stage in order to identify attributes of inter-­ organisational relationships (IORs). In the second stage of data collection, FCM was employed to capture executives’ mental models of how their organisations cope with disruption by mapping the attributes of the IORs identified in the first stage. The data analysis contains three steps (see Table 8.2). There are three different methods for comparing individual FCMs. First, variables can be compared, including their frequency, type and centrality (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Frequency might be measured by how many times variables are mentioned on the maps and what types of variables they are perceived to be by the interviewees (e.g. transmitter,

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Table 8.2  Data collection and analysis Phase Data source and activity

Data analysis

Phase ●   In-depth semi-structured interviews I with all cases during first round of field visits to companies ● Interview questions focused on determinants and characteristics of IORs ● Field notes ● Secondary data, including available documentation Phase ● Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping exercise II with key informants from Phase I during second round of field visits in China (average 120 minutes per case) using the fourteen IOR attributes identified in Phase I

Step 1 Inductive coding ● Transcribing all interviews ● Interview data shared and verified with informants ● Qualitative analysis of transcripts producing eight attributes of IORs to be used in Phase II data collection with the same informants Step 2 Developing aggregate dimensions through Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping ● Initial social cognitive map ● Subgraph groupings in condensed social cognitive map ● Adjacency matrix Step 3 Building the grounded model

You (2021)

ordinary or receiver variables). Although the most important variable is likely to be mentioned more often or by most people, it may not be the most significant or central one. Beyond frequency of mentions, centrality refers to connections among variables in the map, including the cumulative strength of these connections. Therefore, the in-degree and outdegree of a variable need consideration when evaluating their contribution to the map. Second, to compare the complexity of FCMs, the ratio of the number of receiver variables to that of transmitter variables (R/T) can be considered an index of complexity (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Although the number of receiver variables in the map provides an indication of its complexity (Eden et al., 1992), this is not sufficient without considering any transmitter variables that flatten the map, in the sense that causal arguments are not elaborated. Third, the structure of an FCM can be analysed using its hierarchy index (h) (MacDonald, 1983). When h is equal to 1 the map is fully hierarchical and conversely when h is equal to 0 the system is fully democratic. For example, in a study of relational resilience, You (2021) finds that when firms experience sudden broad

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disruptions, the hierarchical index tends to be more democratic than in mounting broad disruptions. The implication of this is that firms are more adaptable to change in the face of sudden broad disruptions, in which more relational connections emerge. As discussed in Case 1, a social cognitive map can be generated by qualitative aggregation in the condensing process, for example from Fig. 8.2 to Fig. 8.3. Quantitative aggregation can also be done by adding the weights of the variables assigned by the interviewees in their individual maps and generating an augmented matrix (see Table 8.3). The structure of the social cognitive map can also be analysed in terms of its complexity, centrality and hierarchy. Despite the fact that FCMs may emphasise different parts of a system according to people’s knowledge and experience, all FCMs should be treated equally. Therefore, formal validation of FCMs is impossible due to different understandings of the system (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004). Given that building FCMs is a participatory approach by nature, a qualitative validation, such as the ‘reality check’ commonly used in the study of environment management, is more appropriate. In fact, there are a number of disadvantages to using FCMs: people’s misconceptions and biases; a lack of real-value parameter estimates; and inability to deal with ‘and’ conditions and ‘if, then’ statements (Özesmi & Özesmi, 2004), among others. To overcome some of these disadvantages, a potential solution is to obtain as many FCMs as possible on smaller items of knowledge and then code them into adjacency matrices (see Step 3). Doing this should improve the accuracy of the FCMs because adding the relationship strength values (both positive and negative) helps experts’ different perceptions of similar phenomena (Jetter & Kok, 2014). The result of combining the opinions of different experts and local knowledge can have policy implications. For example, Dadaser and Özesmi (2001) use an FCM to compare the perceptions of local people, NGOs and government officials concerning a Salt Lake ecosystem in Turkey. Based on the stakeholders’ inputs, sixty-five different policy options are simulated. In a study of small firm resilience on a remote island, Williams et al. (2020) find that, although government loans and financial incentives are important in stimulating entrepreneurship in the early stage of venture formation, facilitating the development of

You (2021)

Resilience Necessity Legitimacy Identity Innovation Asymmetry Quality Efficiency Reciprocity Commun­ ication Integrity Payment No. of connec­ tions Outdegree Indegree Centrality Density Hierarchy index, h

+0.8 0 +0.8 +1 0 +0.8 0 0 0 0

0 0 4

3.4 1.1 4.5

0 +0.1 +0.9 0 +0.2 −0.9 +1 0 0 0

+0.8 +0.3 7

4.2 9.8 14 0.27 0.3

0.2 2.2 2.4

0 0 1

+0.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 2

0 0 1

+1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

2.7 0.2 2.9

0 0 4

+1.2 −0.5 −0.5 0 0 −0.5 0 0 0 0

1 2.2 3.2

0 0 2

+0.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 +0.6

2.9 1.9 4.8

0 +0.7 3

+2 0 0 0 0 0 0 −0.2 0 0

1.8 1.4 3.2

0 +0.7 3

+1 0 0 0 0 0 +0.1 0 0 0

1.8 0.6 2.4

+0.6 0 3

+0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 +0.4 0 0

0.7 0.6 1.3

0 0 1

+0.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1.9 2.1 4

0 0 3

+0.8 +0.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 +0.6 0

3.2 1.7 4.9

+0.7 0 4

+0.9 0 0 0 0 0 +0.8 +0.8 0 0

Necess­ Legiti­ Innova­ Asymm­ Effici­ Recipro­ Commun­ Resilience ity macy Identity tion etry Quality ency city ication Integrity Payment

Table 8.3  Augmented matrix

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relational capabilities between stakeholders is key to ensuring the contingency of their businesses, which would otherwise produce counterproductive effects.

Conclusions FCM is a useful tool to make complex problems accessible, and it has the potential to provide valuable insights into how various coping mechanisms that are not otherwise easily observable in workplace spirituality impact work behaviours (productive and counterproductive). In the context of the workplace, FCM offers a possible way to understand organisational members’ decision-making processes at all levels and how these processes lead to collective actions at the firm level. FCMs can be used as tools to understand what factors or variables are important in shaping team or organisational performance in different contexts. This chapter has provided an overview of FCM practices and a discussion of common difficulties and pitfalls in designing and implementing FCMs. It has offered advice to researchers interested in using FCMs and also to reviewers and readers of studies that use FCMs, as it will allow them to critically evaluate such studies. It is undeniable that some challenges in the use of FCMs still remain. Given the recent amount of FCM research, I hope that this chapter will serve as a catalyst to inspire the future use of FCM not only in workplace spirituality research but also in research that will lead to methodological improvements regarding FCM itself.

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Index1

B

Bewildering question, 9, 139, 150, 152 C

Confucian humanism, 9, 117–118, 123–127 Confucianism, 6, 66–69, 73, 75–77, 79, 80, 81n2, 96, 99, 100, 110–112, 116–118, 122, 126, 127 Confucian leadership, 111, 112, 119 Confucian virtues, 110–117, 119, 120, 122, 125–128 Confucius, 8, 78, 92–99, 103–105, 106n1, 106n2, 113, 114, 116 Coping mechanism, 5–7, 10, 18, 41–54, 124, 160, 161, 175

Council practice, 9, 150, 152–154 COVID 19/ Covid, 3, 4, 6–10, 17, 18, 20–22, 26–30, 41–43, 46, 50, 52, 53, 65–81, 96, 97, 101–103, 105, 109, 124–127, 139, 149–150, 153, 154, 160, 163 Crisis, 4–7, 9, 10, 17–22, 24–30, 43, 47, 49, 52, 53, 123, 124, 128, 161 Crisis management, 6, 17–30 Crisis preparedness, 6, 17–30 D

Disruption, 3, 4, 29, 42, 43, 79, 160, 169, 171, 173

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. C. Vu et al. (eds.), Faith Traditions and Practices in the Workplace Volume II, Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09540-5

179

180 Index E

N

Enlightenment, 48, 81, 138, 141, 143, 144, 148, 151 Eudaimonia, 8, 67, 70, 73, 80, 81

Nonconceptual, 6, 17–30 Non-self, 7, 42, 48, 50–52 Nonverbal methods, 9, 139–144, 146, 150, 154

F

O

Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM), 10, 159–175

Organisational resilience, 162 R

H

Harmony, 7, 53, 65–81, 93, 104, 105, 111, 112, 117–119, 121–123, 126, 127 Holistic and spiritual approach, 9, 139–140, 154 Humaneness, 9, 110, 111, 114, 116–122, 124–126, 128 Humanistic leadership, 9, 109–128 Humor, 9, 104, 105

Right mindfulness, 7, 23, 24, 30, 42–46 Rituals, 8, 9, 30, 89–105, 113, 120 S

Internal and external goods, 8, 67, 71–77, 79, 80

Self-refinement, 93–95, 99, 100, 103, 106n2 Sitting meditation, 9, 139, 140, 150 Skillful means, 7, 42, 44, 47–50, 53, 54, 148 Social harmony, 53, 67, 93, 111, 117–119, 122, 123, 126, 127 Spirituality, 5, 6, 10, 81n2, 121, 159, 160, 162, 175

M

T

MacIntyre, Alasdair, 8, 67, 69–73, 79–81 Management education, 6, 9, 10, 137–155 Middle Way, 7, 42, 46–47, 53 Mindfulness, 6, 10, 17–30, 42–46, 48, 52, 53, 124, 147, 160, 161

Thinking, 4, 8, 19, 23, 28, 47, 49, 53, 101, 103–105, 140, 141, 143, 147, 150, 151

I

Z

Zen Buddhism, 6, 138, 151 Zen koan pedagogy, 9, 10, 137–155