Give Me a Hallelujah! Amen! Institutional reproduction in the presence of moral perturbation and the dynamics of emotional investment

Emotional investment and moral perturbation in institutional processes

The growing ‘emotions turn’ in institutional theory (Voronov & Vince, 2012) warns us that inattentiveness to the emotional aspects of institutionalism harbours the risk of falling back to the conceptualization of social actors as rational agents or cognitive misers (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). A more comprehensive understanding is required of how actors emotionally experience institutions (Creed, DeJordy, & Lok, 2010) and employ their emotions as institutional mechanisms (DeJordy & Barrett, 2014). In unearthing the microfoundations of institutional processes, institutional scholars ontologically regard emotions as a collective, intersubjective concept (Fineman, 2006). Emotions tie together variegated social constituents in creating, reproducing, maintaining, disrupting and changing institutional arrangements (Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2009).

When we acknowledge that it is real persons who inhabit institutions (Hallett & Ventresca, 2006), we can uncover the affective side of institutional processes, as emotions are an endemic part of the work that actors carry out when engaging in social interactions (Voronov & Vince, 2012). Residing in an organizational field, actors are subject to being present in, feeling authentic or enthusiastic or pleasant about, experiencing emotional harmony with, finding meaning in, and displaying commitment or attachment to or identification with a particular anchor of emotional investment (Friedland, 2013; Voronov & Vince, 2012). They can anchor their emotional investment in institutional arrangements, fantasmic frames, or ideals, bolstering sustainable institutional reproduction or maintenance (Voronov & Vince, 2012). For instance, in their study of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, Gutierrez and colleagues (2010) found that actors anchored their emotional investment in the normative arrangements of the church (i.e. beliefs and practices), but not in the structural ones (i.e. church governance). As a result, actors reproduced the former, but intended to disrupt and change the latter.

The above example also demonstrates how contradictions between idealized arrangements (Friedland, 2013; i.e. practices that the Catholic Church and priests ought to engage in) and extant ones (i.e. practices they did engage in) propagate actors’ moral perturbation (Jasper, 2011). As actors are partially autonomous (Benson, 1977), they may occasionally become aware of and act reflexively upon the arrangements that transgress their moral codes (Hibbert & Cunliffe, 2015). When actors’ moral codes and extant arrangements are misaligned, actors will experience moral perturbation and show less or no emotional investment in the arrangements, increasing their desire to partake in institutional disruption and change, or halt institutional reproduction (Voronov & Vince, 2012). Yet the mechanisms whereby institutional arrangements are reproduced in the presence of moral perturbation have been undertheorized.

Moral emotions and systemic power in institutional processes

Human beings are moral agents; they are motivated ‘to act out and sustain moral order, which helps constitute, directs, and makes significant human life itself’ (Smith, 2003, p. 8). Actors use their moral codes as a yardstick to reflexively determine what is good, right or proper about the social system in which they are situated (Hibbert & Cunliffe, 2015), and animate their moral emotions to reinforce behaviours concordant with their moral codes (Turner & Stets, 2006). Turner and Stets (2006) divide moral emotions into four categories: the self-critical moral emotions of shame and guilt (directed at oneself for contravening moral codes), the other-critical moral emotions of contempt, anger and disgust (directed at others for contravening moral codes), the other-suffering moral emotions of sympathy and empathy (associated with witnessing others experiencing something bad) and the other-praising moral emotions of gratitude and elevation (associated with witnessing others doing something good).

However, only recently have moral emotions been incorporated into the study of institutional processes (e.g. Toubiana & Zietsma, 2017; Wright et al., 2017). The former study revealed that degenerative disease-supporting federation members’ other-critical moral emotions prompted shunning activities that triggered leaders’ regret and promoted structural and practice adaptation. The latter one found that hospital specialists’ other-critical and other-suffering moral emotions safeguarded their collective professional values, allowing for the modification of organizational routines. In these studies, actors’ work to defend the logic of care and maintain professional values, respectively, achieved a positive outcome (i.e. a realized change) through the activation of moral emotions. But institutional theorists have yet to explore the boundary conditions beyond which moral emotions alone are no longer sufficient to initiate and sustain successful institutional change efforts.

Using an inhabited institutions lens (Hallett & Ventresca, 2006), we can unveil not only the affective side of institutionalism, but also the power dynamics inherent in much of institutional life (Hudson, Okhuysen, & Creed, 2015). Organizations are social arrangements filled with political struggles among actors possessing divergent agendas and asymmetric power (Seo & Creed, 2002). Consequently, people ‘in power’ rely on control mechanisms to convince others to do something they would not otherwise do (Dahl, 1957), to circumscribe unruly or defiant behaviours, and to keep members attuned to organizational blueprints and orders (Etzioni, 1975). While power in neo-institutional research mostly takes on an episodic form (Lawrence, 2008), the more systemic form of power – the kind that covertly stabilizes social relationships through the perpetual mobilization of discourse benefiting particular groups without those groups necessarily establishing or sustaining such discourse (Fleming & Spicer, 2014; Lawrence, 2008) – has yet to be integrated. Recognizing the pervasive role of systemic power in shaping institutional dynamics (Voronov, 2014) could shed light on the limits of actors’ moral emotions. Finally, although moral perturbation can diminish actors’ emotional investment and incite moral emotions, thereby bringing about institutional disruption and change, how emotionally laden actors continuously reproduce extant institutional arrangements, even after these arrangements have awakened actors’ moral perturbation, has been understudied.

Data sources

Our data were derived from eleven Pentecostal churches in Indonesia through an ethnography (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007), an appropriate yet underused method for unearthing emotions and power. While studies of emotions in organizations favour laboratory experimental techniques, which might be unable to fully capture the relational element of emotions (Fineman, 1993; Voronov, 2014), students of power lament the displacement of ethnography, as power relations at work can be studied most directly within real organizations and in real time (Courpasson, 2006).

We began with four sampling questions: which island(s), city(ies), movement(s) and synod(s)? Java was a straightforward answer to the first question, as it had by far the most sophisticated churches – in terms of size, structure and management systems – in Indonesia. The remaining questions were answered when the first author embarked on a 32-day journey across Java, during which he systematically documented events, as well as his own thoughts and feelings. To allow for focused comparisons, he identified six cities that had churches of all sizes. ³ As they were spread across three provinces (East, Central and West Java), he controlled for cultural effects by selecting churches from each province, eventually deciding on Surabaya, Solo and Bandung. Discovering that there was no perfect fit between churches and movements, he employed two selection criteria: Pentecostal theology must be adopted and manifestation of the Holy Spirit must be visibly performed. Five synods (pseudonyms) were finally chosen, accounting for access and uniqueness: Avner (Surabaya; the first author knew some high-ranking volunteers who had access to the senior pastor and his four children), Gidon (three cities; the one in Surabaya was Indonesia’s biggest church and the first to introduce a secular-type full gospel band), Ovadia (Solo and Bandung; Solo and Bandung’s biggest church; Gidon had used to belong to Ovadia before splitting and establishing its own synod), Shamgar (three cities; Indonesia’s only ISO-certified church that mimicked the centralized structure adopted by the Roman Catholic Church) and Zion (Surabaya and Bandung; first founded in the US by Indonesian students and now spread across 36 countries).

As Pentecostal churches were walled with exclusivity and confidentiality, the first author had to learn how to ‘go native’ like a regular member to obtain access. Next to gathering as much information as possible and reflecting on his fieldnotes to obtain an initial conception of (Indonesian) Pentecostalism, he studied online videos of senior pastors delivering sermons to get accustomed to their lingoes, styles and characters. During this phase, he informally talked with 100 core actors (senior pastors, full-timers and volunteers), peripheral actors (regular church members) and external actors (people unaffiliated with a Pentecostal church yet familiar with the movement) (time expended, 97 hours), joined 19 services (35 hours) and gained access to three churches.

Upon completion of the sampling phase, he resided in the field for 180 days to collect additional data. He first interviewed three of Avner’s high-ranking volunteers whom he had known for several years. Being his first contacts, they opened the door to other core actors. However, due to a lack of connections at the other churches, he had to start at the bottom, developing his understanding of each church step-by-step. He began by joining small-scale, relatively casual cell groups and youth services, where he could make friends, gain trust and hear church gossip. Once he had acquired enough knowledge about a particular church, he conducted formal interviews with low-ranking full-timers and volunteers who gradually introduced him to higher-ranking individuals and finally to the senior pastor. While this strategy was successful, it was especially arduous for larger churches, as they were protective of their classified material and internal processes.

Throughout this phase, he secured access to eight more churches, informally talked with 43 core and peripheral actors (42 hours), joined 110 services and other church activities (206 hours), and formally interviewed 100 core actors using a semi-structured, in-depth approach (143 hours). All formal interviews were conducted in interviewees’ native language, recorded, transcribed and – where necessary – translated into English, generating over 1 million words of thick description (Geertz, 1973).

Data analysis

Analyzing our data inductively, we moved iteratively between data, literature and emerging categories and themes. Through gradual abstraction assisted by NVivo software, we interpretatively categorized raw data (whenever possible using ‘in vivo’ labelling) into fifteen first-order categories and synthesized them into five second-order themes (Locke, 2001; Strauss & Corbin, 2008), as registered in the Appendix, which also provides illustrative interview quotes and observation accounts as supporting evidence. During coding, we directed our attention to uncovering events, activities and choices that served as underlying building blocks, and to detailing the mechanisms that explained and connected these building blocks (Langley, 1999). Aimed at ultimately producing a grounded process model, our data analysis progressed in four temporal stages, during which we built up confirmability by recursively triangulating emerging categories and themes within and across data sources (Glaser, 1978).

Phase I: The dawn of moral perturbation

When full-timers and volunteers first joined the church, regardless of church size, their world revolved around doing God’s work. Now a full-timer, US (Ovadia) ⁸ recounted his first days as one of the founding members, ‘We all could feel His profoundly moving presence. … We were charged up to bring His kingdom to earth!’ AN (Gidon), who became a volunteer-turned-employee when Gidon was already a mid-large-sized church, expressed similar enthusiasm, ‘In the beginning my passion [for serving God] was so fiery that I was involved in three ministerial divisions: praise and worship [singing], education [Bible class], and preaching!’ But as ‘the church was growing … in terms of congregation size, and therefore church revenue,’ as articulated by IN (Shamgar), actors started to become aware of three money-related organizational practices: ethno-class favouritism, extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity.

First, at Sunday services, the percentage of Chinese worshippers, who largely made up the upper-middle class, never dropped below 50% when using a simple headcount (from 9-Mar ⁹ to 23-Sep), whereas Chinese accounted for only 1.2% of Indonesia’s total population (BPS, 2015). In an informal talk with IE (Gidon), he revealed that ‘high-level’ members (i.e. those with financial prowess), who were predominantly Chinese, enjoyed ‘special privileges’ from the church (e.g. pastoral care on demand) ‘as their money supported our church tremendously’ (23-May). Likewise, TI (Ovadia) unabashedly affirmed, ‘Having a congregation that is [financially] blessed is, to be honest, not bothering us at all, right? … In fact, they become a [financial] blessing for this church.’

Second, EX (Gidon’s senior pastor) was notoriously dubbed the ‘instigator’ of this practice for his controversial collection of ‘luxury cars, including a limited edition Rolls-Royce Phantom’ (29-Apr). Unwilling to sugarcoat the reality, DA (Avner) said, ‘The lifestyle of AS (Avner’s senior pastor) and his children is more on the high-end side!’ Validating this celebration of material wealth, RY (Gidon) defended staunchly, ‘If we worship the mighty Father, His children are entitled to His blessings! We’ll not only become rich, but also have an abundant life!’ It was even maintained that being poor was ‘an embarrassment to God’. as there must have been ‘something wrong with the way faith is practised’ (7-Apr).

Third, while all churches disclosed their revenues entirely, they either disclosed their expenditures vaguely or did not disclose them at all ¹⁰ (from 5-Mar to 18-Sep). Championing the latter, JA (Ovadia’s senior pastor) clarified, ‘I’ve actually tried to be open. But … it actually incited inter-departmental conflicts.’ Furthermore, in a post-interview talk with DY (Gidon’s senior pastor), he exclaimed that trusting an auditor more than a senior pastor and his finance staff to manage church money was ‘an absurd move’. Slightly irritated, he raised a rhetorical question, ‘If you do know our financial statements, what are you going to do about it?! Will you give more offerings or tithes?!’ (15-Jun).

Once actors became aware of the three church money management arrangements, they began to act reflexively upon these arrangements by judiciously turning to their moral codes to which they held on (18-Mar).

Regarding ethno-class favouritism, YN (Shamgar) said, ‘To me, evangelization is about embracing people inclusively, not about playing favourites! … Just spread the Good News to everyone! … It is essential to evangelize to people of different ethnicities, and even of different religions.’ FY (Zion) was also utterly convinced that ‘our life is called to fulfill a purpose, that is reaching out to the poor and marginalized too!’ Consulting his moral compass, TO (Ovadia) declared, ‘I myself espouse the value of inclusivity. … These people are all God’s children, and as His servants we must do our best to serve and care for them! … The rich, the poor, all of them!’ Anchoring their emotional investment in the moral code of inclusivity, these actors insisted that a church should passionately preach the gospel to, impartially serve and unconditionally love all people irrespective of their ethnicity or socio-economic status.

As to the extravagant lifestyle, TA (Zion), who was an advocate of a modest lifestyle, gave an example from the late Kenneth E. Hagin, ‘He was a very modest pastor and in his book he talked about having a modest mindset. I believe that if we have a modest mindset, we will live a modest life.’ By the same token, GP (Gidon) admitted that he conscientiously followed the ‘biblical teachings on modesty’ (13-Aug). Activating his moral barometer, BG (Ovadia) metaphorically explained, ‘I’m glad Jesus was born in a simple manger, not at the Hilton or Ritz-Carlton. I’m grateful that He taught and showed us what true modesty is, because that’s also the values that I have!’ Anchoring their emotional investment in the moral code of modesty, these actors asserted that senior pastors and their family members should live a genuinely modest life to become an effective living testimony of Christ.

Concerning financial obscurity, KE (Avner) sensibly made a case, ‘We [the congregation] are all entitled to have the information about how much money goes in and out! … I believe in openness because it can somehow control how our money is utilized [for church-related projects] and spent [by AS and his children], … and can lead to having a sound financial position like our Singaporean mentor church!’ UR (Ovadia), a proponent of financial audits, argued, ‘Having our finances objectively and impartially evaluated will prevent us from becoming a stumbling block when performing God’s work, … because I know how weak we are.’ Anchoring their emotional investment in the moral code of accountability, these actors held that a church trusted to handle money given by members through offerings and tithes should go for transparent financial reporting and independent auditing because money was a tempting ‘mammon’ that could divert a church’s sole focus on God.

Anchoring their emotional investment in the idealized institutional arrangements imbued with moral codes of inclusivity, modesty and accountability, actors used these anchors as a yardstick to make moral evaluations of what was good, right or proper about the extant institutional arrangements. Perceiving that their idealized moral codes were infringed, they viewed the extant arrangements as bad, wrong or improper, and correspondingly felt morally perturbed, as expressed below:

TO (Ovadia) strenuously objected to the ethno-class favouritism, ‘[Only focusing on serving the rich] is not right! … I really disapprove of it! If it were up to me, I’d focus on the poor too!’

NO (Gidon) sharply criticized the extravagant lifestyle, ‘This is too glaring! The way they [senior pastors] enrich themselves, their family and their entourage is simply inappropriate! Look at their expensive cars and excessive appearance! This is certainly against what God has taught us about modesty!’

KE (Avner) critically commented on the financial obscurity, ‘Good money management is … a must! If we don’t manage our money properly, sooner or later we’ll be in a deep mess! … But our church doesn’t realize its importance or feel the urge [to change], not even after having been mentored by [a Singaporean church] that advocates and implements responsible and transparent money management. It’s wrong! … It’s unfathomable!’

In summary, being partially autonomous (Benson, 1977), actors could at some point act reflexively upon the extant institutional arrangements. As the three church money management arrangements incessantly shook the anchor of their emotional investment in the idealized arrangements, these actors experienced moral perturbation.

Phase II: The activation of moral emotions

In the face of moral perturbation caused by the incompatibility between the extant arrangements (practised by the churches) and the idealized ones (held by actors), actors animated two types of moral emotions. First, morally perturbed by the ethno-class favouritism, PS (Ovadia) vented:

I felt guilty, I felt sinful that I had to exclusively evangelize to and serve rich people. What about the rest?! Take Jesus for example, He reached out to all types of people! … This [extant arrangement] is against God’s teachings! … I was consumed with immense guilt when I had to stay at the office while there were still many poor people out there who needed to hear the gospel. … Honestly, inside here [tapping his chest], I felt really guilty, I felt sinful about this.

Second, while actors acknowledged that ‘senior pastors and their family should not experience financial hardship’ (29-Apr), they condemned and expressed anger at the unchristlike extravagant lifestyle (e.g. going on expensive holidays, indulging in high-class hobbies such as golf or haute cuisine, and exhibiting a lavish collection of fashion items, watches or cars) (from 5-Mar to 18-Sep) and at the financial obscurity as it ‘nourished’ such a lifestyle at the expense of congregation’s money (9-Mar).

In other cases, a single actor could harbour a combination of guilt and anger over one or multiple extant institutional arrangements. For instance, in an informal talk, LO (Zion), who was very social at heart and passionate about upholding inclusivity, opened up that he felt guilty when he discovered that the poor and marginalized had not been reached out to and served, and became angry that this group of people was excluded from Zion’s main ‘target market’ (26-Jul). Another example comes from NO (Gidon), who lashed out at the extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity:

[These arrangements] are actually a financial crime! … I’ve been feeling increasingly guilty and angry over the prevalence of these practices! … [I am feeling] guilty because I’ve been part of these practices [through my offerings and tithes that are unaudited]. … I’m angry at the opulent behaviours of many servants of God!

While actors felt the self-critical moral emotion of guilt because they had been taking part in the reproduction of the extant institutional arrangements that violated the anchor of their emotional investment in the idealized arrangements, they felt the other-critical moral emotion of anger because the conduct of moral offenders engineering and/or endorsing the church money management arrangements was breaching actors’ moral codes of inclusivity, modesty and accountability.

Fuelled with moral emotions of guilt and anger, these actors were then motivated to engage in influence activities to fix the extant arrangements. For instance, feeling guilty for having been part of the extant arrangement, PS (Ovadia) attempted to break the ethno-class favouritism by initiating small changes in his daily routines:

In the beginning, I occasionally went to the mall nearby for lunch, [but then I went out] to preach the gospel to … the rickshaw drivers [waiting for customers] in front of the mall. But I had to be careful because church members might notice me and asked themselves why I was hanging out there [with rickshaw drivers] while I had tons of things to do here at the office.

Similarly, seeking to repair the three church money management arrangements, a guilty and angry BG (Ovadia) whispered as if he was divulging a dark secret, ‘When I delivered a sermon to the members, I cautiously inserted some truths [about what he thought a church should or should not do] to wake them up.’ After the interview he mentioned that he also used to regularly spread these ‘truths’ to some reception staff to eventually enlighten their mind, and finally joked that it was probably for the best if the first author turned a deaf ear to what he said about the ‘truths’ (17-Jul).

Other actors opted for a different approach when engaging in disrupting activities. Driven by anger, KE (Avner), a high-ranking volunteer and one of the founding members, was preparing some arguments to confront AS, Avner’s senior pastor, about the extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity arrangements. Driven by anger, she used Avner’s newly founded Christian worship band, ND (pseudonym), as a case and persuaded a number of ND members to join forces and build a coalition to support her when she would talk face-to-face to AS. Her line of argument for the case was:

As ND is semi-commercial, ¹¹ church members like me and ND crew have a financial stake in ND’s existence, so we all deserve to know how the capital is used. They [AS and his children] need to be open about this! For the first album, it’s understandable they needed some initial capital. But after such a successful launch, now they’re asking for another round of financial support from us for the second album?! If they suffered a loss, it’s fine, but we need to know how that loss occurred in the first place! … They must change the way they manage the money!

Finally, feeling terribly guilty and exasperated witnessing the arrangements of extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity, NO (Gidon) followed the same path to plot a confrontation. Specifically, he made a pledge that ‘in the near future I will not hold back and will start demurring loudly at these immoral practices!’

In summary, in hopes of relieving their moral perturbation, actors activated their moral emotions of guilt and anger that stimulated them to engage in disrupting activities to upset and change the extant institutional arrangements.

Phase III: The endurance of systemic power

No matter how eagerly actors strove to disrupt and change the extant arrangements, their disrupting activities were repressed by a mechanism involving senior pastors as leaders and the actors themselves as followers. Three types of systemic power wielded by the senior pastors were found to be relevant to the actors facing moral perturbation.

First, Pentecostal churches have adopted an organizational structure that lends their leaders full power, as PA (Gidon) succinctly explained, ‘Since our structure here is theocracy, everything comes from the top [the senior pastor]. … Everything is centralized and decisions are made solely and absolutely by the senior pastor, who is divinely chosen by God, he’s like God’s representative on earth.’ Therefore, although ‘figuratively the head of our church is Jesus Christ, practically it’s the senior pastor that becomes His right-hand to lead this church. Everyone below the senior pastor [including himself] must display complete submission,’ clarified US (Ovadia). Theocracy was a structure that highlighted the significance of divine calling, formal organizational hierarchy, and autocracy, all of which legitimized senior pastors’ role as God’s lone messenger who took total control of their organization.

Second, Pentecostal churches rigidly abide by a set of divine values drawn from the Bible, as RY (Gidon) alerted, ‘The Bible has a higher status than the church’s constitution and bylaws, it’s not a subject for debate, so if you don’t agree with it, you may leave.’ ‘As the theological foundation of our church is the Bible, [full-timers and volunteers] are obliged to follow some Bible classes in order to understand it more deeply and practise its values correctly,’ elaborated WN (Shamgar). AS (Avner’s senior pastor) elucidated how the Bible shaped his life and the church he led, ‘At first I only followed a Bible class here [taught by his father]. But then I followed formal biblical education in Vancouver. … Today our church is famous for having an extremely strong footing in the Bible!’ As the true and undisputed Word of God, the Bible was an essential source of church values that prescribed senior pastors’ and actors’ actions.

Third, Pentecostal churches brought to the fore senior pastors’ charisma, which was determined by both divine and worldly qualities. With regard to the divine qualities, these leaders were compelling storytellers on the epic subject of how God had called and tested them through time. At his fully attended revival meeting, IP (Shamgar) narrated how God had gloriously transformed his life, making him rise up from being a thug to ‘Indonesia’s most well-known Christian figure’. He recounted his vivid, real-feel dream of being taken to hell by God where He had made him see tormenting human anguish, opening up his eyes to achieving something greater than himself and overcoming anything that stood between him and spreading the gospel (16-Apr). With respect to the worldly qualities, while ID (Ovadia) and JA (Ovadia) occasionally emphasized their triumphant times in the automobile and textile businesses, respectively (15-Jul and 13-Jun), MY (Zion) and RD (Zion) accentuated their current side-business endeavours in hospitality and real estate, respectively (23-Jul and 5-Sep). RD (Zion) subtly boasted, ‘You might not know this, but I have a business too [because] many of our members and people in this city are businessmen. … I have 88 warehouses, 75% of which had been sold … making up revenues of approximately USD 15–20 million.’ These leaders stressed their previous professional achievements and/or current financial successes from time to time, sending a message to their congregation and the secular world alike that they are not to be underrated. Senior pastors continuously projected an image of someone who not only was divinely called and tested, but also possessed exceptional qualities for leading the affluent.

Furthermore, theocratic structure, biblical values, and charisma systemically exercised by senior pastors evoked two types of actors’ emotions: fear and respect.

Regarding theocratic structure, in a strictly off-the-record talk with LF (Ovadia), he briefly exposed the facts that all Ovadia’s ‘full-timers and volunteers fear JA [senior pastor]’ because Ovadia’s theocratic structure allowed for JA’s power to take a firm grip on all his followers (29-May). IS (Zion) reinforced further, ‘Our senior pastor has been divinely chosen by God. So we must fear and respect him as the leader of this church. In God’s dictionary there’s no democracy, in Him we endorse theocracy.’ In like manner, MA (Gidon) echoed, ‘Because the system in our church is theocracy, our vision and mission flow from God, down to EX [senior pastor], and then to all of us. So we must be respectful of our senior pastor and his guidance.’

As to the biblical values, senior pastors routinely quoted biblical verses to foster the feelings of fear and respect from their followers. The two most popular verses (Bible New International Version) were 1 Peter 2: 18, ‘Slaves, ¹² in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh,’ and Ephesian 6: 5, ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ’ (19-May). Referring to the Bible, NA (Avner) offered an explicit account of her emotion of fear, ‘Why do I bow down to the rules and to the leader? I honestly fear them. The Bible says I must submit to and fear my leader wherever I am, and AS is the leader of this church.’

Concerning charisma, DI (Gidon) talked of EX, ‘He has massive charisma! During sermon, when he raises his hand [when worshipping God], everyone in the hall [seating capacity 33,000] instantly joins him. Could you tell me which other senior pastors possess such charisma? …He might have weaknesses, but we respect him a great deal here.’ YU (Shamgar), a senior pastor of a satellite church stated, ‘We all respect UF [senior pastor] and IP and EB [UF’s sons-in-law] greatly, and I can see that clearly. One day … either one will succeed UF. Although they have different types of charisma, … we always support all the decisions they make.’ IP’s charisma was so alluring that people outside Shamgar acknowledged it, as RT (Avner) described, ‘He has remarkable charisma and is leading an incredibly influential movement! We might well know who IP is without knowing UF. … People definitely pay him great respect!’

Engulfed in fear of and respect for senior pastors, actors engaged in influence activities to respond to their own disrupting activities. First, PS’s (Ovadia) efforts to integrate small changes in his daily routines by preaching the gospel to and talking with the rickshaw drivers outside the mall were caught by a ‘high-profile church member’ who reported his ‘misbehaviour’ to the senior pastor, ID. Out of ‘fear of and respect for’ ID, PS forsook his disrupting activities upon ID’s order to discontinue such activities (8-Jul). A similar fate befell BG (Ovadia) who was at first zealous in spreading the ‘truths’ about what he thought a church should or should not do regarding the three church money management arrangements, but ended up abandoning his own disrupting activities as soon as he activated his ‘fear of fighting the senior pastor,’ who ‘sternly warned him not to defame the church’ by spreading the ‘truths’ (17-Jul). Second, KE (Avner) revisited her plot to confront AS (senior pastor) about the extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity, and said, ‘I think I still fear and respect him [AS] and that’s why I stopped persuading ND members [using the case that she prepared] to collaborate with me.’ An ND member who was approached by KE and used to join the coalition, EN (Avner), confirmed that the alliance to confront AS was indeed broken up. Specifically, he agreed to cease because he ‘respected’ AS as Avner’s leader (19-Aug). As to NO’s (Gidon) pledge to ‘[demur] loudly at these immoral practices,’ he was still in the phase of planning a disrupting activity fed by his feelings of guilt and anger, and therefore whether or not he would follow up such an activity was still unknown.

Having their disrupting activities deterred by their own discontinuing activities, actors began to experience helplessness. In PS’s (Ovadia) case, he believed:

The paths [leading to disruption and change] are practically non-existent. … This office has become confinement to me. It limits my passion for preaching to and serving the poor. … Before joining this church I could do that easily [on his home island, Celebes], but now I cannot do it at all for the reasons I told you before [due to fear of and respect for the senior pastor who warned him to discontinue his own disrupting activities]. I just can’t! … There’s just no way!

In a similar vein, BG (Ovadia), whose discontinuing activities thwarted his own disrupting activities, cited ‘failures to bring about notable changes’ in the extant arrangements as the major reason why he felt ‘worn down’ to even think about it (17-Jul). He explicated, ‘We don’t have such power! We don’t have such capacity! We don’t have such authority [to make any influence]! I know it’s not good [not to effectively disrupt and change], but I’m powerless.’

KE (Avner), too, evinced her helplessness:

Things [the extravagant lifestyle and financial obscurity] have been the same here! … Only indirectly bringing these issues up with AS and his children isn’t going to work. Someone must confront them explicitly for these things to really change! … But we all fear and respect them, so nobody takes real action to confront them [except for plotting to do so but eventually discarding the idea]. … In the years to come things will not improve! … Now I just feel paralyzed, unable to push for betterment.

Realizing that all doors toward meaningful disruption and change in the extant institutional arrangements were closed, actors felt helpless. Finally, actors’ feelings of helplessness were further cemented by another event. EL (Shamgar) detailed his augmented helplessness:

I really want to change or at least to see things changing [concerning the ethno-class favouritism], but I don’t have the strength to realize this [because his disrupting activities were halted by his own discontinuing activities]. It’s so tiring! So tiring! … And then when you look outside, the same thing happens everywhere! So you become more tired, more incapacitated!

In an informal talk, DA (Avner) went into the extravagant lifestyles that ‘infected’ many Pentecostal churches in Indonesia. He particularly blamed Gidon’s EX as the ‘pioneer’ in opulent lifestyle among senior pastors, therefore becoming a poor example for the Indonesian Christian community. Feeling ‘helpless’, he was assured that if he could not disrupt and change the arrangement in his own organization, it would be virtually impossible to do so in the Indonesian Pentecostal landscape, in which the arrangement was deeply ‘normalized’ (27-Apr).

Regarding financial obscurity, DL (Gidon) confessed that Gidon was not the only church plagued by it:

There’s no such thing as a perfect church! … So where else can you run to? What kind of perfect church are you looking for? … I became more and more helpless trying to find the answer [on how to disrupt and change the financial obscurity], … but there is no answer!

Haunted by the prevalence of the church money management arrangements in the organizational field, actors’ feelings of helplessness were further indurated.

In summary, after actors engaged in disrupting activities, such activities were deterred by their own discontinuing activities that resulted from the fear- and respect-eliciting systemic power exerted by senior pastors. This sense of deterrence and the widespread extant institutional arrangements at the field level contributed to actors’ solidified feelings of helplessness in disrupting and changing such arrangements.

Phase IV: The shift of anchor of emotional investment

Suffocated by feelings of helplessness originating from the failure to substantially disrupt and change the extant institutional arrangements, and from the pervasiveness of such arrangements in the organizational field, actors undertook some activities to deal with their negative emotions. As to ethno-class favouritism, PS (Ovadia) sketched how he sought solace to handle his helplessness:

I just comforted myself … that being in this phase, having my status upgraded [by holding his position at Ovadia], is perhaps God’s plan. … And then I started to tell myself that we need to serve rich people too, because if we’re all saving the poor, who’s going to save the rich?

Concerning the extravagant lifestyle, DA (Avner) outlined how he asked for help to address his helplessness:

My mother always reminded me to find God when I go to and serve the church. … Even though I felt some things [the progressively luxurious lifestyles of AS and his children] were unfair or wrong, she advised me to … always look to God. … It alleviated the negative feelings that I had.

Touching on financial obscurity, DL (Gidon) verbalized how he contemplatively worked out his helplessness:

A church is a gathering place for sinners who need God. … So when these sinners assemble, they might well commit these kinds of things [obscuring financial reporting and ruling out independent auditors]. … Reminding myself how weak we are and how much we need God enabled me to let go [of the negativity].

Engaging in reconciling activities to work off their lingering negative emotions, these actors found consolation by reorienting themselves, cognitively and emotionally, toward a higher-level meaning system emanating from a supernatural being. As a result of their reconciling activities, these actors were able to relocate the anchor of their emotional investment. In the wake of moral perturbation they initially anchored their emotional investment in the idealized institutional arrangements imbued with their moral codes. But because these idealized arrangements failed them, as they did not actually exist either in their own organization or in the organizational field, they shifted the anchor of their emotional investment to a new locus.

As PS (Ovadia) became aware of the ethno-class favouritism, he thought such an arrangement was ‘against God’s teachings’ because ‘He reached out to all types of people’ (22-Jul). However, having handled his helplessness, he realized, ‘I just have to hold on to the belief that God is taking care of those [economically marginalized] people. He could very well select and prepare some other evangelizers who have the heart to spread the gospel to and serve these people. … I believe in His perfect timing.’ He shifted the anchor of his emotional investment from his moral code of inclusivity to the notion of a fulfilling God, who would do His part in a timely manner.

As DA (Avner) became aware of the extravagant lifestyle, he disapproved of it since it ‘infected’ Pentecostal churches with over-the-top lifestyles adopted by the ruling dynasty (27-Apr). Yet having addressed his helplessness, he registered, ‘As long as I’ve done my duty [giving offerings and tithes], it’s up to them [AS and his children] how they’re going to use the money. … If the church is corrupt or using my money improperly … it’ll collapse one day, God is capable of punishing.’ He shifted the anchor of his emotional investment from his moral code of modesty to the notion of a smiting God, who would punish moral offenders and restore his idealized moral code.

As DL (Gidon) became aware of the financial obscurity, he blamed the ‘poor church financial management’ for causing ‘a lot of church splits’ because human beings were easily tempted by money (20-Aug). But having worked out his helplessness, he delineated, ‘What makes me go on serving Gidon and being part of it is approaching this issue with no ideal expectations anymore. … God came to earth to heal the sick, not the healthy, maybe that’s why this [arrangement] happens.’ He shifted the anchor of his emotional investment from his moral code of accountability to the notion of a healing God, who would provide strength and wisdom to endure witnessing and involuntarily supporting unethical conduct.

Upon relocating the anchor of their emotional investment, actors were able to come to terms with the extant institutional arrangements, thereby justifying their continued employment and affiliation. Anchoring their emotional investment in a higher-level meaning system that derived from the notion of an omniscient and omnipotent being, they eventually were able to insouciantly and continuously reproduce the arrangements they adamantly denounced by discriminatorily evangelizing to and serving the affluent Chinese members of the upper-middle class, giving offerings and tithes to support the opulent lifestyle of senior pastors and their family members, and not questioning the obscurity of church’s finances, all of which legitimized actors’ role and presence in the organization they worked for or were affiliated with.

In summary, as actors experienced helplessness, they engaged in reconciling activities to cope with such negative feelings. Assuaging themselves that there was another locus where they could anchor their emotional investment, they shifted the anchor from their idealized institutional arrangements to a more spiritual meaning system, allowing them to reproduce the extant institutional arrangements.

The representation of our findings on how institutional arrangements can be reproduced despite actors’ moral perturbation is depicted in Figure 1.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Process model of institutional reproduction despite actors’ moral perturbation.

Moral perturbation as an impetus for institutional disruption and change

Actors inhabiting an organizational field are partially autonomous (Benson, 1977). They alternate between taking institutional arrangements for granted at one point and acting reflexively upon these arrangements at another (Hibbert & Cunliffe, 2015). The latter case is more likely to occur when actors become aware of extant arrangements that offend their moral codes, kindling their moral perturbation (Jasper, 2011) and emotions (Turner & Stets, 2006). We argue that moral perturbation by core actors (e.g. church full-timers and volunteers) is an important precursor of institutional instability. In some cases, it is the public disclosure by external actors (e.g. news media) targeting peripheral actors (e.g. church or federation members) that triggers such instability. Both Gutierrez and colleagues (2010) and Toubiana and Zietsma (2017) examine cases in which the media played a catalytic role, revealing in the first instance the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church, and, in the latter, a new treatment from abroad. Following the disclosures, members of the Catholic Church and members of the degenerative disease-supporting federation started to become aware of the extant arrangements violating their faith, and of the new arrangements supporting their care logic but contradicting the federation’s research logic, respectively. Yet in our case it was the core actors themselves who, regardless of the stage of their employment or affiliation, felt morally perturbed by the extant arrangements and animated moral emotions of guilt and anger, motivating them to engage in such disrupting activities as integrating small changes in daily routines and plotting a confrontation. Moral perturbation, in addition to public disclosure, therefore acts as an impetus for institutional disruption and change.

Future research could dig deeper into the antecedents of actors’ awareness of extant arrangements, such as moral reflexivity that emerges relationally through social interactions, thus not individually (Parmar, 2014). For instance, ES (Ovadia) recalled that he became aware of the ethno-class favouritism only after he talked with colleagues working in a department that he had thought would evangelize to and serve the poor. Bewildered, he had to swallow a bitter pill that nobody at Ovadia had really done that (22-Jul). But this is the only case whereby we could capture a distinct moment of actors’ awareness. Moreover, while it was relatively easy to discern actors’ moral perturbation and to document their positive emotion of respect, it was much more troublesome to distill their negative emotions of guilt, anger, helplessness and fear. The first three were particularly difficult to draw out, not only because actors had passed a phase in which these emotions had significantly receded or even disappeared altogether (unlike fear which they continuously demonstrated), but also because coming on too strong when talking about their past negativity could risk their involvement in such core activities as administrative/managerial and faith-nurturing (e.g. shepherding or discipleship) work, and ultimately their position in or affiliation with the organization. Accordingly, all the negative feelings were witnessed more pronouncedly in a non-office setting. Finally, future ethnographies on the role of emotions should also consider extending the time in the field beyond the two months the first author spent in each of the three cities, because developing the level of trust required for informants to open up and talk freely about their emotions takes a long time.

Systemic power as a suppressor of institutional disruption and change

Moral perturbation (Jasper, 2011) caused by extant institutional arrangements breaking actors’ moral codes provides an emotional basis for morality (Turner & Stets, 2006), enabling actors to partake in influence activities (Toubiana & Zietsma, 2017). The self-critical moral emotion of guilt can be seen as a constructive form of negative affect, as it prompts actors to take corrective action in response to perceived mistakes (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Likewise, the other-critical moral emotion of anger, which is evoked by episodic exposure to extant arrangements breaching moral codes, is reparative in nature since its social function is to fix these undesired arrangements (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999). However, whereas both emotions can lend actors the vigour to disrupt and change particular arrangements under the right circumstances (e.g. Toubiana & Zietsma, 2017; Wright et al., 2017), we contend that there are limits to the disruption and change-inducing potential of moral emotions. In our case, systemic power (e.g. theocratic structure, biblical values and charisma) wielded by senior pastors legitimately elicited actors’ fear and respect, making actors discontinue their own disrupting activities. While these actors initially had a sense of ‘I need to disrupt and change’ (through their disrupting activities), upon the activation of their fear of and respect for their leaders such desire was suppressed in a way that they were compelled to display a sense of ‘I need to stop disrupting and changing’ (through discontinuing their activities). In other words, their desire was not eliminated completely, such that they felt a sense of ‘I do not want to disrupt and change anymore’, as PS (Ovadia) testified, ‘If there was an opportunity to change things up at Ovadia, I would certainly do it!’ (9-Jul). Due to its non-coercive and non-violent mode, systemic power operates as a soft constraint over organizational life, signalling a type of power that is stable and internalized (Courpasson, 2006). Hence, moral emotions do not always act as propellants of institutional disruption and change, especially in the presence of power that operates systemically.

While our context is unique, our study carries relevant and far-reaching implications for corporate or governmental organizations whose leaders have (almost) absolute power over their followers. Manifesting in well-established ‘systems’ (e.g. organizations’ political system), traditional prescriptive values (e.g. family values) and/or charismatic yet totalitarian leaders (e.g. Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs or GE’s ex-CEO Jack Welch), systemic power can legitimately evoke actors’ fear and respect, further hindering these actors from mobilizing their moral emotions (of guilt and anger) and from disrupting and changing extant institutional arrangements.

Future research is needed to explore: the effects of guilt and anger on disrupting activities in a context in which leaders have not achieved total dominance, or the limits of leaders’ systemic power by probing the roles of other types of moral emotions like shame or contempt, which can have more dysfunctional effects on oneself and others. Unlike guilt, shame is more detrimental in form and maladaptive in its consequences. Shame can incapacitate actors by diminishing their self-worth, resulting in hostility, resistance or withdrawal (Bohns & Flynn, 2013). Unlike anger, contempt is characterized by short-term derogation and is more destructive in nature. Contempt can lead actors to exclude moral offenders from their social environment, deteriorating the relationship in the long term (Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Actors experiencing guilt or anger are more willing to correct or repair unfavourable situations, and are thereby more responsive to themselves and others, making them more prone to engage in institutional reproduction and maintenance. But actors animating shame or contempt can inflict damage upon themselves and others, because such emotions foreclose cooperation. Evoked shame or contempt might appear to be a boundary condition to systemic power.

The dynamics of emotional investment in institutional reproduction

When senior pastors exercised fear- and respect-eliciting systemic power, morally perturbed actors were forced to engage in discontinuing activities that impeded any institutional disruption and change, begetting their feelings of helplessness or a sense of ‘I cannot disrupt and change,’ as in the words of de Vries, ‘excessive leadership breeds helplessness’ (2006, p. 209). Actors’ helplessness was further cemented by the prevalence of church money management arrangements in the organizational field, informing them that the situation would remain unchanged in the future (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1995). Perceiving that they were incapable of effectively disrupting and changing the extant arrangements, they engaged in activities to reconcile their helplessness, leading them to start regulating their emotional investment. Although actors are subject to making emotional investment whenever they reside in a field (Friedland, 2013), the nature of such investment is far from static (Voronov & Vince, 2012). Not until a middle-to-later stage of their employment or affiliation did full-timers and volunteers become aware of the extant institutional arrangements that were failing their idealized standards imbued with their moral codes of inclusivity, modesty and accountability. We hold that it is vital for actors who seek to remain employed or affiliated with the organization to find a new locus where they can anchor their emotional investment, so that they are able, albeit involuntarily, to continue to contribute to the reproduction of the extant institutional arrangements that they vehemently object to. In our case, these actors disanchored their emotional investment from the idealized arrangements and anchored it in a more spiritual meaning system (Scott, 2008), rooted in the notion of an omniscient and omnipotent being.

In seeking to understand the role of emotions in institutionalism, we did not uncover factors explaining actors’ decision to stay in the organization (e.g. personal, behavioural, job-related, organizational or external predictors; Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). Neither did we explicate the intra-individual mechanisms these actors used to cognitively cope with the ongoing contradictions between institutional arrangements in which they were emotionally invested (e.g. sacraments, services, revival meetings, manifestations of the Holy Spirit, etc.) and the ones they viscerally disapproved of (e.g. the three church money management arrangements), such that they could continue identifying with the organization while at the same time engaging in institutional disruption and change (e.g. split identification; Gutierrez et al., 2010). Instead, we aimed to understand the affective mechanisms allowing morally perturbed actors to, paradoxically, engage in institutional reproduction. Future research is needed to better understand the affective condition of actors who choose to remain employed or affiliated with an organization that has morally failed them, but who have been unable to relocate the anchor of their emotional investment. We conjecture that they might still acquiescently perform their daily tasks, but continue to experience moral perturbation or even depression. Future studies are also required to better understand turnover, because feelings of helplessness may not always trigger the type of reconciling activities we identified, but instead stimulate morally perturbed actors to explore outside options.

Conclusion

Immoral practices are a common element of the institutional fabric. By investigating three church money management arrangements through ethnographic research, our study attempts to understand one of the darker sides of organizations embedded in a field. Construing a grounded process model that facilitates theorization, we have shed new light on the important puzzle of how actors continue to reproduce extant institutional arrangements, even after these arrangements have provoked their moral perturbation and invigorated their moral emotions and influence activities. Rather than treating moral emotions as an automatic impetus for institutional disruption and change, we brought in concepts from the literature on systemic power to explore its suppressive role in confining the mobilizing potential of such emotions. Coming to terms with their inability to bring about meaningful disruption and change, actors were encouraged to shift the anchor of their emotional investment. Emotions, together with moral perturbation and systemic power, thus seem to play inseparable roles in the sustainable reproduction of institutional arrangements that transgress actors’ moral codes.