Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, History

Tyson, Chick-fil-A, Walmart, and Hobby Lobby's presence within the faith-based business community is mostly thanks to corporate lineages that reached well into the previous century. Tyson was founded in 1935, Chick-fil-A in 1946, Walmart in 1962, and Hobby Lobby in 1972, each undergoing various business model and philosophical shifts along with their executives' changing understanding of Christian faith. This thesis analyzes these businesses through a series of case studies, highlighting various uniting themes in their corporate narratives, exploring the ways they interact with their customers and the cultures in which they flourish, while noting that there is a discernible, yet-unexplored gap between faith-based business and workplace spirituality. Ultimately, this thesis concludes that faith-based businesses choose to identify as such as an expression of belief in a Christian supernatural deity's influence in their careers rather than as a way of garnering specific markets or making a profit.

Committee: Scott Martin Ph.D. (Advisor); Amilcar Challú Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; American History; American Studies; Animals; Audiology; Bible; Biblical Studies; Business Administration; Business Community; Business Costs; Divinity; Economic History; Economic Theory; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Food Science; History; Labor Economics; Labor Relations; Management; Marketing; Modern History; Religion; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Psychology/Clinical

One area of workplace spirituality ripe for investigation is use of religion and spirituality (R/S) to cope with job insecurity. Pertinent literature on transactional coping, R/S coping, sanctification of work, workplace spirituality, and job insecurity is reviewed. Using Mechanical Turk, 467 individuals from the United States who were experiencing some type of job insecurity in their full-time jobs participated in this study. Participants had worked at their respective companies for approximately 4.31 years. The sample was 52.9% male, 77.5% Caucasian, with a mean age of 30.22 years. Approximately 38.5% of the participants stated they never attended R/S services and 35.5% denied having any R/S affiliation. Positive R/S coping moderated the relationship between an individual's organizational commitment and job satisfaction. There was a stronger positive relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction for people who use less positive R/S coping relative to greater use of positive R/S coping. Negative R/S coping separately moderated the relationships between total job insecurity and cognitive/affective job insecurity with psychological distress and health respectively. For those individuals who reported greater use of negative R/S coping, the relationship between either form of job insecurity with psychological distress was more strongly positive than for people who used lower levels of negative R/S coping. For those who reported greater use of negative R/S coping, the connection between either form of job insecurity and poorer health was stronger. Sanctification of work moderated the relationships between organizational commitment and health, organizational support and psychological distress, as well as organizational support and health. In each of these cases, greater use of sanctification was tied to stronger relationships between the organizational and adjustment related variable: positive relationships between organizational var (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kenneth Pargament (Advisor); Annette Mahoney (Committee Member); Alfred DeMaris (Committee Member); Steve Jex (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Business Administration; Clinical Psychology; Management; Occupational Health; Occupational Psychology; Organizational Behavior; Psychology; Religion; Spirituality