Mindformance in performance-oriented finance

The implementation of humanistic movements and approaches in the workplace has drawn critical attention to control and performance management as distortions of the goals of mindfulness. Most work in this area continues to focus on the positive and productivity related features of mindfulness practices. However, attention is increasingly given to the appropriation of spiritual practices in work settings and its relation to capitalistic the objectification of workers. Through an empirical case study of the implementation of a Buddhist-inspired mindfulness program in a bank, we examine negotiations over the meaning of mindfulness, its appropriation by workers, corporate stakeholders, and coaches, and its envisioned promises. Through multi-source collection of data, including ethnographic material, we go beyond assumptions and ""a priori"" to analyze how finance workers actually internalize and reshape a mindfulness program. Through this study, we theorized a four-component process of meaning-making by the participants, according to a mental, temporal, spatial, and social dimensions. On this basis, we theorize how mindfulness interventions – and by extension, broader humanistic interventions – can lead to complex negotiations over their meanings in practice.