Annotated Bibliography: Religious Challenges in Public Administration

Jordyn Horvath
Annotated Bibliography: Religious Challenges in Public Administration
Jordyn Horvath

King, S. M. (2007), Religion, Spirituality, and the Workplace: Challenges for Public

Administration. Public Administration Review, 67: 103–114.

In this article, the author (King) is drawing attention to the issue of religion, and

spirituality in the work place and tying that into public administration. “Religion,

Spirituality, and the Workplace relationship between religion and politics in the United

States is a much-studied academic area, particularly evident in political institutional and

behavioral venues such as interest groups, electoral behavior, and political culture.”

(King. Pg. 103). The article begins with many topics covering how religious and spiritual

realities bring senses of calamity and hopefulness to peoples live and that it is a healthy

way for individual people to live and believe, also not that everyone has to believe this.

There is also some research about the law scholar Stephen L. Carter (2000) where he

states that “A moral person must be a spiritual or religious person.” (King. Pg. 103).

Obviously, this suggests that if someone doesn’t fall into those categories they are not a

“moral” person. King goes on to identity that many of the research or studies on this

topic do not hit all the right points when doing the study, for example “one of the

problems with examining religion institutionally, particularly in relationship to public

administration, is that many researchers do not capture the essence of what religion

offers for organizations motivation, performance or decision making.” (King. Pg. 104).

The journal also went on to go over workplace cases dealing with legal problems

regarding religion and spirituality, one of the examples is “Pickering v. Board of

Education (391 U.S. 563 [1968]). In this case, the Court ruled that when the rights of an

employee are infringed — for example, when free speech is re-stricter — then it is the

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Court’s responsibility to “balance the gravity of the burden on employees against the

government’s interest in providing the efficient delivery of public services” (White 2003,

248).” (King. Pg.105).

Simpson, Joe. (2001) Religion and American Politics: The 2000 Election in

Context International Journal on World Peace; Mar 2001; 18, 1; Technology

Collection pg. 107

This article is based upon the 2000 election cycle and how religion played a role into

that, it begins with discussing the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton

“The Christian rights role in recent elections, and the tone of religious rhetoric for the

2000 presidential election.” (Simpson. Pg. 108). The way Simpson spoke of the Clinton

administration was this, that during the time Clinton was in office or running for office the

path for religion in politics was growing an expanding. Simpson introduces John Wilson;

a researcher argues that through his reinterpretation of the First Amendment “religious

clauses”. Simpson states that “The intentions of the Framers of the Constitution, Wilson

refutes the widespread acceptance that the Constitution affirmatively protects a “wall of

separation between church and state”.” (Simpson. Pg. 108). It was uncovered by Wilson

that the people who built the Constitution really missed their chance at resolving the

issue of state and church and the separation needed.

Lowery, D. (2005), Self-Reflexivity: A Place for Religion and Spirituality in Public

Administration. Public Administration Review, 65: 324–334.

This article covers the basic levels of self-reflexivity and how that can translate into

religion and spirituality. It undergoes a study of mid-level managers in the federal

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government for its parameters. To start his study, he watched “the refection’s of two

public administrators who draw explicitly on certain religious and spiritual values will be

features.” (Lowery. Pg.324). This study began with defining and doing a brief

assessment of the foundational belief systems, the next portion of this will be to define

the methods being used. This study really focused on how religion and spirituality could

positively affect a lifestyle and a work place, which seemed to fit and adapt my study

nicely.

Scheitle, C. P. (2011), U.S. College Students’ Perception of Religion and Science:

Conflict, Collaboration, or Independence? A Research Note. Journal for the

Scientific Study of Religion, 50: 175–186

I liked this article because of the new perspective it was going to give me, a chance to

see what students were believing in if it wasn’t religion. The article also reviews how

undergraduate students perceive the relationship between religion and science and how

that relationship is built and managed. To start the experiment, the researcher had to

gather willing participants that wanted to be studied and act in the research about

religion and science. The research similar to mine, was not only asking about religion

but also asking about what the students major was and their year in school. This would

add a variable to the research that would help show some of the comparable trends in

students and their beliefs. Some of the questions being asked were if students sided

with science or with religion, and this isn’t something I thought to ask when taking my

survey with the stout students. They also asked questions like how many courses of

science the student took in high school and in college, they asked what their religious

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affiliation was and how committed or not committed that student is to their religious

beliefs or science beliefs. The next set of questions were about the students, they were

asked their race, and then their gender, and then their age. The next questions I thought

seemed out of place but was interesting to add into the study was how those students

scored on their ACT’s or SAT’s, I felt like it wouldn’t have shown much difference to the

study and it made me question why it was added into the research. I was interested in

this because I got to see what other students from a completely different background

and area of the country. I chose this because this is important and I wanted to learn

more about the different types of religious affiliations from around the country and how

many students actually don’t have religious beliefs and believe in a scientific system

instead.

Hartley, Harold II. (2004), “How College Affects Students' Religious Faith and

Practice: A Review of Research”

I liked this article for a few reasons, within my topic I needed to try and expand the

knowledge base of what I have found so far and be able to tie in different aspects to my

research. Some of the things I found in this article were evidence of how attending

college students experience has negative impacts on their religious beliefs and

practices. Some of the common themes with this article were studying the students over

time, from the beginning of their college education and watching how over time, this can

have a negative effect on his or her religious studies and practices.

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Fennell, Jacynth A., " e Relationship Between Religious Beliefs, Moral

Development, Self-Control, Peer Pressure, Self-Esteem, and Premarital Sex"

(1999). Dissertations. Paper 360.

This article was very interesting, once again helping me expand on other ideas of

research and new topics I can look into to fulfill some new areas of exploration.

Something cool about this article was that it explored different areas other than religion,

the theme never changes though, it studies college students and young adults which is

something it had in common with the other article. I liked these premature public

administration articles studying college students because with educational background

some of them will eventually be in the workforce doing PA type jobs.

Batley, Richard A. “Religion and Public Management Literature Review.” RAD

Working Papers Series, Academia, 2017.

This piece of literature is basically a type of annotated bibliography, it is a literature

review that is examining papers or drafts of research about the religion in public

management topic. Some of the papers covered how different religions coached or

designed different types of leadership style, looking into If this was possible of

employers to be adapting because of religion and so on and so forth. They also were

looking into the correlation of how religion, values and morals fit into work place life and

managerial positions. “The majority of these-focus mainly on western countries, but

there is an emerging literature on developing countries. The second category consists

of works that have addressed religion as part of a broader discussion about the

influence and relevance of culture and context to development management and public

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-sector reform in general (cf. Curtis, 2004; Caiden and Sundaram, 2004). Within this

second category a few works have looked at specific developing countries (e.g. Aluko

and Adesopo, 2004, on Nigeria). The third category of work consists of authors who

have specifically looked at religious faith and public management from both a

comparative (across traditions) perspective (cf. Weber, 1996[1930]) and from the

perspective of individual religious traditions.” (Batley.2017, PG 120). The quote above is

from a paragraph studying how religion and public management can be categorized

within mainstream works of pubic admin. I thought this was an interesting take on how

the two topics set up the correlation.

Michael Bisesi & Russell Lidman “Compassion and Power: Religion, Spirituality,

and Public Administration” International Journal of Public Administration Vol. 32 ,

Iss. 1,2009

This article was based on how faith and spirituality was relatable to to public

administration and how this was significant to the business and public management

world. The abstract states that “The involvement of faith-based organizations in public

matters may be motivated by compassion, by a desire for political power, or perhaps by

some other purpose.” (Bisesi. M. Lidman. R. Abstract PG.1). I think it was important to

note the work placed into this study on how compassion plays a role in different public

administration, it goes on to discuss how if one has a passionate, religious, values they

have a higher power to lead at times and in different situations. I think this could really

help me to look into the more sensitive and emotional side of why people tick or what

sets them apart within religion and spirituality.

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Annotated Bibliography: Religious Challenges in Public Administration
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Oxhandler, H., & Pargament, K. (2014). Social Work Practitioners' Integration of

Clients' Religion and Spirituality in Practice: A Literature Review. Social

Work, 59(3), 271-279.

This article was a fascinating study on how in the line of social work there is a way that

social workers must integrate the the core values and beliefs of their cliental and even

other coworkers. The study went into looking at the social workers individually and how

they can practice better integration of being biased in all shapes and forms when

working with clients of different religions and spiritualty as themselves. This may not

directly relate to public administration but it looks at how people, employees and

employers can work within any business not just as social workers, in retail, customer

service, with other coworkers, etc. this is something that should be practiced

everywhere, hence why I thought it was important to include. This study also looked at

how mental health was effecting peoples work in the workplace and that in different

religions mental health wasn’t as commonly discussed or talked about and when it isn’t

acknowledged then it can’t be treated. This is something I hadn’t thought of previously

when thinking about how religion can affect workplace life.

Houston, D., & Cartwright, K. (2007). Spirituality and Public Service. Public

Administration Review, 67(1), 88-102.

The abstract is something that really stood out to me when choosing this piece of

research. “This essay examines the empirical connection between individual spirituality

and participation in public service occupations. Data from the 1998 General Social

Survey are analyzed to determine whether those in public service occupations are more

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spiritual than persons in non-public service occupations” (Houston, D. PG. 88). I liked

that this essay was going to look into the individulatiy in spirituality and religious

affiliations, this is something I also think to research first when trying to build a research

demographic. Something else I found as interesting is that the article was focusing more

on spirituality instead of studying religion. This wasn’t done like this in many studies, but

this one identified it strictly was interested in spirituality in public service instead. “This

focus on spirituality-as distinct from religion-is a fairly recent phenomenon, a result of

the rise of secularism, a trend toward deinstitutionalization and individualization, and

disillusionment with religious institutions and leadership” (Houston, D. PG. 88).

Garcia-Zamor, Jean-Claude. (2003). Workplace Spirituality and Organizational

Performance. Public Administration Review, 63(3), 355-63.

The abstract of this article was very clear on how they were planning on setting up this

plan of diversifying the organizational performance and business practices and how

workplace religion and spirituality played a role into that. “This article reviews the

literature a workplace spirituality, painting out emergent theories and examining the links

between this phenomenon and organizational dynamics.” (Garcia-Zamor, Jean-Claude).

The article begins with defining what spirituality is and how they have seen this in

different workplace situations and how it has been used in positive and negative ways. It

also goes on to talk about how different cultures affect spirituality, “Cultures may affect

the manifestation of spirituality. In one culture, the natural attributes of spirituality may

be enhanced while in another they may be denigrated. North American culture tolerates

a great range of diversity, enabling a variety of spiritualties to come into creation. It also

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values action--quick thinking, fast pace, utilitarianism, achievement, and competition.”

(Garcia-Zamor, Jean-Claude).

Houston, D., Freeman, P., & Feldman, D. (2008). How Naked Is the Public Square?

Religion, Public Service, and Implications for Public Administration. Public

Administration Review, 68(3), 428-444.

This article was so in depth about how the public sector is able to strip all the

regulations and assumptions about how the public sector and public administration

works. “More than 20 years ago, Richard John Neuhaus (1984) characterized American

political discourse as a “naked public square.” He argued that the public square has

been stripped naked of all dialogue that is religious in nature, relegating religion to the

private sphere and eliminating an important resource for moral discourse.” (Houston, D).

I really enjoyed seeing how Houston was able to dissect different religions and

spiritualties in the work place.

Davidson, J., & Caddell, D. (1994). Religion and the Meaning of Work. Journal for

the Scientific Study of Religion, 33(2), 135-147. doi:10.2307/1386600

This article was very simple but informative, Davidson wanted to look at how people’s

commitment to their jobs might have correlation to religious beliefs for spiritualties. This

is something I liked, a lot of the other research and studies looked more at why people

might have a more negative affect in life or their jobs because of religion. The article

was very straight forward, starting off by talking about how it is commonly believed that

religion is irrelevant to work place studies/research.

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Annotated Bibliography: Religious Challenges in Public Administration
Jordyn Horvath

Vickers, Lucy. “The Expanded Public-Sector Duty: Age, Religion and Sexual
Orientation.” International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 11 May 2011,
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135822911101100205#articleCitationDownl
oadContainer.

This article talks about the Equality Act of 2010, which is “The Equality Act 2010 is

largely a consolidating statute, bringing together a raft of equality measures enacted

over the last 40 years. Along-side this consolidation, the Act also introduces some new

measures, including the creation of new public-sector equality duties to cover religion

and belief, age, sexual orientation and maternity and pregnancy.” (Vickers, Lucy). This

was definitely something different for me to look at, it was helpful when understanding

how businesses and public and private sector jobs have to be with their employees

regarding acceptance of religion, and other varying characteristics.

Gregory, R. (2011). Encountering Religion in the Workplace: The Legal Rights and

Responsibilities of Workers and Employers. Ithaca; London: Cornell University

Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt7zcvq

This article also touched on the topic similar to Vickers above, it had some relations of talking

about the Equality Acts of 2010 and then trying to talk about how companies and businesses had

legal responsibilities, and rights of working with all beliefs and equal rights for all of its

employees. Some of the other topics in this study discussed the discrimination of religions In

workplaces and the discrimination tactics they have seen with religion. The study also thought

about the legal responsibilities they have to protect and minimize the employees with the acts of

religious harassment and discrimination. This is important to note about the work place and how

they take care of religious employees and make sure they are in a safe place to practice and be

open about their beliefs.

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Annotated Bibliography: Religious Challenges in Public Administration
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