These Workplace Spirituality (WPS) and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) become essential concepts to modern organizations; they influence both employee engagement and performance as well as the efficiency of the organizational system at large. Based on this reason, workplace spirituality is defined to have a sense of purpose with meaningful employment coupled with a bonding with one's company (Wu, 2025). On the other hand, OCB enhances organizational cohesiveness, effectiveness, and efficiency by including discretionary behaviors that go beyond what is legally required for the job (Ekizer & Aker, 2025).

Because of their potential impact on ethical leadership and ultimate organizational success, the connection between these two traits has captured a substantial amount of attention from the academic world.

Understanding how workplace spirituality promotes OCB is critical as the fast-moving changes in workplaces brought about by globalization, breakthroughs in technologies, and greater emphasis on mental health call for employers to align employees' core beliefs with organizational goals in ensuring voluntary constructive behavior that promotes organizational success (Vedula & Agrawal, 2024). This systematic review aims at synthesizing the state of knowledge regarding the integration of OCB and workplace spirituality, thereby unearthing their relationship as well as their managerial implications.

Workplace Spirituality

“Workplace spirituality is a mental state in which workers feel a feeling of connection rooted on trust, love, and existence, enabling them to provide meaningful and goal-oriented contributions to the organization.” (Mukherjee & Singha, 2019)

According to (Sulastini et al., 2023), spirituality is a multifaceted concept focused on connecting with something significant that transcends an individual's quotidian life. (Baykal & Zehir, 2018) described it as a psychological pattern that combines a sense of purpose, connectedness, and wholeness. WPS is often defined by three characteristics: a feeling of community, meaningful work, and inner life (Benefiel et al., 2014). According to (Baykal, 2019), WPS is about establishing a sense of community, campaigning for social justice, and protecting all stakeholders' rights to equal representation and voice. It is the process by which people learn the value of concentrating their lives on something greater, more transcendent, and nonmaterial than themselves (Baykal, 2019). As organizations endeavours to create more fulfilling and purposeful work environments, WPS has attracted a lot of interest in studies on organization, especially in the wake of the worldwide pandemic. WPS, according to (Rahman et al., 2023), includes the understanding that workers have inner lives that are nurtured by and fed by meaningful work in the context of their community. Organizational approaches to workplace culture and employee well-being have been drastically changed by the COVID-19. which has elevated the spiritual aspects of work. According to (Rahman et al.,2023) during and after the pandemic, companies that practiced workplace spirituality saw increases in employee resilience, better mental health outcomes, and greater organizational engagement.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

OCB is defined as the readiness to go above and beyond the call of duty at work. To ensure a smooth process flow, these may include accepting additional responsibilities or finishing activities that are not theirs. One example of an act of OCB might be wishing a colleague a happy birthday. Instead, it may be argued that this is courteous behaviour. Researchers define altruistic OCB as selfless actions that particularly assist someone else with a problem that is pertinent to the organization. They thus suggest that not all extracurricular activities, such as deeds of compassion, would be regarded as OCB. Researchers argues that OCB is a constructive behaviour that is pertinent to enhancing the efficient running of the business. A development-minded mindset and proactiveness are examples of good behaviour. It could also be the ability to tolerate different kinds of failures at work. Scholars nowadays still dispute in their OCB definitions and in their focus. As a consequence, more OCB-related study findings may differ and cause more misunderstanding (Ocampo et al., 2018). Organizations with Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) will perform better than those without it, according to a research. Furthermore study, proposed that an individual who exhibits positive OCB behaviour would also take on extra tasks that benefit others and improve the functioning of the organization as a whole.

An essential component of boosting organizational commitment is extra behaviour. Extra-role behavior, sometimes referred to as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), s the readiness to go above and beyond one's primary responsibilities as an organization member. This may be accomplished in a number of ways, including leading or assisting student volunteers beyond school hours and offering suggestions without being asked. (Fahmi et al., 2020), (Purwanto, 2020), and (Achmadi et al., 2020) all contend that while OCB is a positive behaviour, it is not included in workers' official job descriptions. (Suheny et al., 2020), and (Purwanto, 2020) describe (OCB) as conduct that promotes social maintenance, values, and a psychological atmosphere that fosters productivity at work. There are five components that make up the OCB indication. Altruism is the quality of someone who prioritizes the needs of others before their own. Courtesy is the act of willingly assisting others, which is not their responsibility or duty. The capacity to persevere amid suboptimal or challenging conditions without complaining is referred to as sportsmanship. Civic virtue is a behaviour that demonstrates involvement and assumes responsibility for the organization's continued existence. Conscientiousness is the act of voluntarily improving one's job in a creative way so that the organization may grow and beyond the bare basic requirements.

Relation between OCB and WPS

"Cultivating spirituality will make people feel whole when they come to work," claim (Krishnakumar & Neck, 2002). According to almost all scholarly definitions, spirituality entails transcendence, completeness, and the experience of being an integrated, entire person. The spiritual self is a part of the total self, and workplaces that support spirit expression are "receptive to the 'entire' or whole person, and as such, may be more productive than workplaces where spirit is ignored."

Although there is ongoing independent research on each of these knowledge domains, an increasing amount of research is also pointing to potential connections between employees who exhibit OCB or higher extra-role performance and their strong organizational bonds as well as their discovery of meaning and purpose in their day-to-day work. Put another way, this points to a connection between workplace spirituality and heightened dedication to corporate objectives, such as corporate citizenship practices.

While the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing is well-recognized, researchers are progressively expanding their focus to include advantages for organizations. While some research has studied the linear relationships between predictors as well as outcomes, others have concentrated on the role of mediators. Using WPS as a mediator (Liu ,2008) demonstrated a favourable correlation between OCB and transcendental leadership. According to a research on the spirituality and personality correlates of OCB, OCB was positively significantly impacted by purpose in life.

A spiritual environment enables employees to be fully engaged, aligning with the development of an open organization. Employees who are fully engaged, who share values and a sense of purpose with their managers, will find greater meaning in their daily work. This will lead to feelings of fulfilment and satisfaction as well as an aspiration to act in ways that will advantage the company. those in development-focused organizations may also respond more favorably to OCB usage than those in results-focused organizations, according to the data. According to a study, workplace spirituality can increase the chance of OCBs because it fosters an environment that is open, free, expressive, and developing for workers.

WPS is tracked in relation to OCB and has also been empirically confirmed. Affective commitment functions as a strong incentive to make the actions associated with intentionally assisting coworkers simpler or, alternatively, to present more acts pertaining to OCB. Employees are guided to exhibit ever more positive OCB behaviours and cover a higher emotional commitment degree via workplace spirituality. Many researchers investigated how the WPS's dimensions affected the OCB of academic personnel from Malaysia's 15 private higher education institutions. Subsequently, they found a favorable association between the OCB dimensions and the WPS dimension. (meaningful work). Furthermore, (Rehman et al., 2022) research at the Office of the Auditor- General in Kenya discovered a positive correlation between WPS and OCB and suggested that this link be investigated further in other sectors. (Hashemi et al., 2020) most recently investigated the suggested link in Iran's industrial sector and discovered that WPS had a favourable impact on OCB.

Research Objectives

1. To assess the association between OCB and WPS.
2. To analyze long-term research trends related to OCB and WPS.
3. To identify the main techniques and strategies used in existing research on OCB and WPS.

According to recent organizational behaviour research, WPS plays a critical role in encouraging employee collaboration and dedication. This concept revolves on inspiration, contentment, enjoyment, and purposeful labour. Academics have distinguished between WPS, organizational spirituality, and spirituality. WPS is the experience of spiritual well-being in a work setting, according to (UTAMI et al., 2021). This is evident in a number of organizational components, including the culture, leadership, practices, and organizational environment. WS includes workers' personal development via purposeful work in a group environment. According to (P. K. Sharma & Kumra, 2020) WPS is not a particular form of religion but rather a confluence of elements at the individual and organizational levels. According to research employees' better mental health is associated with an increase in workplace spirituality. Spirituality is defined as a state or experience that provides individuals with purpose and meaning, along with a feeling of knowledge, support, inner completeness, or connection. This bond may be internal with oneself, external with other people, or extend to more expansive concepts like God, the cosmos, or other supernatural forces. Furthermore, according to (Haldorai et al., 2020), this definition includes internal feelings related to one's job and connections with coworkers. The survey's results on the conception of workplace spirituality describe spiritual orientation in the workplace as an atmosphere where work transcends transactional constraints and encourages spiritual connectivity among staff members. This experience matches personal beliefs with organizational objectives and produces a meaningful work profile.

An employee is considered an exceptional OCB if they successfully contribute to the company without being asked to do so by their superiors or specified in their job descriptions (discretionary), and without receiving any official incentives or rewards (Priscilla et al., 2024). OCB is the outcome of an individual's endeavors that go above and beyond the call of duty at the workplace. Helping others, offering to help out when needed, and following workplace policies are some examples of these behaviours. Employees' added value is demonstrated by such behaviour, which is an example of prosocial behaviour, which is defined by constructive, meaningful, and good acts to help others (Widarko & Anwarodin, 2022).

Companies gain from their employees' good citizenship behaviours, which include speaking positively about their teams and the company, helping others on their teams, volunteering for extra tasks, avoiding pointless confrontations, showing concern for company property, abiding by company policies and values, and being prepared to put up with disruptions and losses related to risky work (Purwana et al., 2020). The five dimensions of OCB, according to (Soelton et al., 2020), are crucial in creating a positive corporate culture. These measurements consist of: (1) Altruism: voluntarily helping colleagues, such as those who are having difficulties or are new to their roles, and completing assignments for absentee colleagues; (2) Courtesy: Maintaining a pleasant attitude towards colleagues, such as motivating those who might be less productive; (3) Sportsmanship: Taking on difficult situations without complaining and not ignoring the realities that exist; (4) Civic Virtue: Taking responsibility for organizational involvement, such as participating contributing meetings, adapting to changes, as well as taking initiative to boost productivity; conscientiousness is the trait of having a high level of dedication to one's job, which includes going above and beyond to accomplish goals that go beyond accepted norms and taking on extra duties.

Components of WPS are favourable and substantially connected with OCB at both the individual and organizational levels, according to the empirical results of (Rao et al., 2024). Based on the study's results, managers and academics may make pertinent deductions and develop practical plans to enhance the working environment for staff members. Additionally, according to research (Hadi et al., 2024), spirituality in the workplace might influence organizational or school performance in areas like effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, creativity, quality of life, and morale at work. Last but not least, (Dumayas II & Dura, 2024) claimed that WPS somewhat mediates the association between local government workers' OCB and work values.

This research presents a systematic literature review (SLR) conducted between 2014 and 2024 on the combination of workplace spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior. The SLR method used in this study, provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing relevant literature. Distinguishing this literature from others concerning review studies, is the examination in this research concerning benefits, influence factors, and the diverse theories relating to workplace spirituality which influences organizational citizenship behavior. Research articles collected using structured literature have classified the diverse key themes along with the applied methodologies for classifying research related to this specific area. By identifying research gaps and limitations in the current literature, this research highlights new opportunities for upcoming research. Overall, this work provides a thorough and original approach to understanding a thorough examination of the connection between organization citizenship behaviour and workplace spirituality.

Application of Systematic Review Flow

One of the most reliable, efficient, and successful methods for analyzing data, identifying research gaps, and proposing future directions is the systematic review. Figure 1 depicts the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) procedure.

Figure 1 Systematic review process

Source: (Bearman et al., 2012)

The implementation of the aforementioned technique is shown in Figure 2 as a self-explanatory flowchart. According to the flowchart, the study was conducted methodically at each stage, leading to the formulation of findings.

Figure 2 Application of systematic review in current study

Establishing the review question

The review question of this study is: How the concept of WPS and OCB has changed during the last decade?

Criteria for Inclusion and Exclusion

Criteria for Inclusion

• Research that has been published in respected conference proceedings or peer-reviewed
• The Research focuses on corporate citizenship conduct, workplace spirituality, or their
• Studies focused on systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or theoretical studies investigating WPS or OCB.
• Studies include quantitative or qualitative data supporting the efficacy of WPS, OCB, or their relationship.
• Papers published between 2010 and 2024 to capture the most up-to-date
• Studies have been carried out in several industries and enterprises, such as retail, finance, healthcare, and technology.
• Research articles are composed in

Exclusion Criteria

• Research that provides erroneous accounts of OCB and WPS.
• Research has insufficient information or findings to assess the connection between OCB and WPS.
• Publications from before 2010, since they could not accurately represent the most recent
• Research not published in reputable conference proceedings or peer-reviewed
• Research papers authored in languages other than
• Insufficient data, ambiguous techniques, lack of comprehensive WPS or OCB analysis.

Search Criteria

This analysis acquired relevant research articles published between 2010 and 2024 from online databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Springer, Science Direct, and Scopus, etc. Only original Studies have been released. Only the English language was included in the search criteria. The search terms utilized to identify relevant Research included ("Workplace Spirituality" OR "Spirituality at Work" OR "Spiritual Work Environment") AND ("Organizational Citizenship Behaviour" OR "OCB" OR "Employee Citizenship") AND ("Integration" OR "Relationship" OR "Impact" OR "Effect") AND ("Systematic Review" OR "Literature Review" OR "Meta-analysis"). The articles were collected until the necessary number of pertinent articles was found using the criteria for inclusion and exclusion. After reading the abstract and title, those that were deemed unnecessary were removed, and more articles were looked through. An agreement among the writers was reached about the articles' relevance and irrelevance. The process was carried out again until 70 relevant papers that were appropriate for the research were located. A comprehensive literature study was performed to address the research questions. The findings are shown in the next sections.

Data Extraction

To extract data for a thorough analysis of "Integrating Workplace Spirituality (WPS) and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)," the following important details from each study as collected: the author(s), the publication year, and the type of Research (empirical, theoretical, or review). The sample size, research methodology, and organizational environment (e.g., industry type, sample size, geographic location) should all be considered. The main findings regarding the connection between OCB and workplace spirituality and any mediating or moderating factors discovered in the Research, such as leadership style, corporate culture, or employee engagement, should be extracted. It is critical to assess the methodological quality of each Research, considering any possible biases or limits. The summary should include ideas for future study paths. This organized method allows a thorough evaluation and synthesis of the findings, allowing for a more complete knowledge of how workplace spirituality and OCB may be integrated into organizational contexts.

Analysis and Discussions

The research on the combination of workplace spirituality and OCB were spread out in the different academic journals, as is summarized in Table 1. The table sums up the articles according to the journals. Journal of Business Ethics is the highest contributor with 17.14%, whereas Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion with 14.29%. Other influential journals that were also important consisted of the Journal of Organizational Behavior with 11.43% contribution and Leadership & Organization Development Journal with 10%. The remaining percentage consisted of a wide variety of scientific journals from years 2010-2025.

The 70 selected research articles have been analyzed on the basis of research design, data analysis techniques, empirical versus conceptual studies, countries of research, sampling methods, and the nature of respondents. Further, this study now goes in depth into the trend in the growth of organizational citizenship behavior and workplace spirituality integration as it sheds light on the increasing interest in these topics in contemporary organizational research.

Journal-wise studies on integrating Workplace Spirituality with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.

The studies on incorporating workplace spirituality into OCB was published in various academic journals, as noted in Table 1. First, the publication with the majority of articles contributed is the Journal of Business Ethics, which comes out with a total of 17.14%. The following are the Journal of Organizational Behavior (11.43%) and Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion at 14.29%. Other significant contributors are the Leadership & Organization Development Journal with 10%, and the Journal of Business Research at 8.57%. Journals include Personnel Review and Journal of Applied Psychology, and International Journal of Organizational Analysis have contributed 7.14%, 5.71%, and 4.29% of the articles, respectively. Few others were published in other journals like IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Social Responsibility Journal, and the International Journal of Ethics and Systems with 1.43% contributions to the total collection. These articles represent different research designs and methodology, therefore an area of concentration within the convergence of workplace spirituality as well as organizational behavior.

Table 1  Journal-wise studies of integrating WPS and OCB

Source: Literature Review

Year-wise distribution of journal publications

Table 2 shows that of the 70 studies, 11.4% were published in 2022 and 14.3% in 2023. Ten percent of the research that were published in 2018 and 2024 correspondingly. 7.2% of the research published in 2016 While 4.3% of the studies were published in 2017 and 2020 respectively, 2021 and 2019 each added 5.7% to the research. While the least were in 2011, 2013, and 2010, when just 1.4% of research had been provided each, 2.9% of studies were published in 2015, 2014, and 2012.

Table 2 Year-wise distribution of journal publications

Source: Literature Review

The line graph in Figure 3 displays the yearly trend of reviewed publications on organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and workplace spirituality from 2010 to 2024. The Y-axis depicts the number of reviewed papers annually, and the X-axis indicates the publishing years. The comparatively low number of evaluated publications, which ranges from one to two year, from 2010 to 2014 shows that there is a restricted emphasis on research during this time. The number of reviewed articles grows slowly starting in 2015 and consistently since 2017, and at the end, it levels at three to five per year from 2017 to 2020.

The number of reviewed papers increased from 4 in 2021 to a high of 11 in 2023, showing a significant increase from 2021 onwards. Although it is still higher than in previous years, there is a slight decline to 9 articles in 2024. According to the trend of the amount of study being analyzed, there is a general growth in academic attention in the combination of workplace spirituality as well as OCB, particularly in recent years.

Figure 3 Annual Research Publication Growth (2010–2024)

Research Methodology of the Reviewed Studies

Most research on spirituality in the workplace approach their analysis quantitatively (S. et al., 2024). Table 3 shows the many research forms among the seventy-reviewed publications. The bulk of the research (70.14%) used qualitative data; followed by 12.86% of studies depending on quantitative data. Aside from that, 2.86% of the studies employed a mixed-methods strategy that included qualitative and quantitative data, and 5.71% of the studies depending on secondary data in the framework of occupational spirituality and organizational civic behaviour, this underlines a heavy emphasis on qualitative research as well as space for more quantitative, secondary, and mixed-methods studies. The pie chart illustrates the distribution of methodologies used in WPS studies, as shown in Figure 3.

Table 3 Methodologies used in Workplace Spirituality Studies

Figure 4

Country of Research

The geographical distribution of research on the combination of WPS and OCB can be analyzed by determining the countries that have been in the forefront in publishing studies on the topic. A mapping of the geographical spread was done based on the sample locations and the countries where the first author was based, where sample location was not provided.

Table 4: It can be observed from the chart that the USA leads the list of contributions, with 19.67% studies being conducted here. The UK accounts for 13.11%. India and Malaysia each contribute 11.47% to the publications. However, countries such as Australia, China, and Spain each have 4.9%, which indicates these regions are of significant interest in the topic. The remaining 39.67% studies are contributed by 14 other countries, where one or two articles each have been conducted. Countries like Canada, Taiwan, South Africa, and Pakistan have contributed 3.3%. Other contributing countries are Hong Kong, Mexico, UAE, Brazil, Georgia, Sweden, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, and Finland; all the above nations have contributed 1.6%. This demonstrates a wide international interest in investigating the intersection of workplace spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior.

Table 4 Country of Research

Data Analysis Methods

Figure 5 demonstrates that 22% of the research used factor analysis (FA), whereas 19% applied descriptive statistics, including standard deviation, median, mean, as well as frequency., 15% implemented structural equation modelling (SEM), 13% applied multiple linear regression models (MLRM), 11% adopted various other methods (specifically for qualitative data and document analysis, such as content analysis), 6% conducted principal component analysis (PCA), 6% performed t-tests, 4% used hierarchical linear regression models (HLRM), while the remaining negligible percentage of studies employed ANCOVA and ANOVA models, each constituting 2% of the total. Thus, this indicates that more than half of the research focused on organizational citizenship behaviour and utilized inferential statistics. Most OCB studies (83%) used a cross-sectional study strategy. The following graphic illustrates the model and theory used in OCB research (Worku & Debela, 2024).

Figure 5 Data analysis methods

Findings of the study

Relationship Between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Workplace Spirituality

Organizational Citizenship Behavior can be described as the voluntary and discretionary behavior that employees perform but are not strictly required to be done in the course of their job. This behavior is distinguished by altruism, conscience, sportsmanship, civility, and civic virtue, amongst other qualities, all of which improve the workplace and organizational success. OCBs are often influenced by a variety of organizational characteristics, such as workplace spirituality. Workplace spirituality refers to fostering an atmosphere that values and nurtures workers' inner worth. This leads to a stronger feeling of purpose, community, and connection with personal and corporate values. This method emphasizes meaningful employment, community service, and value alignment between individuals and organizations. According to studies, workplace spirituality influences OCB positively as it enhances affective commitment and job satisfaction, hence motivating the employee to engage in behavior beyond his formal job description. For example, workplace ostracism was found to reduce the impact organizational commitment has on OCB by a study that demonstrated the great extent workplace spirituality affects organizational citizenship behavior (Rehman et al., 2022).

The association between WPS and OCB was investigated in the setting of different sectors, including education and health care. Within the educational sector, workplace spirituality contributes to OCB both directly and indirectly in the form of affective commitment (Al-Mahdy et al., 2022). Similar to that, workplace spirituality in health care contexts has been shown positively impact nurses' OCB and affective commitment. Thus, the concept is vital in enhancing organizational performance.

Several studies have been undertaken to investigate the link between OCB and WPS. It has been shown by (Helmy & Wiwoho, 2016) that the OCB is favourably impacted by workplace spirituality. This suggests that a higher degree of spirituality at work increases the OCB. Researchers found a direct positive correlation between OCB and workplace spirituality. In the Turkish educational context, similarly showed a strong positive correlation between WPS and OCB. (Makiah & Nurmayanti, 2018) used a sample of teachers in Indonesia and discovered that WPS significantly affects OCB. Another research by (Jannah & Santoso, 2017) used a sample of 160 public workers in the same nation (Indonesia). They discovered that OCB is favorably impacted by (Garg, 2020) also discovered a strong positive correlation between the WS and OCB variables in the Indian management setting. According to (P. Dubey et al., 2020), there is a strong and positive correlation between WS and OCB. According to (Genty et al., 2017), academicians (university instructors) in Nigeria have a substantial correlation between WPS and OCB.

Organizations aiming for a healthy work environment and improved overall performance must comprehend the link between spirituality at work and OCB. WPS fosters actions that cultivate a supportive and efficient organizational culture.

Long-Term Research Trends in Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Workplace Spirituality

In the last two decades, the examination of WPS has developed into a distinct area within management and economics (Yin & Mahrous, 2022). Prominent corporations like as The World Bank, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, DuPont, Ford Motor Company, Microsoft, Google, and Apple have cultivated WPS to attain enhanced performance (Garg, 2020). Following Toffler's identification of the third technical wave, this indicates the advent of the fourth, spiritually orientated enterprise. The spiritual paradigm recognizes that individuals engage not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually (Paul et al., 2020).

In the current interconnected phenomenon, OCB—which refers to the collaboration of two or more organisations in the joint production of information and knowledge—is regarded as one of the most significant mechanisms and a fundamental way to increase an organization's skills and capabilities (Singh et al., 2020), (Liaquat & Mehmood, 2017). In a variety of industrial domains, organizational learning has been investigated and shown to offer both benefits and downsides. While alliances have the most organizational theory literature, they haven't been able to resolve identity security conflicts as two opposing dimensions (K. Anwar, 2017), rather they have clarified the information sharing capabilities available to shared and connected participants.

Over the last two decades, scholars have been particularly interested in the relationship between OCB and WPS. Recent studies have shown a positive relation between the constructs, and an enriched WPS can elicit behaviors going above and beyond what most people consider to be the formal job, which promotes organizational effectiveness (Rehman et al., 2022). The research trajectory in this domain has shifted from the original exploration of conceptual linkages to more fine-grained investigations involving multiple methodologies. Early studies focused mainly on defining and explicating foundational aspects of OCB and workplace spirituality. These relationships are examined as having mediating and moderating variables, which may include organizational commitment and workplace ostracism, among others. In this respect, current studies have incorporated numerous cultural and organizational contexts for understanding how the said constructs are likely to play across different contexts (P. Dubey et al., 2022).

Methodological Approaches and Strategies in OCB and Workplace Spirituality Research

OCB is described as the unrestricted discretionary behavior that workers exhibit without being explicitly demanded by the organization. Such actions are critical and contribute significantly to organizational effectiveness, including altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue. Workplace spirituality, however is actually creating a work environment that honours and fosters the intrinsic worth of the employee, creates a sense of purpose, community, and causation of all personal and organization values. It thus focuses on meaningful work, community as well as alignment with personal and organization values. WPS research shows a positive link to OCB, enhancing employees' affective commitment and job satisfaction, which in turn promotes behavior patterns beyond the minimum requirements for the job (Garg, 2020).

Methodologically, studies exploring the association between OCB and WPS embrace a wide approach, either mainly quantitative surveys or mostly qualitative interviews or mixed-method approaches. Researches, employed quantitative approaches, most rely upon structured questionnaires to determine dimensions of workplace spirituality and OCB and subsequently, through statistical analysis, ascertained correlations and causes (Sulastini et al., 2023), (Priscilla et al., 2024), (Khair et al., 2024). For example, a study in the banking sector applied SPSS Process Macro to test mediation and moderation effects and found that WPS significantly influences OCB, while workplace ostracism reduces the impact of organizational commitment on OCB (Rehman et al., 2022).

Qualitative research examines the richer experiences of employees through interviews and focus groups, which appear to be more meaningful in describing and understanding why workplace spirituality impacts OCB (Yousaf et al., 2024; Nayyar et al., 2024; Göçen & Şen, 2021; Karakas & Sarigollu, 2019). Mixed-method approaches combine the methods of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, thus offering rich understanding of the phenomena. An example is a healthcare sector study that investigates how WPS impacts nurses' OCB and affective commitment-the results conclude that a spiritually supporting work environment can be used to enhance organizational performance (Taheri et al., 2019). These methodological approaches are essential for organizations that aim to enhance overall performance and foster a positive work environment. Through WPS, organizations can encourage behaviors that support a supportive and effective workplace culture.

The notion of WPS & OCB has evolved over the last decade

The workplace of the twenty-first century has made room for transformation to improve organizational effectiveness. WPS has caught the attention of organizational performance experts in the last ten years, while organizational practices seem to have been changing for millennia. Despite the fact that WPS-focused research has been increasing since the late 1980s, the field has experienced a spike in publications in recent years. WPS has been examined across multiple fields, such as health, computer science, humanities and arts fields, psychology, and decision science, despite the fact that it may seem like a subject connected to management and behavioural science. Does WPS have to be in place in organizational settings? In what ways may WPS improve the state of organisations today? Readers who are initially learning about the features of WPS may be thinking about these important issues (Raamkhumar & Swamy, 2023).

WPS focuses more on the sense of meaning and purpose that helps employees to look for connections during work time to create a social community with others who share those values. Recognizing this view, employees also want more from their employers, not just an increase in money, but real engagement with internal values. In general, research shows that organizations adopting WPS enjoy higher job satisfaction, higher organizational commitment, and better overall performance (Garg et al., 2019).

OCB denotes voluntary employee actions that benefit the organization but are not formally acknowledged by reward systems. The literature on organizational behavior paid much attention to OCB in the past. Recent empirical studies have determined a positive relationship between WPS and OCB. For instance, a study conducted on workers in the cement sector in Odisha, India, found that WPS characteristics, such as a feeling of belonging and having a fulfilling job, are important indicators of OCB on both an organizational and individual level. Such findings indicate that the fostering of a spiritually enriched workplace would cultivate behaviors beyond formal requirements for a job and hence increase the level of organizational effectiveness (R. K. S. T. Pradhan, 2021).

Major research gaps identified from the reviewed articles

There are substantial research gaps in this area, according to the analysis of the chosen articles on organizational citizenship behavior and workplace spirituality. These research gaps are shown in Table 5 and are divided into the following categories: methodology, context variations, and theory advancement. Each gap represents a research issue requiring further exploration, as highlighted below.

Table 5:  Major Research Gaps Identified from The Reviewed Articles

Source: Literature Review

This systematic review highlights the increased scholarly interest in the interaction between Workplace Spirituality (WPS) and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and their combined influence on organizational performance. While studies in these areas have been carried out separately in the past, recent studies emphasize their synergy in promoting employee engagement, organizational commitment, and a positive work culture. Our results indicate that the combination of workplace spirituality with OCB supports a peaceful work environment, maintains the well-being of employees, and leads to better organizational outcomes. Yet, despite these findings, the area is still explored to a limited extent, especially regarding the processes mediating between WPS and OCB across organizational and cultural contexts.  The review identifies several promising areas for future research.

First, most research has been done in developed economies, mainly within corporate environments. Future studies need to extend emerging and developing economies to analyze how economic and cultural variables shape the relationship between WPS and OCB. Second, the theoretical foundations of this relationship need further investigation. While empirical research is predominant in the field, conceptual models and theoretical frameworks are required to explain how WPS leads to OCB. Third, diversification of methodology is necessary; most current studies use quantitative, cross-sectional survey designs, restricting the richness of findings. Subsequent studies can learn from mixed methods, such as qualitative research in the form of ethnographic study, case study, and in-depth interviews, to identify the richer experiences of workers. Stakeholders' views are also an untapped field.  Studies have been mostly geared towards employees without considering the views of HR professionals, top management, and other organizational players who create workplace culture.

Research into multi-stakeholder views might give a better overall picture of how WPS and OCB operate at different levels within an organization. Furthermore, although current literature largely examines the advantages of incorporating WPS with OCB, there are potential problems and obstacles that are largely under-researched. Knowledge of the organizational barriers to the implementation of spirituality-based citizenship behaviours—resistance to change, leadership skepticism, or lack of corporate congruence—would be useful to practitioners who aim to put these ideas into practice. Although it has made a contribution, this research has some limitations. The review is founded on a limited selection of academic journals, and a wider search of databases might provide further insights. Furthermore, as our analysis is limited to studies published over a specific period, newer trends and new thinking might not have been included. Future studies need to widen the scope of the review, taking into account a broader selection of journals, expert views, and changing workplace dynamics. In summary, WPS and OCB have tremendous potential in determining organizational success.  As organizations become more aware of the significance of employee well-being, ethical leadership, and intrinsic motivation, the incorporation of WPS with OCB can be a strategic tool for creating sustainable, engaged, and high-performing workforces.

Future studies must seek to fill current gaps by investigating various cultural contexts, creating theoretical models, using novel methodologies, and tackling practical issues related to the implementation of a spirituality-based work culture.

These efforts will help advance knowledge in this area and offer practical recommendations for organizations seeking to develop a more purposeful, engaged, and value-based workforce in the dynamic business environment.

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