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Creating Meaningful Dialogic Spaces: A Case of Liberation Management

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The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment

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Abstract

This chapter explores the interface between different types of leadership and an organization’s ability to provide meaningful work for its workers. It argues that authentic dialogic spaces are needed to ensure that innovative managerial approaches that empower workers to exercise more agency at work, like “liberation management” (Peters, Liberation management. Fawcett Columbin, New York, 1992; Peters and Bogner, Tom Peters on the real world of business. The Academy of Management Executive (1993–2005):40–44, 2002; Terry, Adm Soc 37(4):426–444, 2005), can create conditions that foster meaningful work and support workplace spirituality. Two illustrative “liberation” projects are used to draw attention to the way the prevailing communication climate and workers’ expectations about legitimate workplace interaction shape the process of implementing post-bureaucratic management systems designed to enhance workers’ engagement, agency, and spiritual expression at work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Canterbury Business School, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Colleen E. Mills

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  1. Colleen E. Mills
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Correspondence to Colleen E. Mills .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Woodbury University , North Hills, California, USA

    Satinder Dhiman

  2. Regent University , Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA

    Gary Roberts

  3. University of South Australia , Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Joanna Crossman

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Mills, C.E. (2018). Creating Meaningful Dialogic Spaces: A Case of Liberation Management. In: Dhiman, S., Roberts, G., Crossman, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61929-3_27-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61929-3_27-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61929-3

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