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Workplace Spirituality in Social Entrepreneurship: Motivation for Serving the Common Good

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Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve

Abstract

This chapter discusses the interconnection between workplace spirituality and social entrepreneurship. Based on the literature, the author explores the pro-social motives in social enterprises and addresses the concept of spiritual transcendental motivation for serving the common good. Furthermore, the chapter will explore the role of spiritual leadership in human motivation by connecting it with social entrepreneurship. By presenting some examples of spiritually driven entrepreneurship and leadership, this chapter aims to illustrate how the will to serve the common good is enacted within and through the work in organizations. The chapter concludes by proposing workplace spirituality as a complementary perspective to social entrepreneurship and calls for more research in this area. The implications of this chapter are relevant for motivating entrepreneurs, leaders and employees in an ethical, compassionate and self-sustained way.

This chapter resulted from the conference “The Will to Serve: Inspiring Models of Servant Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship”, organized by the European SPES Institute and the Institute of Leadership and Social Ethics. The author is grateful for the tremendous support from the editors of this volume, Luk Bouckaert and Steven C. van den Heuvel, as well as the selfless guidance of Laszlo Zsolnai, all of which has led to the publication of this chapter. The present publication is the outcome of the project “From Talent to Young Researcher project aimed at activities supporting the research career model in higher education”, identifier EFOP-3.6.3-VEKOP-16-2017-00007 co-supported by the European Union, Hungary and the European Social Fund.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewer for suggesting this clarification.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary

    Natasha Gjorevska

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  1. Natasha Gjorevska
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Correspondence to Natasha Gjorevska .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Leuven, Belgium

    Luk Bouckaert

  2. Leuven, Belgium

    Steven C. van den Heuvel

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Gjorevska, N. (2019). Workplace Spirituality in Social Entrepreneurship: Motivation for Serving the Common Good. In: Bouckaert, L., van den Heuvel, S. (eds) Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29936-1_10

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