Workplace Spirituality, Emotions, and Deviant Workplace Behavior

ABSTRACT


Introduction 1.Background
Humans are a bit different from machines.Machines follow procedures and are usually operated on the basis of pre-determined algorithms, whereas, humans cannot be controlled using pre-determined algorithms.Instead, humans are free in nature and they make decisions on their own.Often, these decisions are made on the basis of human psychology.This is because of the fact that humans have thinking and feelings, whereas, on the other hand, machines do not have the capacity to think and feel.Hence, there is a major difference between humans and machines.
For the past two centuries, unfortunately, managers and researchers have extensively worked to find ways of creating an emotionless environment.It was done because of the fact that people usually think that emotions are always destructive in nature and cannot bring any positivity to the workplace.However, the problem associated with trying to solve the question concerning emotions in the workplace could not have been solved using this approach.This is because of the fact that no matter whatever we do to create an emotionless environment, it has always been useless as humans have not yet been able to create an emotionless environment.
On the other hand, there has been a debate as to how firms can achieve a sustainable competitive edge (Men, 2014).In this regard, Ghayas and Siddiqui (2012) argued that humans can be helpful in creating a sustainable competitive edge.It is because of the fact that humans are the only resources that cannot be imitated (Ghayas & Khan, 2019).Hence, providing the basis for the long-term sustainability of the competitive edge that has been achieved on their basis.However, as discussed, humans have their own needs that are a bit different from the things that are required to operate a machine.Humans, at times, are worried about spirituality and they almost always have emotions and no matter whatever we do, we cannot separate these emotions from humans.In this regard, one can argue that emotions cannot be altogether eliminated.Therefore, it is suggested that organizations should rather try to use emotions than try to eliminate the emotions.However, in order to use the concepts of emotional intelligence, there exists a need to understand the things that can alter emotions.Zhang (2020) argued that workplace spirituality enhances positive behaviors.In this regard, Shaheen and Rashidi (2021) argued that spirituality significantly affects emotions.On the other hand, Rahman, Ferdausy, and Karan (2012) suggested that there exists a link between emotions and workplace deviance.Hence, it can be argued that emotions mediate workplace spirituality and deviant place behavior.However, there exists a scarcity of research that seek to test the mediating role in the relationship between workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.Therefore, this study seeks to explore how emotions can be helpful in reducing negative work outcomes and what role emotions play between workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.

Importance of Study
This research paper aims to explain the role of emotions in the relationship between workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior in the IT Sector of Karachi.Therefore, this paper is important for managers in the IT Sector of Karachi in understanding the importance of emotions and how emotions can be used for decreasing the level of deviance the in the workplace.This can certainly help the managers in understanding the importance of managing emotions and devising strategies through workplace spirituality for managing the emotions at the workplace which in turn may help the managers in reducing the deviance in the workplace.Hence, this study will be helpful in devising strategies for managing then resources in a better manner.

Workplace Spirituality
People spend much of their time at work (Vasconcelos, 2018), therefore, it is very important that there is something at the workplace that provides inner satisfaction to the people at their workplace.This inner satisfaction can be provided in terms of workplace spirituality.The term workplace spirituality describes the aspect that people have inner meaning to life at the place they work at.Spirituality in the workplace is important and is helpful in enhancing the well-being of the employees (Zou, Houghton, & Li, 2020).This is something important because of the fact that for a number of people, spirituality provides them something that can help them eliminate the feeling of emptiness from their lives.Ashmos and Duchon (2000) suggested that there are five dimensions of workplace spirituality.A team sense of community is the first dimension of workplace spirituality and it can be described as the connection that one has with other people working in the organization (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000;Hussain & Hussain, 2020).On the other hand, a Sense of Enjoyment at Work is the degree to which an employee is enthusiastic about the assigned tasks because of the sense of enjoyment from the assigned task (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000).Now, let's talk about Alignment of Values.Values are important, and there must be a synchronization between the values of an employee and the values of the organization he/she works for.Synchronization of personal and organizational values can be considered as an alignment of values (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000).This alignment of values certainly makes the employee feel comfortable and at ease and on the other hand, its absence makes the employee feel uncomfortable.Furthermore, researchers have also included Opportunities for Inner Life as a dimension of spirituality at work and have (Ahmad & Omar, 2014).This is basically the extent to which it is realized that employees are a bit different from the machines and they have their inner lives.This certainly indicates that they need to satisfy their inner needs and failing to do so may affect their emotions.Moreover, there is also a realization on part of researchers and practitioners that people feel good when they do good deeds.It makes them feel proud and this indeed can help in having positive emotions.In this regard, it can be suggested that when good deeds that one performs positively affect the entire society or community, it certainly has multiplied effect and the person feels very good about it and it has a pleasant impact on the overall emotions of the person.Hence, a sense of contribution to the community is another dimension of workplace spirituality (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000).

Emotions
Humans are quite different from machines.It is primarily because of the fact that humans do not run on pre-determined algorithms but rather have the intellect.This intellect provides humans with the ability to make decisions.However, this intellect comes with other stuff like emotions which also alters the behavior of the people.Emotions are important and can play a pivotal role in enhancing positive work outcomes and can reduce negative work outcomes (Van Kleef, & Côté, 2022;Diener, Thapa, & Tay, 2020;Jordan, Spencer, & Prayag, 2019).In this regard, it can be suggested that there are five basic emotions (Shaheen & Rashidi, 2021).One of these basic emotions is happiness, whereas, love is another positive emotion (Doherty, 1997).On other hand, the three remaining emotions are somewhat negative in nature.These emotions include sadness, anger, and fear.These can be defined in terms of the extent to which an employee feels sadness, anger, or fear at the workplace (Doherty, 1997).

Deviant Workplace Behavior
People often do what they are not supposed to do.This is not only the case with their personal lives, people do this at the very place they work at.This creates problems in the workplace and is considered a negative behavior and has been named their workplace behavior.Certainly, this is not something that people want at the workplace and it does create problems for the firms in achieving the organizational goals.Hence, deviance in the workplace is undesirable in nature (Hashish, 2020: Raza, Ahmed, Zubair, & Moueed, 2019).This is because of the fact that workplace deviance results in negative work outcomes (Howladar, Rahman & Jewel, 2018).This leads the firms toward failure.Hence, there is a consensus among scholars and practitioners that serious efforts should be made to eliminate or at least reduce deviance in the workplace.

Workplace Spirituality, Emotions, and Deviant workplace Behavior
It has already been realized by the businesses that there exists a need to manage human resources for gaining a sustainable competitive edge.Furthermore, businesses also realized that abusing employees usually brings counter-productive behaviors (Ghayas & Jabeen, 2020).Therefore, managers had been looking for something that can help them enhance the positive work outcomes and reduce the level of deviant behaviors.In this regard, one may argue that the basic aim here is to control the behavior of the people working in an organization in such a way that can be beneficial for the firm and off course this can be done through the usage of emotional intelligence.However, in order to use the concepts of emotional intelligence, there exists a need to understand the things that can alter emotions.Zhang (2020) argued that workplace spirituality enhances the positive behaviors.In this regard, Shaheen and Rashidi (2021) argued that spirituality significantly affects the emotions.On the other hand, Rahman, Ferdausy, and Karan (2012) suggested that there exists a link between emotions and workplace deviance.Furthermore, Haldorai, Kim, Chang, and Li, (2020) also supported the fact that there exists a relationship between workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.Hence, managers must be vigilant about the emotions and should try to reduce the deviance at workplace using the concept of emotional intelligence.Hence, it can be argued that emotions mediate workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.

Methodology
To conduct this study, a fifty-six-item scale was developed.From these items twenty-nine items were adapted from Ashmos and Duchon (2000), these items were used for measuring dimensions of workplace spirituality.On the other hand, fifteen items were adapted from Doherty (1997) for measuring emotions, whereas, twelve items were adapted from Bennett and Robinson (2000) for measuring deviant workplace behavior.A purposive sampling technique was used and the data were collected only from those employees of the IT Sector who have been working with the same firm for at least six months.This is done so because of the fact that it takes some time to make a perception about the presence of spirituality.The instrument was distributed among 550 employees working in the IT Sector of Karachi, of which 447 respondents filled and gave the instruments back.After collecting the data, we first applied the confirmatory factor analysis for establishing the reliability and validity of the instrument.Once, reliability and validity are established, five separate structural models were used to test hypotheses.
The reason for applying separate structural models was that there were five mediators in the study, and Klein et al., (2006) has already argued that in a single model, simultaneously testing individual mediation is not possible.Therefore, there was a need to test each mediator separately.

Structural Models
Results of structural models are given below:

Source: Author's own elaboration
Since the CMIN/df values of all the models are less than 3, therefore, consistent with the proposal of Kline (1998) that the models with CMIN/df values of 3 or less should be considered as fit models, we concluded that the models are statistically fit.Furthermore, the CFI and NFI values of all the models are greater than 0.9 and the AFGI values are greater than 0.8, which further indicates that the models are fit.

Source: Author's own elaboration
The above table depicts the role of emotions between dimensions of workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.In this regard, five separate mediation analyses were applied.This is done so because there were multiple mediators in the study and Klein et al., (2006) had already suggested that in order to test simultaneous mediation, one needs to apply more than one test.
Results indicated that dimensions of workplace spirituality have a significant positive relationship with positive emotions and have a negative association with negative emotions.Furthermore, dimensions of workplace spirituality are negatively associated with dependent variable deviant workplace behavior.It is also found that each of the five emotions used in the study namely happiness, love, anger, fear, and sadness mediate dimensions of workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.This is consistent with the findings of Shaheen and Rashidi (2021) that emotions mediate the relationship between spirituality at work and negative work outcomes such as turnover intentions.Furthermore, it is also found that happiness, love, fear, and sadness fully mediate SCC and deviant workplace behavior, whereas, the rest of the mediating relations were partial in nature.

Discussion
The study seeks to test if spirituality at work has any impact on the emotions of people working for the firm and do these emotions reduce the undesired workplace behaviors.Hence, the study aimed at testing the phenomenon of spirituality, emotions, and resultant behaviors and the workplace.Results indicated that dimensions of workplace spirituality have a significant positive relationship with positive emotions and have a negative association with negative emotions (Shaheen & Rashidi, 2021).Furthermore, dimensions of workplace spirituality are negatively associated with the dependent variable of deviant workplace behavior.This is consistent with the findings of researchers (Khan, Usman, Saeed, Ali, & Nisar, 2022;Amin, Situngkir, & Aira, 2021: Astuti, Maryati, & Harsono, 2020: Wahyono, Prihandono, & Wijayanto, 2020;Naseer, Syed, Nauman, Fatima, Jameel, & Riaz, 2020) which suggests that spirituality have a positive association with positive work outcomes and vice versa.Furthermore, emotions mediate the relationship between dimensions of workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.This is consistent with the study of Shaheen and Rashidi (2021).From all this discussion, it is concluded that emotions cannot be ignored in workplace and managers must focus on emotions in order to reduce the deviance in the workplace.

Conclusion
Since workplace spirituality is negatively associated with dependent variable deviant workplace behavior.Therefore, spirituality can play an important role in decreasing deviance in the workplace.Furthermore, emotions mediate workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.Therefore, it is concluded that emotions cannot be ignored in the workplace.Hence, managers in the IT sector must be vigilant about their emotions and should try to reduce the deviance in the workplace using the concept of emotional intelligence.In this way, they can solve the issues related to deviance in the workplace.

Recommendations
Since workplace spirituality is negatively associated with the dependent variable of deviant workplace behavior.Therefore, it is recommended that managers should focus on enhancing spirituality in order to reduce deviance in the workplace.Furthermore, emotions mediate dimensions of workplace spirituality and deviant workplace behavior.Therefore, it is recommended that managers in the IT sector must be vigilant about their emotions and should try to reduce the deviance at the workplace using the concept of emotional intelligence.It is also recommended that managers should take spirituality seriously and should do everything possible to enhance spirituality at work.It is because of the fact that it will help them manage their emotions and reduce the deviance at the workplace.

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Researchers
Since the study revolves around the IT sector and the concept has not been tested in other industries, therefore, it is suggested that researchers should replicate the study in the other sectors.This will be helpful for the greater generalizability of the results.In this way limitations of the study can be addressed.