The Influence Of Perceived Organizational Spirituality On The Psychological Contract

Abstract

Organizational spirituality is regarded as a frame which provides and enables the joys and sense of belonging shared by workmen, which includes organizational values and which proves the organizational culture. ( Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003 ). The workmen who have organizational spirituality are more committed to their psychological contracts ( Rousseau, 1990 ) that are defined as their believes and perceptions related to the mutual expectations and obligations with the organization. In this research, the relationship between perceived organizational spirituality and psychological contract is examined. Looking at the results of the t test performed, it is seen that the variables; age, education; and the condition of staff have a significant difference on organizational spirituality. It is detected that the variables; gender, position title, marital status, length of service in the sector and the condition of staff have a significant difference on the psychological contract. Examining the relation between transactional contract and organizational spirituality dimensions; there is a positive and intermediate relationship between transactional contract and meaningful work, sense of community; and alignment with organizational values. Examining the relationship between relational contract and organizational spirituality dimensions of the psychological contract with the correlation analysis performed, there is a positive relationship on a medium level between relational contract and all the other dimensions of organizational spirituality. As a result of the multiple regression analysis performed, organizational spirituality values have a significant influence with transactional contract and relational contract. The positive influence of the perceived organizational spirituality on the psychological contract is found to be statistically significant.

Keywords: Organizational spiritualityspiritualitypsychological contract

Introduction

In our world, which is defined as a global village, human beings who are trying to keep up with change are changing, developing and carrying out their economic activities with knowledge capital as the most important strategic element of economic sense. In this process, the importance of human being's spiritual needs is a great asset.

Research shows that managers, leaders and employees are expecting much more than economic returns at work. Employees question the relationship between their work and their spirituality and want an inspiring and meaningful job (Örgev and Günalan, 2011). There is a growing interest in spirituality due to the balance of stress and oppression of the turbulent life and the desire of the individual to integrate the values of his personal life with his work life (Robbins and Judge, 2012: 537-538).

People spend most of their hours working awake. Workplaces are now becoming a place where more and more people eat, exercise, appointments, leave their children and even take a nap (Fry, 2003). As more and more employees look for value, support and meaning in their workplace, spirituality, are becoming more and more effective (Sprung et al., 2012).

Wagner-Marsh and Conley (1999: 292) pointed out that there is an "organizational fourth wave" referring to Toffler's (1980) technological third wave and called it "spiritual based organization" (Karakaş, 2010). Many organizations support the development of this new trend as they believe that a humanistic working environment creates a win-win situation for both employees and the organization.

Businesses that want to renew themselves and capture a peaceful working atmosphere should build a trust-based and multi-dimensional corporate culture, taking into account the emotional, rational and spiritual intelligence of their employees. The spiritual worlds of the employees should be integrated into the institutional culture and reflected in the institutional policies (Seyyar, 2009). Thus, he will want to stay in a spiritual self-fulfilling occupational organization, and he will draw the psychological contract, which is a non-written agreement that he spontaneously creates without negotiations with the administration. Rousseau (1990) defined the psychological contract as an individual's beliefs and perceptions regarding the mutual expectations and obligations between the organization and the employee. In the psychological contract, the employee's observations, perceptions and experiences about organization are included. As long as the employee fulfills certain conditions, the organization will have a perception of how to provide him with various possibilities.

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

Spirituality

The term "spirituality" derives from the word; spiritus that comes from the Latin meaning steam, breath, air and wind. The Latin word for spirituality is breathing, pale (Marques et al., 2007: 9). 'Spirituality' can be defined as the way the individual expresses the soul, the way the individual expresses himself as a person (Braine, 1992). Spirituality generally describes the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors (Sheep, 2006: 358, Örgev and Günalan, 2011) and the inner blood of a more subtle, smarter gentle man, which emerge from the search for the sacred in the religious psychology literature (Fairholm; 1996: 12).

When confronted with difficulties, spirituality plays a protective role by mitigating the effects of negative work experiences; Employees also use spirituality to deal with the work atmosphere through different methods such as meditation, spiritual thinking and prayer (Sprung et al., 2012).

When a person adopts a religion, he becomes subject to its rules. Spirituality is not a dogmatic code of coherence that humans adapt to, but a thought within the human being (Bourne, 2005). Religiosity does not necessarily have to involve spirituality, as many religious people find themselves spiritually defined. There are also people who define themselves spiritually without belonging to any religious community (Langlands et al., 2007). Spiritual life is personality. The person submits his or her own spiritual life over time with or without conscious subconscious and conscious efforts. Religion can not be based on the spiritual life of a person, since it is from a peculiar personality and a group receives a community center. Religion is not based on spiritual life but on the basis of a social order (Cüceloğlu, 2014: 239).

From this point of view, spiritual subjects are separated from subjects belonging to any religious group and do not have the same meaning as subjects that deal with religious practice. In fact, if spirituality is considered with scope of religion, (Fry, 2003), it has a potential which excludes issues that do not share contradictions or common traditions between social, business, and legal and ethical foundations of public administration. "Attaching to a religious workplace orientation can lead to an arrogant notion that a particular company, belief, or even nation, is somewhat" superior "or more valuable than the other (Giacalone and Jurkiewiez, 2003). From this point of view, spirituality is necessary for religion, but religion is not necessary for spirituality.

Organizational Spirituality and Dimensions

In recent times, there has been no consensus in the literature on the definition of spirituality with the increase in theories and work on the effects of spirituality at work (Weinberg and Locander, 2014), as well as in organizational spirituality, there is no definition that experts agree on (Örgev and Günalan, 2011).

Marques et al. (2007: 66) defines organizational spirituality in the book "Spirituality in the Workplace" as the feeling of the employees of the organization as "at home". According to a common conviction on the subject, organizational spirituality refers to the meaning of our lives and the desire to find an aim, and the process of living up to the end of internal and individual values (Neck and Milliman, 1994).

Giacalone and Jurkiewiez (2003) define the concept of "organizational spirituality" as "the organizational values expressed in the culture that encourage employees' transcendental experience through business processes by activating their sense of attachment to emotions such as love and joy".

Ashmos and Duchon (2000) applied the workplace spirit research scale in the health sector, which is a high-ranking female participant. As a result of the literature survey, they determined the dimensions of "inner life, meaningful work, community feeling" and developed a questionnaire consisting of 66 categories and three categories in order to measure organizational spirituality. These categories are: individual level, business unit and organization. In addition to these three dimensions, there are four additional factors for the individual level: obstacles in front of spirituality, personal responsibilities, positive links with other individuals, and contemplation.

Milliman et al. (2003) further expanded Ashmos and Duchon's work. They took three of the seven dimensions identified in terms of individual level. These are; Meaningful work, sense of community and organizational values. The work supports the findings of Ashmos and Duchon (2000) and provides some premise empirical evidence to support the suggestion that organizational spirituality may be a positive influence on employees’ attitudes and organization.

Fry et al. (2005: 836,837) defines spiritual organizations as "internally motivated learning organizations" and defines the elements of organizational spirituality as "spiritual survival through vision, hope, faith and altruistic quality through value adaptation, work love and membership".

In the research, the dimensions of organizational spirituality in the study by Milliman et al. (2003) were used.

Meaningful Work

The basic characteristic of workplace spirituality is that the individual has a deep sense of meaning and a sense of purpose in his work. This dimension of workplace spirituality reflects how employees interact in their day-to-day work at an individual level. Expressing spirituality in the workplace involves the assumption that each individual has an intrinsic motivation and willingness to be in activities that give greater meaning to the life of himself and others (Ashmoss and Duchon, 2000; Guillory, 2001; Milliman et al., 2003). Meaningful work is also expected to affect the attitudes of employees towards their work (Milliman et al., 2003).

According to Sheep (2006), meaningful work is an indication of the desire to be integral. Employees work to improve their quality of life at work by finding meaning in their work and reaching an objective beyond financial gain (Fairholm, 1996; Fry, 2003, 2005).

Deeper meaning in the work done is not a newly formed idea of search action. However, the work done in terms of spirituality does not have to be intriguing and challenging; (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000; Milliman et al., 2003), as well as a deeper meaning and purpose seeking action, such as living a person's dream, searching for a meaningful job, and contributing to other individuals to express one's inner life.

Sense of Community

Another important aspect of workplace spirituality involves a deep bond or relationship with other individuals, that is to say, belonging to the community (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000; Milliman et al., 2003). This dimension of workplace spirituality occurs at the group level of human behaviors and includes the emotional and spiritual connections between employees and their colleagues. The sense of community at work is based on the belief that people are self-connected and that there is a certain relationship between the inner world of the individual and the inner world of the other (Milliman et al., 2003). In other areas of social and physical sciences it has been widely accepted that people are universally motivated and stimulated to find and understand the purpose of their working life and to be a member of a group whose participation is believed to add value to group performance (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003). People at work value the connections they have and feel themselves as part of, or dependent on, a large community (Pfeffer, 2003).

Compliance with Organizational Values

The third important aspect of workplace spirituality is that individuals experience a strong cohesion / bond between their personal values and the purpose and mission of the establishment. This dimension of workplace spirituality involves the interaction of employees with large organizational goals (Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Milliman et al., 2003). Being in harmony with organizational values is related to the fact that the purpose of the individual is greater than his or her own self and that it should provide both other individuals and collective contribution. Alignment also means that individuals believe that managers and employees in the organization are in the right values, have strong awareness, and are interested in the welfare of employees and the community (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000; Milliman et al., 2003).

Psychological Contract and Types

Rousseau (1990) defined the psychological contract as an individual's beliefs and perceptions about the mutual expectations and obligations between the organization and the employee, and this definition was accepted as the most diverse and valid definition in the literature when compared to the definitions made up to now. Unlike Rousseau, when the work of Argyris (1960) and Schein (1965) is examined, it seems that the psychological contract is an agreement based on mutual exchange between employee and employer.

In the psychological contract, there are no two parties (organization and individual); because the psychological contract is formed by the mental (cognitive) perception of the individual. In this definition, an organization means the circumstances and the environment in which the individual's psychological contract is formed (Schalk and Roe, 2007: 168).

McNeil (1985) classifies psychological contracts as transactional and relational psychological contracts. Transactional contracts are concerned with the economic elements such as wages, salaries, bonuses and the changes expressed in terms of money both in terms of employees and employees; (Rousseau, 1990: 391, Rousseau and McLean Parks, 1993: 10, Millward and Hopkins, 1998) are not only economically but also socially-emotional changes such as open loyalty and support.

Transactional Contracts

Transactional contracts are concrete, specific, explicit. Temporary workers, for example, have very well-defined contracts. It is a specific job definition that describes the mutual responsibilities that arise between the hard worker and the employer (Millward and Hopkins, 1998; Aselage and Eisenberger, 2003; Türker, 2010: 21). Occupations in transactional contracts are rewarded with performance in the organization as a result of their commitment to work. According to the employees with fewer ties to the organization, organizations are the places where prizes are won (Millward and Hopkins, 1998: 1532, Büyükyılmaz and Çakmak, 2015: 51-52).

Relational Contracts

Trust between workers and employers is a greater guide in relation contracts. Because relational contracts are not subjective, they are contracts based on mutual understanding and difficult to quantify (Millward and Hopkins, 1998, Aselage and Eisenberger, 2003, Türker, 2010: 21). Relational contracts are also broad contracts that include mutual benefits between the organization and the employee. Responsibility for relationship contracts is on the employer. This means that, like other long-term gains, employees are loyal to their job security and have to build good relationships with their employers (Millward and Hopkins, 1998: 1532; Büyükyılmaz and Çakmak, 2015: 52).

A bipolar variant can be mentioned that ranges from the transactional dimension to the relational dimension between the transactional and relational dimensions of the psychological contracting (Robinson and Rousseau, 1994; Millward and Hopkins, 1998). This indicates an inverse correlation between them. According to these results, as the tendency to relational contract increases, the tendency towards transactional contract decreases so much; The greater the tendency towards transactional contracts, the lower the tendency towards relational contracts.

Research Method

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of perceived organizational spirituality on psychological contracts. Research; Organizational spiritual subdimensions; Meaningful work, sense of community, and organizational values ​​are the sub-dimensions of psychological contracting. Research hypotheses are as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Perceived Organizational Spirituality has an impact on the Psychological Contract.

Hypothesis 2: Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Meaningful Work Dimension Transactional Contract.

Hypothesis 3: Meaningful Work Dimension of Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Relational Contract.

Hypothesis 4: Community Dimension of Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Transactional Contract.

Hypothesis 5: The Sense of Community Dimension of Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Relational Agreement.

Hypothesis 6: Compliance with Organizational Values ​​Dimension of Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Dimensional Transactional Agreement.

Hypothesis 7: Compliance with Organizational Values ​​Dimension of Percieved Organizational Spirituality has a meaningful and positive impact on the Relational Agreement.

The research was conducted by a public hospital in the health sector; Republic of Turkey the Ministry of Health, Turkey Public Hospitals Institution Ankara 1st Region General Directorate of Public Hospitals Association, Ankara Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Training and Research Hospital. The research method was determined according to the random sampling method. 279 data were obtained from the survey.

The questionnaire was used to gather data on the perceptions of health sector employees needed to solve the research question. The survey used in the research consists of three parts and contains 54 questions. The first part of the research questionnaire consists of questions about the demographic information of the employees. In the second part of the questionnaire, a scale consisting of 2 dimensions and 33 items developed by Millward and Hopkins (1998) was used to measure the psychological contract levels of employees. Scale was adopted into Turkish language by Aydoğan et al. (2012) and the Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the reliability analysis of the psychological contract scale is 0.84. In the third part of the questionnaire, a scale consisting of 3 dimensions and 21 items developed by Milliman, Czaplewski and Ferguson (2003) was used to measure perceived organizational spirituality. The scale was adapted to Turkish by the authors and the Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the reliability analysis of the workplace spirit scale was 0.88. The questionnaires used in the second and third part of the survey were used as a five-point Likert type. The data obtained in the study were examined using the SPSS Statistics 20.0 program and the Lisler. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the scales used in the research, and the results obtained here were found acceptable for the psychological contract and organizational spirituality scale.

Findings and Comments on the Demographic Characteristics of the Participants

Table 1 -
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According to Table 1 , the rate of female employees is 54.8%. The number of female employees is higher than the number of male employees. When we look at age values, the rate of those who are 30 years old or less is 12,2%; The rate of those aged 41-45 is 26.5%. This is the result of the research that the workers are middle age in the age range of 36-45 years. When looking at marital status, 86.4% of the participants are married. According to Decree Law No. 663, general secretaries, presidents, experts, office officials in Public Hospital Unions (KHB); Hospital administrators, chief physicians and assistant chief physicians, principals and assistant principals will work in contracted status. Thus, it is seen that 57.7% of the employees participating in the survey are permanent staff. It can be said that this situation is provided especially by outsourcing the service personnel located in a 36.2% area. In the health sector and in many other sectors, they are adopting such a path because they aim to devote themselves to their talents.

In terms of job title, 1,4% of the participants are chief physician, chief physician assistant; 3.2% of them were made up of education staff and the remaining 94% did not have job titles. In terms of education, 19% of those surveyed are primary school graduates and 13.6% are post graduates. According to KHK number 663, hospital staff are required to be a medical assistant or professor in the medical field in order to be a chief physician in education and research hospitals connected to KHB. Thus, the presence of faculty members participating in the research explains the percentage of the graduate students. The percentage of those who participated in the survey for more than 10 years is 84.9% in total. According to this, it can be said that the rate of occupation turnover is small when you look at the employees. The expected outcome for the health sector is that the rate of occupational turnover is high. This may be due to the fact that the sample was chosen from public hospitals. When the percentages of institutional titles of the personnel participating in the research are examined, it is seen that 12.8% are from doctors, 22.6% from nurses, 19.4% from other healthcare workers, 3.6% from engineers / technical personnel, 5.4% Administrative personnel and 36.2% of service personnel.

Comparison and Interpretation of Perceived Organizational Spirituality and Psychological Contract Points in terms of Demographic Characteristics

Within the scope of the research, all demographic variables were examined; But this study only includes the tables on gender, marital status and cadre status variables.

Table 2 -
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There was no significant difference between the mean scores of the female ( X - = 128.43) and the mean score of male ( X - =133.91) in the t test for the independent samples in order to find out whether the participants' organizational spiritual scores significantly differed according to gender ( t (277)=-1,605, p >0,05). In other words, it can be said that gender has no meaningful effect on organizational spirituality scores. This situation is a social entity; Women and men need to be supported spiritually by the organization without any gender discrimination.

There was a significant difference between the average score of the women ( X - = 95,85) and the average of the men ( X - =99,72) in the t test for the unrelated samples in order to find out whether the participants' psychological contract scores differed significantly according to gender (t(277)=-2,078, p<0,05). Men's psychological contract scores seem to be higher. In other words, it can be said that gender has a meaningful effect on psychological contract scores. Such a result may have been obtained in the psychological covenant, due to the differences in perceptions and experiences of the observations of the organization of male and female occupations.

Table 3 -
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There was a significant difference between the average score of the married couple ( X - =96,55) and the average score of the single ( X - = 104.26) in the t test for unrelated samples to find out whether the participants' psychological contract scores significantly differed according to their marital status ( t (277)=-2,877, p <0,05). In other words, it can be said that marital status has a meaningful effect on psychological contract scores. That is to say, according to the psychological contract scale, there is a statistically significant difference according to the marital status of the participants and this difference is the single participants. Psychological contract perception levels of single participants are higher than psychological contract levels of married participants. There are many studies that show that married employees are more attached to their jobs. It would be easier for a single employee who is experiencing a psychological contract violation to quit his/her job if he/she considers the psychological contract, the conflicts in the organization, absenteeism, job dissatisfaction, etc.

There was no significant difference between the average score of the married couple ( X - =64,33) and the average score of single ( X - =62,11) in the t test for the unrelated samples in order to reveal whether the participants' organizational spirituality scores significantly differed according to marital status ( t (277)=0,3916, p >0,05). In other words, it can be said that marital status has no meaningful effect on organizational spiritual scores. This shows that whether the employees of the organization are married will not change the perceptions of organizational spirituality. In this case, married or unmarried employees will not be affected by the sense of organizational spirituality, meaningful work, sense of community and inclusion in organizational values.

Table 4 -
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There was a significant difference between the point average of the staffs ( X - =94,79) and the point average of the contracts ( X - =101,43) in the t test for unrelated samples to reveal whether the participants' psychological contract scores differed significantly according to the staff status ( t (277)=-3,595, p <0,05). There is a statistically significant difference according to the staff related status of the participants according to the psychological contract scale, and this difference is related to the contracted participants. In other words, it can be said that the staff related situation has a significant effect on psychological contract scores. As a contracted staff member acting on a written contract between the organization, he/she will pay more attention to the psychological contract because it is less committed to the organization. In this sense, the psychological contract carries the nature of an implicit agreement that will come about in negative situations to be encountered in organizations. In other words, it can be said that the staff related status makes a meaningful difference on psychological contract scores.

An ANOVA analysis was conducted to determine whether the participants' psychological contract scores significantly differed according to the duration of their duties in the sector, and the Bonferroni multiple comparison test was conducted to identify which groups were significantly different. As a result, it can be said that the differences in the service durations of the employees in the sector differentiated the psychological contract scores of the participants. This difference occurs most often during the socialization process in the first and second six months after the worker's adaptation to work has begun. A few months after the occupations started, it will be revealed that mutual expectations with the organization have been realized. Thus, a psychological contract will or will not occur. Moreover, it can be said that the difference in the duration of service in the sector has no significant effect on the organizational spirituality scores of the participants. The fact that the duration of service is high or low seems to have not caused a difference in the level of organizational spirituality that workers perceive. As long as they work in organizations, it can be said that they need spiritual leadership approach.

When the results of the research are examined, it is seen that the variables of age, educational status and staff related status show a significant difference on organizational spirituality. In addition, gender, marital status, duty title, duration of service in the sector and staff related status variables were found to differ on the psychological contract.

Correlation Analysis Results and Comments

Table 5 -
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When the relationship between the transactional contract and the dimensions of organizational spirituality is examined by the correlation analysis, it is possible to talk positively and moderately between the dimensions of organizational spirituality, meaningful work, sense of community and alignment with organizational values ​​and transactional contract. This indicates that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between organizational spirituality and transactional contract dimension of psychological contract. We can say that organizational spirituality and transactional contract have a complementary effect on each other. It can be said that the employees in organizations whose spiritual values ​​are important and transformed into institutional politics find their jobs meaningful and they do not see them as financial gain such as salary, promotion, bonus, they have sense of community and they are in harmony with organizational values.

When the relationship between relational contract and organizational spiritual dimensions is examined from psychological contract dimensions; it can be said that there is a positive and moderate relation between organizational spirituality, meaningful work, sense of community, and organizational values, and the relation contract. We can say that organizational spirituality and relational contract have a complementary effect on each other. In organizations that do not see their employees as merely a means of profiting and adapt spiritual items to the institutional culture, the psychological contracts of those who see this trust will continue for a longer term.

It can be said that relational contract has a higher correlation result compared to the operational contract. This fact includes not only socio-emotional factors along with financial factors for relational contract comprising long term proffesional relations and aiming at mutual benefit between organization and employee, which leads to more meaningful relation by sub-dimensions of organizational spirituality.

Regression Analysis and Comments

Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to find out how the variables such as meaningful work, organizational values, and sense of community felt that participants influenced transactional contract scores. It was chosen as a stepwise method as the variable insertion method.

Table 6 -
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The ANOVA table in Table 6 tests whether the regression equation established is meaningful (F(1,277)=21,400, p<.05), and the regression established is significant.

Table 7 -
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According to Model Summary Table 7 , 7 % of the variance in the operational contract is explained by the change of meaningful work, sense of community and organizational values.

Table 8 -
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As a result of the hierarchical regression analysis of how the variables such as meaningful work, compliance with organizational values ​​and sense of community feel that participants have an effect on transactional contract scores, variables of meaningful work, alignment with organizational values ​​and collective emotion predict the transactional contract dimension. ( F (1,277)=21,400, p <0,01). These variables account for 7% of the change in concurrent contractual contract scores. When the significance tests of the regression coefficients are taken into account, meaningful work (p <0,05) predicts the operative contract variable significantly from the predictive variables.

The obtained regression equation;

Transactional Contract = 49,222 + (meaningful work x 0,600)

Accordingly, an increase of 0,600 in meaningful job scores results in a 1-unit increase in transactional contractual scores. In this case, the acceptance of H2 hypothesis, H4 and H6 Hypotheses are rejected.

Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine how variables such as meaningful work, organizational values, and sense of community felt that participants had an impact on relationship contract scores. It was chosen as a stepwise method as the variable insertion method.

Table 9 -
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The method of insertion and subtraction variables presents the value of p which tests the meaning of the regression equation for two models. Accordingly, the ANOVA table in Table 9 shows that the regression equation established is statistically significant. ( F (2,276)=168,83, p <.05).

Table 10 -
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According to Table 10 , Model 1 includes only adaptive variables as organizational variables as a predictor variable and explains 47% of variance in relational contract size. Other variables were removed from Model 1. In Model 2, meaningful job change was added to Model 1, and the variance explained by these two variables was 55%. As a result of the hierarchical regression made, two models are proposed.

Table 11 -
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Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine how variables such as meaningful work, organizational values, and sense of community, which were thought to have an impact on participants' contractual scores, were found. According to this, variables of meaningful work, organizational values, and sense of community predict the relationship dimension ( F (2,276)=168,83, p <.05). These variables together account for 55% of the change in psychological contract scores. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that there were two variables that predicted relational contracting. Accordingly, alignment with organizational values ​​and meaningful job variables are predictive of the relationship contract dimension. The regression equation is obtained as:

Relational Contract = 8,365 + (compliance with organizational values ​​x 0,692) + (meaningful work x 0,699)

Accordingly, an increase of 0,692 units in compliance with organizational values ​​results in a 1-unit increase in the relational contract, and a significant increase in 0,699 units in the same figure results in a 1-unit increase in the associative contract. In this case, H3 and H7 Hypotheses are accepted, H5 Hypothesis is rejected.

Conclusion and Discussions

Mutual trust and honesty applied by spiritual organizations, organizational spirituality in the sense of empowering employees and ensuring job security without putting pressure on employees' feelings have importance in terms of providing the development and maintenance of psychological contracting. However, the reason for the small number of spiritual organizations in Turkey arises from the question of the difference between religion and spirituality as mentioned in Schulz (2005) study.

As a result of the research, positive effect of perceived organizational spirituality on psychological contract was found statistically significant. In this framework research is aimed that the positive effects of organizational spirituality perceived by employees on their psychological contracts should be recognized by the administrations and regarded as a management approach.

Ahmadi et al. (2014) found that organizations that are aware of the spiritual assets of their employees as a result of their work must nurture employees' souls, sense of purpose and meaningful work experience. Ferguson and Milliman (2008) emphasize the need for a spiritual leadership approach to achieve basic organizational values ​​for the success of the practice of workplace spirituality.

In their work, Neck and Milliman (1994), Mitroff and Denton (1999), Giacalone and Jurkiewicz (2003), Pfeffer (2003) and Weinberg and Locander (2014) and Fry (2003), emphasize and encourage moral development in the organization, the belief that one's beliefs need to be respected, that being trustworthy and spiritual will help to support spiritual development in the organization. Mitroff and Denton (1999) concluded that occupants who see their workplace as "more spiritual" at the same time have perceived their workplaces as "more productive", "more elaborate" and "more ethical".

It is also necessary to consider possible negative aspects of organizational spirituality. For example, it is highly probable that what an individual believes to be a highly spiritual belief or action has a negative influence on another individual. Some possible negative features include the possibility that a number of spiritual values ​​that may lead to intolerance may be regarded as "one way / one right way". There is also the possibility that employees who experience high levels of spirituality at work are very deeply attached to their day-to-day practices of the organization and therefore exhibit a resistance to change (Milliman et al., 2003).

In addition to these conclusions, it is proposed for the academicians and users to manage the diversity of spiritual leaders in the application of organizational spirituality. The diversity of work force means seeing, accepting and respecting the differences of employees with different backgrounds in the organization.

For the academicians who want to work on this issue in the future, there is a need for a trust that can be obtained by scientific measures (Krahnke et al., 2003), so that organizational spirituality can be applied to develop organizations and occupations.

Organizations that want to survive in today's changing world need to recognize the need for change. Spiritual leaders who are aware of change must manage their business processes in the common interest of everyone, thinking that all employees in the organization are a voice and everyone wants to feel important. In organizations where spiritual leaders transform organizational spirituality into organizational culture, the psychological contractual ties of employees will be strong; organizations with such a strong organizational culture will be more successful.

Since psychological contracts are dynamic in nature, the generalizability of the research is limited because it is variable over time (McDermott et al., 2006: 464). Moreover, the meaning of organizational spirituality is different for each individual; Because each individual has his own internal motivations and facts (Neck and Milliman, 1994). As a result of these limitations of the research, it is necessary to concentrate on interlinking and interaction between these levels in order to obtain a systematic understanding of how organizational spirituality affects organizational team and transcendence and value overlap between individual values ​​and organizational effectiveness.

It is thought that organizations that do not consciously nourish spirituality and make it an organizational culture in this framework can not find competitive superiority in today's world. It is suggested that managers of health institutions strengthen the perception of organizational spirituality. Thus, occupants can increase their psychological contract perceptions.

In the future, it is suggested that the outcome of research outside the health sector, where job satisfaction and occupational turnover rate are high for research to be done in the future, will make a difference. It is also important that comparative studies between the private and the public sector are not found to have significant differences between perceptions of private and public sector employees.

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20 December 2017

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Cakiroglu, D., Aydogan, E., & Altinoz, M. (2017). The Influence Of Perceived Organizational Spirituality On The Psychological Contract. In M. Özşahin (Ed.), Strategic Management of Corporate Sustainability, Social Responsibility and Innovativeness, vol 34. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 266-282). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2017.12.02.23