Spirited away? Tensions in spirituality-and-management education within a business school

Business schools have introduced humanistic, spiritual, and religiously inspired programs to counter the organization-centered approach of neoliberal management education. Spirituality, in particular, has been integrated into business school curricula and valued for its humanistic and emancipatory potential. However, this integration has faced criticism. Several programs have been viewed as adopting a spirituality-for-management stance, merely transforming spirituality into a new tool of management rather than honoring its intrinsic value. Recently, more hybrid spirituality-and-management programs have emerged, attributing equal importance to the humanistic orientation of spirituality and the profit-driven focus of management. This study examines one such spirituality-and-management program at a business school in Italy. Using multisource, longitudinal research, we found that participants’ perceptions of the business school context shaped their experience of the program, making several participants favor management’s goals over spirituality ones. This article discusses how the business school environment can undermine the transformative potential of a spirituality-and-management program.