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Living Our Mission: A Study Of University Mission Building, Sarah Bonewits Feldner

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

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.