The Dark Side of Workplace Spirituality: A Systematic Literature Review of Manipulation, Control, Instrumentalization, Exclusion, and Unintended Organizational Consequences

Workplace spirituality scholarship has predominantly emphasized beneficial employee and organizational outcomes, while its negative and unintended manifestations remain fragmented across critical and empirical literature. This systematic literature review synthesizes scholarship published from 2000 through 2026 concerning the dark side of workplace spirituality. Searches of Scopus, EBSCOhost Business Searching, and ProQuest Central Premium, supplemented by citation searching, yielded a final corpus of 27 studies. The synthesis identified three interconnected mechanisms: organizational power and identity governance, instrumentalization and commodification, and organizational translation and domestication of spirituality. Findings indicate that problematic manifestations are conditional rather than inherent and become more plausible when spiritual meaning intersects with organizational interests, unequal power, strong normative cultures, and limited employee agency. The review develops an integrative conditions–mechanisms–consequences framework and proposes that the dark side emerges at the intersection of organizational power, purpose, and meaning.