(How) Does Religiousness Impact on Job Satisfaction? Results for Germany

Abstract

Although research has established a positive link between spirituality or religiousness and job satisfaction, this influence’s pathways remain a ‘black box’. Whether it is an effect of a trait- relationship or of a need-satisfaction-relationship remains an open question. Additionally, data and results for West European countries are largely missing. Following King and Williamson (2005), and with a large-scale dataset for Germany (N = 2,551), we empirically assess the link between religiousness and job satisfaction, considering individual employees’ desire to express religiousness and actual expression at work in a serial mediation model, scrutinizing also the influences of discrimination experiences and perceived employers’ stances on religiousness at work. Results strongly support the needs-satisfaction perspective, implying high relevance of workplace spirituality for human resource management (HRM) but also of the research field of management, spirituality and religion in general. Contrary to our expectations, experiences of religious-based discrimination and the perception of a negative employer stance influence the desire to express religiousness at work and de facto expressions positively.