Workplace Spirituality and Knowledge Management in Higher Educational Institutions: An Empirical Study

A confident and effective education system focuses not only on the economic, social and cultural growth of learning groups but also on spiritual growth. Reinforcing the spiritual component of faculty helps the learner to process knowledge in complexities and also to formulate a good philosophy towards life. The paper takes an analytical approach to understand and measure the impact of workplace spirituality (WS) on the process of knowledge management (KM) in higher educational institutions (HEIs). Workplace spirituality is contextually considered as mindset and system with which employees perceive meaningfulness at work through understanding dynamics of their inner life. Knowledge management at workplace, not much understandable concept by academic institutions, is studied deeply and hence highlighted its importance of its effective implementation in the paper. The core execution of KM depends on how employees perceive Knowledge Incubation, Deposition, Assessment, Application, Dissemination at workplace and knowledge sharing intention (KSI). A total of 610 faculty/lecturers, from selected HEIs participated in the survey. The study is among very few, to empirically investigate KM in academic institutions and the impact of WS on KM and KSI.  The results confirmed significant positive association of spirituality dimensions with core and effective practices of KM. WS found to be strong predictor of KSI. The findings highlight the necessity of suitable management intervention for integrating spiritual culture in HEIs and for fostering suitable strategies to accelerate KSI of faculty.