One key to creating such a paradigm shift is to show how spirituality is actually manifested throughout all areas of an organization. Using such a case study approach is also consistent with the newness of the field of spirituality in business where an inductive approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967 is appropriate in assessing and developing theory. We selected Southwest Airlines (SWA)for our case study because it appears to have a strong sense of spiritual-based values guiding its organizational goals and practices. In addition, the company has an established track record of excellent organizational performance as well as high employee and customer satisfaction. In profiling SWA we certainly do not want to imply that it is a perfect example of living spiritual values; it has its problems and limitations like other firms. Despite this, there seems to be a genuine sense of spirit and affection in both SWA employees and customers satisfaction (Levering and Moskowitz, 1993).
The purpose of this article is to examine the ways spirituality is manifested within SWA and assess the impact of spirituality on SWA employees, customers, and organizational performance. Because spirituality is reflected through values such as making a contribution to humankind, we have adapted a model of spiritual values-based management as a framework for our analysis. The use of such framework minimizes concentration on anecdotal evidence and forces a more comprehensive analysis of spirituality in organizations.