Aashish Garg, Pankaj Misra, Sanjay Gupta, Pooja Goel and Mohd Saleem
Spiritual tourism is becoming a significant growth area of the Indian travel market, with more Indians opting to go on pilgrimage to popular religious cities. There are many…
Abstract
Purpose
Spiritual tourism is becoming a significant growth area of the Indian travel market, with more Indians opting to go on pilgrimage to popular religious cities. There are many spiritual destinations where some of this life's essences can be sought to enjoy harmony and peace. The study aims to prioritize motivators driving the intentions of the tourists to visit the spiritual destination.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study applied the analytical hierarchical process, a multi-criteria decision-making technique, on the sample of visitors from all the six spiritual destinations to rank the motivational factors that drive the intentions of the tourist to visit a spiritual destination.
Findings
The study's results postulated that spiritual fulfillment motives and destination atmosphere are the top prioritized motivations, while destination attributes and secular motives emerged as the least prioritized.
Practical implications
The research study provides valuable insights to the spiritual tourism industry stakeholders to target the tourists' highly prioritized motivations to augment the visits to a particular spiritual destination.
Originality/value
Previous research has explored the motivations and modeled their relationships with tourists' satisfaction and intentions. But, the present study has applied a multi-criteria decision-making technique to add value to the existing knowledge base.
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Recently, both researchers and practitioners have been very interested in the impact of leadership on employee engagement. Thus, I aimed to examine the relationship between…
Abstract
Purpose
Recently, both researchers and practitioners have been very interested in the impact of leadership on employee engagement. Thus, I aimed to examine the relationship between spiritual leadership and work engagement through the mediating role of spiritual well-being at work.
Design/methodology/approach
I assessed spiritual leadership, engagement, and well-being in an empirical study based on a sample of 223 employees. I collected data through a survey-based method and analyzed them using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The present study contributes to the existing knowledge in the leadership field, especially spiritual leadership. The results revealed that spiritual leadership impacts employees’ work engagement by indirectly influencing employees’ spiritual well-being.
Research limitations/implications
Theoretically, the findings imply that spiritual well-being can be one of the factors considered in enhancing work engagement through spiritual leadership.
Practical implications
Finding evidence that spiritual leadership, like other leadership styles, can foster employee engagement. Therefore, leaders should take care of employees’ spiritual needs.
Originality/value
Many researchers have indicated that well-being is associated with employee engagement. However, they overlooked employees’ spiritual well-being in the research. The study confirmed the unexplored mediating role of spiritual well-being between spiritual leadership and employee engagement.
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Katarzyna Piwowar-Sulej and Qaisar Iqbal
The aim of this study is to offer evidence-based knowledge of the most popular research topics in studies on spiritual leadership (SL) and the research approaches and theories in…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to offer evidence-based knowledge of the most popular research topics in studies on spiritual leadership (SL) and the research approaches and theories in use. Another aim is to create a comprehensive research framework covering the antecedents and outcomes of SL, as well as the underlying mechanisms and conditional factors. This study also synthesizes future research avenues presented in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a systematic literature review method. The presented analysis covered both bibliometric studies and in-depth manual content analysis. In total, 274 articles indexed in the Scopus database were analyzed, with a particular focus on 126 empirical papers.
Findings
This study shows that most of the research took place in developing countries and focused on the links between SL and workplace spirituality, employee well-being and engagement. It provides a complex research framework which orders previous variables according to their levels. Future research is required that would use a multilevel research approach and determine the impact of SL on society and the leaders themselves, as well as determining the reverse impact of organizational performance on the development of SL.
Originality/value
This study takes advantages of both bibliometric and in-depth content analysis to expand the understanding of the state of the art in SL research. It demonstrates how different factors contribute to SL and how they subsequently influence outcomes. It also offers numerous future research directions which go beyond those identified so far in the literature to further develop the theory of SL.
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With the ongoing transformation of the microfinance sector, questions have been raised on the ability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to perform financially well without…
Abstract
Purpose
With the ongoing transformation of the microfinance sector, questions have been raised on the ability of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to perform financially well without compromising with their social objectives. The current study attempts to analyse the social and financial performance of Indian MFIs with an objective to find the kind of relationship between these two objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
The dynamic framework of simultaneous equations model is used to find the nature of the relationship which exists between social and financial performance of Indian MFIs.
Findings
The study finds that depth of outreach enables MFIs to achieve financial sustainability. On the other hand, financially strong MFI lend more as reflected by an increase in their average loan size.
Research limitations/implications
Many MFIs still receive subsidies to support their operations. Ideally, adjustments should be made to remove the effect of such subsidies on their cost. However, due to non-availability of data, the study fails to make any adjustment for the subsidies.
Practical implications
The presence of a complementary relationship between social and financial performance in the Indian microfinance sector is quite encouraging for the policymakers during the current time when the sector is becoming less dependent on subsidies. However, the recent upsurge in the average loan size requires attention.
Social implications
The findings suggest that MFIs can achieve financial sustainability while targeting poor clients. This indicates that MFIs can perform socially good along with their financial performance.
Originality/value
Such study is vital when the Indian microfinance sector is moving away from subsidies to become self-reliant and commercialised. Few studies have focused on this aspect of Indian microfinance sector.
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S.K. Shanthi, Vinay Kumar Nangia, Sanjoy Sircar and K. Srinivasa Reddy