Living Our Mission: A Study of University Mission Building

Sarah Bonewits Feldner, Marquette University

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Originally published in Communication Studies, Volume 57, No. 1 (March 2006), DOI: 10.1080/10510970500483371.

Abstract

At the same time that organizational communication and management scholars are focusing attention on trends of spirituality in the workplace, faith-based organizations are taking up the question of how they might maintain a distinct spiritual identity. For these institutions, communicating mission becomes the defining feature of institutional identity. Explicitly religious organizations provide a venue for understanding the implications of incorporating spirituality in organizational discourse. This empirical study explores a mission-building conference and examines the ways in which communicating a spiritual mission simultaneously enriches and constrains both the individual members and the organizations as a whole.