Bibliography

PEER-REVIEWED (ACADEMIC) WORKS

Worley, David J. Sacralizing leadership: The role of the sacred in enabling organizational sensemaking, cohesion, and identity. In the academic journal Leadership, produced by Sage (Volume 15, Issue 5, 2019). [Originally digitally available on September 27, 2018.]

Abstract

This article provides a sociological description and application of the sacred for use in the study of leadership. It provides a definition and theory of the sacred, derived from the field of sociology, appropriate for the secularized study of leadership and organizational culture. The sacred is understood as a naturalistic (instead of supernaturalistic) phenomenon which pertains to an individual’s felt experience of connection to the larger collective whole. This article shows how the sacred upholds organizational sensemaking, cohesion, and identity, while also being essential for the social construction of the concept of leadership itself. The sacred provides individuals with a collectively constructed interpretive framework which results in a deeply held respect and confidence in the organization. One outcome of this system is that the organization’s leadership configuration seems morally justified and the organization’s narratives are legitimated. The sacred system is also a mechanism which enables individuals to interpret organizational symbols in alignment with other people in their organization. As both a theoretical and practical contribution to the fields of leadership, management, and organizational studies, the article provides insight into how a sociological theory of the sacred might assist scholars and practitioners in creating new counter-normative systems of leadership. It also outlines possibilities for further study with particular attention toward ritual and performance studies.

Mahan, Jeffrey H. & Worley, David J. Media and the mediation of culture. Chapter 23 in The Routledge Handbook of Economic Theology (Moral Philosophy), produced by Routledge (Edited by S. Schwarzkopf, 2020). [Originally submitted for publication in 2016; note “theology” here is meant in the European academic sense as something more closely akin to “moral philosophy” in the U.S.]

Abstract

This book chapter was the result of a presentation Jeffrey Mahan and David gave at the Copenhagen Business School in July 2016. The chapter outlines how the mediation of culture instills the formation of particular forms of Capitalism in society. Largely using the theories developed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, we described the way a particular youth financial education program formed in its participants the enduring dispositions required by the economic system of early 21st century Capitalism.

Worley, David J. Monetary Effervescence: a Sociological Theory of Religion Applied to Money. Dissertation, unpublished in book form, but available via a free .pdf at the Digital Commons at the University of Denver libraries. [Originally completed in July 2013].

Author’s Note

This was my doctoral dissertation submitted in 2013. I chose not to carry it through to a formal book publication because I am reworking it into a fuller and more comprehensive text on money. As I have time and space in life, I work towards this goal.

Abstract

This project attempts to answer the question "What holds the construction of money together?" by asserting that it is money's religious nature which provides the moral compulsion for people to use, and continue to uphold, money as a socially constructed concept. This project is primarily descriptive and focuses on the religious nature of money by employing a sociological theory of religion in viewing money as a technical concept. This is an interdisciplinary work between religious studies, economics, and sociology and draws heavily from Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as well as work related to heterodox theories of money developed by Geoffrey Ingham, A. Mitchell Innes, and David Graeber.

Two new concepts are developed: the idea of monetary sacrality and monetary effervescence, both of which serve to recharge the religious saliency of money. By developing the concept of monetary sacrality, this project shows how money acts to interpret our economic relations while also obfuscating complex power dynamics in society, making them seem naturally occurring and unchangeable. The project also shows how our contemporary fractional reserve banking system contributes to money's collective effervescence and serves to animate economic acting within a monetary network. The project concludes by outlining multiple implications for religious studies, economics, sociology, and central banking.

For my non-academic writing please see my Medium and blog posts on this site.