The evolving regulation of religious behavior in the public sector: the case of the reserve obligation in a senegalese military corps

This research examines the regulation of religious expression in the public and military context of Senegal. Our aim is to understand the process through which religious expression at work (REW) is regulated and how it is shaped by both implicit and explicit rules in an African context that remains underexplored in the literature. Social Regulation Theory (SRT) is used as the analytical framework to study the regulation of REW. We adopted a qualitative methodology, conducting twenty-four (24) semi-structured interviews with firefighters. The findings first reveal a penetration of religious expression into military services, driven by divergent perceptions of control rules, which remain nonetheless constraining. Secondly, the results highlight the existence of a more or less intense joint regulation throughout military life, influenced by contextual factors. These findings offer managerial implications for military services operating in secular contexts where the population is predominantly religious – a societal configuration that is increasingly prevalent. Finally, this study provides new insights into how national context shapes the regulation of religious expression at work and the associated managerial behaviors, responding to a gap identified in the literature.