Values & Meaning in & around Organizations

Religion is a significant social force on organizational practices, yet has been relatively underexamined in organization theory. In this theoretical article I assert that the institutional logics perspective is especially conducive to examine the macro-level role of religion for organizations. The notion of the religious logic offers conceptual means to explain the significance of religion, its interrelationship with other institutional orders and embeddedness into and impact across interinstitutional systems. I argue for intra-institutional logic plurality and show that specifically the intra-religious logic plurality has been rather disregarded with a relative focus on Christianity and a geographical focus on 'the West'. Next, I propose the concept of inter-institutional logic prevalence and show that the religious logic in particular may act as a meta-logic due to its potential for uniqueness, ultimacy and ubiquity. Through illustrations from Islamic Finance and Entrepreneurship, I exemplify implications of logic plurality and prevalence for organizations and societies.