No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Why Compassion Counts!
... In order to clarify the meaning of the concept of compassion in organizational studies, the definition of compassion refers to the act of feeling the passion of the other human being, where a specific relationship generates a feeling between the subjects, pointing out the one who suffers and the one who is witnessing such suffering. The literature dealing with organizational contexts presents definitions that converge with the understanding of the concept of compassion as a sensitivity that focus on suffering in the work environment, generating compassionate attitudes among the individuals themselves and respective practices of the organisations to minimize the pain (Frost, 1999). ...
... Taking into account the needs of that moment, compassion permeates the times, explicitly and formally exercised within the organisations. As humanization experiences may emerge simultaneously, compassion can incorporate actions and even support structures, ensuring well-being, through decent working conditions, flexibility and solidarity, inspiring gestures of relief and abstraction from suffering (Frost, 1999). ...
... Compassion is broader than empathy, but it is not as comprehensive as love, although it is presented as a form of unselfish love (Frost, 1999). Compassion elects the human being in a punctual situation of pain and inspires solidarity, accompanied by actions to overcome such experience. ...
Since it is no longer relevant to assume that any chosen assignment cannot be considered as a hazardous search for survival, human beings mostly spend their lifetime at work with the objective to reach human achievement. In that perspective, some organisations may still generate difficult environments with low level conditions of work and the act of compassion represents a virtue capable of minimizing a potential pain that hardly stay unconsidered within the work sphere. This study raises a contextual understanding on why the organisations need to perceive and understand the pain of their employees and, consequently, trigger mechanisms to overcome them. The issue involves key theories about spirituality, compassion and the organisations. It also refers to the forces that have a leading role in the deployment and sustaining of compassion in the organisations, and finally tries to establish the conceptual link between the consistent bonds of compassion and, both active and creative spirituality. Finally, a Brazilian case that lead to reflect on human values and its contemplation in the organisations and its application through confessional activities is introduced. In such perspective, spirituality and compassion may inspire a growing process of humanization of the organisations and for the community, to a large part about the human beings, their contribution for the achievement of organizational results and to its perpetuation in the organisations.
... Following Grimes et al. (2013), we propose a model that views the process of forming SEI from an embeddedagency perspective with two major elements. The first element relates to the notion that social entrepreneurs (i.e., agents) must be individually motivated to pursue social entrepreneurial efforts (Krueger et al., 2000;Shapero and Sokol, 1982) and to compassion (Baumsteiger, 2019;Frost, 1999;Gilbert, 2019;Miller et al., 2012) as a prosocial motivator to explain how social entrepreneurs are motivated. The second element explains the circumstances under which the compassionate social entrepreneur forms his or her SEI. ...
... Related to feasibility, compassionate individuals have strong other-orientation and the ability to connect emotionally to other people. They can think and evaluate integratively (Miller et al., 2012)-that is, they can generate and internalize information flexibly from a variety of sources and perspectives, which broadens their range of potential solutions to a problem and enlarges their ability to question the status quo (Frost, 1999). In contrast, non-compassionate individuals are less flexible and more restricted in their perspective, adhering to fewer pieces of information and fewer sources, resulting in the tendency to see fewer choices as feasible. ...
... We argue that compassionate people consider the non-economic benefits of social initiatives to be compensation for these costs (Miller et al., 2012). By means of their other-orientation and emotional connection to those who suffer, compassionate people generate personal benefits when they help to alleviate others' suffering (Frost, 1999). People with less compassion are more likely to focus on economic goals related to individual wealth (Basran et al., 2018), leading to lower "benefit scores" for social venturing and negatively impacting the judgment of a social venture's desirability. ...
This study sheds light on the role of compassion in driving individuals' intentions to pursue social entrepreneurship. Drawing on the embedded agent view of the social entrepreneur, we argue that individuals (agents) are embedded in regulative, cognitive and regulatory institutions that either facilitate or inhibit the relationship between compassion and social entrepreneurial intentions. Compassion as a motive supports personal feasibility and desirability judgments of social venturing, but whether they are actualized into social entrepreneurial intentions is linked to national institutions. We test our model by means of two independent survey studies with 350 respondents from the US population (Study 1) and 223 student respondents from nine countries (Study 2). The results suggest that compassion is linked to social entrepreneurship via the intervening cognitive mechanisms of feasibility and desirability and that this relationship is moderated by national institutions. These results have theoretical implications for social entrepreneurship research and useful practical implications for investors and policy-makers.
... The expression of compassion, however, requires customization of response, investment of financial and other resources into nurturing people, and emphasis on emotional intelligence (Dutton et al., 2014;Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002;Lilius, Worline, Dutton, Kanov, & Maitlis, 2011). As such, when building the case for pursuing compassion-driven outcomes, people tend to emphasize the "money is not everything" argument, appealing to people's sense of philanthropy rather than to their business sense (Frost, 1999;Gallagher, 2009). ...
... Compassion in the workplace is also a growing topic of research in Positive Organizational Scholarship (Dutton et al., 2014;Dutton et al., 2006;Frost, 1999). This literature takes a more focused and precise view of "compassion"; this view could be considered a subset of the broader view of compassion promulgated in popular literature. ...
... IS research needs to continue collaborating with other fields within the school of business, such as Positive Organizational Scholarship, Organizational Studies Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, and others. Positive Organizational Scholarship offers us a great starting point for incorporating compassion goals in IS research through its extensive and focused study of compassion in the workplace (Dutton et al., 2014;Frost, 1999;Lilius et al., 2008). In addition, the broader and more flexible conceptualizations of compassion found in popular literature would create opportunities for new research questions to be asked at the intersection of IS research and research in other business fields. ...
In this article, we assert that compassion-driven approaches are the sustainable way for information and communication technologies to contribute to economic value. We urge future information systems research to emphasize, with equal vigor, the joint goals of compassion and financial gains from information and communication technologies. We present a broad agenda for future information systems research based on this premise. We also discuss how certain core assumptions underlying traditional information systems research—so far, driven primarily by economic value as outcome—would need to change in order to support this new agenda emphasizing compassion and economic value as complementary and synergistic outcomes. We provide a brief concrete illustration of this proposed agenda, and its underlying revised assumptions, by drawing on the example of a prominent field of study in information systems research, namely health information systems research.
... Compassion in the field of organization studies is relatively recent although burgeoning, since Frost (1999) highlighted the extent of suffering at work and the importance of developing compassionate responses. Compassion, although often misunderstood colloquially as an emotion, has been defined as an action to ameliorate suffering (Worline and Dutton, 2017), and a four stage process has been identified by both Worline and Dutton (2017) and Simpson et al. (2019), consisting of the following: ...
... Inevitable suffering is that which comes as part of the human existence through things like bereavement and illness. Inevitable suffering happens to most people at some point in their lives and there is a role for understanding that suffering transcends any such work-life balance as might purport to exist (Frost, 1999;Kanov, 2021). COVID itself taught us this when people were working from home and juggling multiple demands just to keep a sense of normality going, to deliver on workrequirements and look after elderly family members and provide a semblance of home-schooling. ...
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruption to all sectors including higher education during the years of 2020 and 2021, thus providing a window into how different types of suffering can combine and the role of compassion in alleviating pain. Higher education within the United Kingdom provides a case example in this study, but the lessons about compassion are transferable to other contexts, particularly those in the neoliberal public sector. The impact of the pandemic period on teaching in universities has been well documented but there has been far less written about the wider experiences of staff who worked through this period, their suffering and the extent of compassion within their work lives.
Methods
29 interviews were conducted and individuals were invited to talk through the story of their pandemic experiences from March 2020 to the interview date of December 2021. Storytelling is a common method in organization studies and, although research into compassion in organizations is nascent, this method has been used in other studies.
Results and discussion
Previous research has examined organizational compassion in short periods of crisis and this study therefore provides a contrasting perspective on how compassion shifts over a longer period of suffering. A distinction is drawn in this study for the first time between “formalized” compassion processes in the organization which structurally prioritized compassion for students over that of staff, and “informal” compassion shown between staff to each other and between students and staff. The more that formalized compassion was evident, the less apparent it was in interpersonal interactions due to staff wellbeing being compromised and a systemic failure to recognize the dependence of student compassion on the wellbeing of staff. The findings therefore lead to theorizing that although neoliberal universities are perceived as being full of organizational neglect, compassion was structurally embedded for students but at the expense of staff.
... Third, by examining the moderating influence of compassion, the present research highlights its role in the relationship between POP and workplace gossip valences. In doing so, our study responds to Frost's (1999) call for extending the line of research on compassion at work. More specifically, this study identifies an important yet neglected aspect of human emotion in shaping employees' behavioral outcomes. ...
... Compassion has been described as a vicarious experience of another's distress (Ekman, 2014;Hoffman, 1984), and a blend of sadness and love (Shaver et al., 1987). It is a three-fold process that involves recognizing, feeling and responding to alleviate the suffering that another person experiences (Frost, 1999). Compassionate individuals have the capabilities to empathize with others in the organization (Frost et al., 2000) and voluntarily shoulder the ones who are depressed. ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine perceived organizational politics (POP) as an antecedent to workplace gossip. While the commonly held belief is that POP is consequential to the existence of negative workplace gossip, an alternate hypothesis can be that POP may predict positive workplace gossip as well. The study further explores the role of compassion as a boundary condition in the relationship of POP with negative and positive valences of workplace gossip.
Design/methodology/approach
Using purposive sampling technique, the data were collected through time-lagged (two-wave) surveys from employees working in private (Study 1, n = 366) and public (Study 2, n = 206) sector organizations across India, and analyzed using SPSS AMOS 27 and PROCESS Macro (Model 1).
Findings
The results of Study 1 and Study 2 revealed that POP correlated positively with negative as well as positive workplace gossip. Further, it was found that compassion moderated the relationship of POP with negative workplace gossip but failed to moderate in the case of positive workplace gossip in both the studies.
Practical implications
This study makes practitioners aware of the ubiquity of the phenomenon of workplace gossip and encourages them to embrace gossip in the workplace rather than banishing it altogether.
Originality/value
This study delineates the link between POP and the valences of workplace gossip that remains unexplored in the literature. The study also takes into account the intervening role of compassion in the aforementioned relationships. The striking results of the study open new realms of research possibilities not only in the field of workplace gossip, but POP and compassion as well.
... Our approach is informed firstly by scholars who promote care as an important phenomenon in work relations (e.g. Frost, 2011;Rynes et al., 2012), particularly from the perspective of Positive Organisational Scholarship (see Cameron et al., 2003), and secondly by scholars who argue from a critical perspective that relational power dynamics need to be noticed in organisational life (Clegg, 1989;Clegg et al., 2006;Fineman, 2006;Simpson et al., 2013Simpson et al., , 2014a. We make two theoretical contributions to the literature on care as social practice in everyday work relations. ...
... As part of the POS agenda, care and compassion have been promoted overwhelmingly as positive concepts (e.g. Frost, 2011;Rynes et al., 2012) with organisational benefits (Dutton et al., 2002) that are worth fostering and understanding in different contexts (e.g. Dutton et al, 2006;Lilius et al., 2008). ...
Traditional understandings of care-giving assume care practices are clear to others and unambiguously altruistic, reflective of the selfless and humane bearing of care professionals. However, a range of organisational research has noted the complex and often contradictory ways in which enactments of care are interwoven into organisational relations of power and control. Through a narrative analysis of interview data, our paper focuses upon practices of inaction and concealment as ‘veiled’ care set within the power-laden complexities and contested meaning-making of organisational life. Our notion of veiled care extends debates about care as a social practice in everyday work relations in two ways. Firstly, it provides a greater focus on the less discernible aspects of care-giving which are significant but possibly overlooked in shaping subjectivities and meanings of care in work relations. Secondly, it develops the discussion of the situated ambiguities and tensions in enacting care that involves overcoming care-recipient resistance and an arguably less heroic but nonetheless important objective of non-maleficence, to avoid, minimise or repair damage.
( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1350508420956324 )
... Although research on compassion at work is still relatively limited, there is growing evidence of its importance for organizations and sound rationales for bringing it to the fore in organization research at this time (e.g., Opdebeeck & Habisch, 2011). Frost (1999) proclaimed that "compassion counts!" and further asserted (Frost, 2003) that the inevitable suffering generated within organizations requires an academic response. ...
... Likewise, although empathy includes the elicitation and experience of compassion, the latter concept does not reduce to an empathic state of fear, sadness, and distress (Goetz et al., 2010). Compassion, according to Frost (1999), is broader than empathy as it entails, even inspires, helpful and merciful action. However, it is not as encompassing as love, although it may be a form of "disinterested love." ...
The current explorative study aimed at understanding the subjective meanings of 'compassion' in teaching and its process and determinants. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with teachers who are considered by their colleague to be compassionate, it was found that compassion consists of two phases-identification and compassionate behavior, and triggered by varied sources of suffering (e.g., distress at the student's home, academic failure, chronic illness, exam anxiety, school violence, and special education needs). Likewise, four major factors of compassionate behavior in teaching have been identified: personal background, career experience, close teacher-students relations, and educational leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... The experience of compassion also moves those feeling the concern to act in order to ease or eliminate the other's suffering (Von Dietze and Orb, 2000) to connect those who feel empathic concern with those who suffer. Compassion is thus an empathic emotional response elicited by another person's suffering that moves people to act in a way that will relieve the person's anguish or make it more tolerable, thus helping the sufferer to live through it (Frost, 1999). Some examples of how to alleviate others' suffering might be by giving social and emotional support such as listening empathically, asking about their health and well-being or giving a hug; or by giving time or flexibility (especially in work settings), or material goods (Lilius et al., 2011). ...
RESUMEN Education must guide students' emotional development, not only to improve their skills and help them achieve their maximum performance, but to establish the foundations of a more cooperative and compassionate society. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals therefore implies focusing on emotional aspects as well as financial, social, environmental and scientific objectives. In this line, the goal of this study is to show how emotional intelligence, an essential dimension in the development and management of emotional competences required to build sustainable societies, plays a key role in optimising academic performance in the classroom through compassion and academic commitment. The research model was tested with a questionnaire addressed to 550 students from four higher education institutions and one secondary school. The results of a structural equation analysis confirmed the study hypotheses. Emotional intelligence was shown to be positively related to compassion and higher levels of commitment, which consequently led to better academic performance. This finding will encourage interest in developing emotional intelligence, not only for its long-term value in training healthy citizens, but also for its short-term results in the classroom. Palabras clave:
... A growing body of evidence demonstrates that compassionate leadership can help an organization flourish (Dutton & Workman, 2015;Dutton, Workman & Hardin, 2014;Frost, 2003;Frost, 1999). Boedker conducted a significant study in Australia involving 5,600 people in 77 organizations, examining the link between profitability and leadership styles. ...
... In ordinary social, economical, and political development, pragmatic knowledge achieves this to impart relevance that makes "human success" possible (Nussbaum, 1996(Nussbaum, , 2001. The foundations and tendencies to execute keen activities, such as social business visionaries combining combating reasonings, are provided by the right qualities of mind, data, and judiciousness [27][28][29][30][31]. ...
In this paper, to solve the difficulties of overseeing battling reasonings in cordial projects, we use a training-based insight perspective. Based on previous research, managing the tension between friendly government assistance and business is clearly a vital task for social money managers. Accomplishment. Though the social government helps reasoning and its associated characteristics and practices structure the underpinnings of social endeavours, social finance managers similarly need to ensure that their associations are financially sensible, making it essential to attract business reasoning. To this end, we cultivate an instructive program structure taking into account social practice intelligence to assist understudies in getting reasonable data and capacities, organize social business with venturing targets, and consolidate battling reasonings in inventive and legitimate ways.
... Hence, one important element of compassion is an emphatic or other-oriented concern. Yet, compassion is more comprehensive than empathy in that besides being sensitive to others' feelings, it also involves a desire to help out and support others (Frost, 1999). Importantly, the motivation for a compassionate person in helping others is not self-directed nor based on a drive to maximize one's own welfare. ...
Recent work on workplace diversity and inclusion has emphasized the need for further studies to reveal the factors that promote workplaces characterized by high inclusiveness and respect for differences (Holmes et al., Journal of Management 47(6), 1357–1382, 2021). Drawing on this need, the present study attempts to understand the role of compassionate leadership in fostering a sense of inclusion among diverse employees. Consistent with Randel et al.’s (Human Resource Management Review 28(2), 190–203, 2018) conceptualization, this study focuses on inclusive leadership practices that simultaneously satisfy employees’ needs for belonging and being unique. Accordingly, a conceptual framework is proposed to address the potential of compassionate leadership components, which are integrity, accountability, presence, authenticity, and dignity (Shuck et al., Human Resource Development Quarterly 30(4), 537–564, 2019), for increasing the tendency of leaders to engage in inclusive leadership practices that ultimately promote inclusion perception. Specifically, compassionate leaders are suggested to be more likely to notice distress, suffering, and pain experienced by employees with diverse identities, feel an emphatic concern for removing such negative experiences and improving the well-being of diverse employees, and respond by taking positive actions that promote inclusion and affirm the value of diversity.
... Healthcare service providers and hospitals that have an image of being compassionate are expected to receive fewer patient complaints (Shapiro et al., 2005). The person who can overcome fatigue with compassion and are very passionate about their services will play a significant part in the attainment of organisational objectives (Frost, 1999). ...
... Prior theory and research on compassion in organizations has demonstrated that while suffering is pervasive in organizational contexts, individuals do not need to suffer alone. The presence of suffering within organizations provides opportunities for fostering personal growth and meaning, strengthening group solidarity, and enhancing organizational functioning (Dutton et al., 2014;Frost, 1999); with compassion in the workplace operating as a powerful and positive force for physical, psychological, and organizational well-being (Trzeciak & Mazzarelli, 2019;Worline & Dutton, 2017). ...
Organizational scholars have begun to focus on the pervasiveness of human suffering at work and the capacity of compassion to ease such suffering. Recent conceptual work has shifted from the individual to the group by positing compassion as a collective capacity that involves noticing others' suffering, feeling empathic concern, and attempting to alleviate that suffering. Drawing upon this foundation, the current paper elaborates on the theoretical concept of psychological compassion climate, defining it as the individual perception of shared norms around compassion within one's work group/unit, and develops and validates a brief measure to assess this construct. Specifically, in Study 1, we developed a new measure of psychological compassion climate and examined its nomological network, including theoretical antecedents, correlates, and consequences. In Study 2, we cross-validated the compassion climate measure using a time-separated design. In this study, psychological compassion climate assessed at Time 1 predicted improvements from Time 1 to Time 2 in three well-being indicators (i.e., anxiety, depressed mood, psychological flourishing) over a month-long span during the summer of 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (when suffering of a variety of types was widespread). In addition, we also found that psychological compassion climate predicted compassion experiences at work over the one month interval, including compassion received from others as well as compassion given by the focal employees to others and to oneself.
... Existing understandings of organizational compassion (Dutton and Workman, 2011;Frost, 1999), defined it as a four-part process, characterized by the acronym NEAR: (1) Noticing suffering among organizational colleagues or reports; (2) Empathizing with the pain experienced; (3) Appraising the circumstances of suffering to better understand them; and (4) Responding by taking action to mitigate suffering (Dutton et al., 2014;Worline and Dutton, 2017). Building on this definition, we propose conceptualizing compassionate leadership as a metacapacity for demonstrating these NEAR capabilities, while integrating them in the exercise of power. ...
During times of suffering such as that inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic, compassion expressed by leaders helps to ease distress. Doing so, those in a position to provide resources that might facilitate coping and recovery are attentive to the situations of distress. Despite an abundance of leadership theorizing and models, there still is little academic literature on compassionate leadership. To address this limitation, we present an exploratory case study of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, someone widely recognized for her compassionate leadership and frequently described in paradoxical terms (e.g. ‘kind and strong’; embodying ‘steel and compassion’). We address her compassionate leadership through the lenses of paradox theory, legitimacy theory and conservation of resources theory. We contribute a heuristic framework that sees various types of legitimacy leveraged synergistically to build resources and alleviate suffering – providing further legitimacy in an upward spiral of compassionate leadership.
... Indeed, the strong emotions that are felt by organizational ethnographers can be considered signals that inform them of whether they have dug deeply enough into their phenomenon of study (Whiteman, 2010). Similarly, Frost (1999) considers ethnographers' compassion for the lived experiences of field actors to help them better connect and improve their understanding of what is happening within organizations. ...
... Since suffering is an inevitable part of life, it is inevitably experienced within organizational life. In fact, organizations are rife with pain and suffering (Frost, 1999(Frost, , 2003Frost et. al., 2000). ...
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107738/1/annkeane.pdf
... Compassionate healthcare focuses on demonstrations of altruism, kindness, genuine sympathy and empathetic concern for the suffering of patients experiencing health challenges that are often distressing (Frank, 2004). Evidence suggests that both empathy and kindness as aspects of compassion have a beneficial impact on health outcomes (Frost, 1999). Compassionate health care environments are those where both health care practitioners and patients feel understood, supported, nurtured and cared for emotionally, physically and spiritually (De Zuleta, 2016;Kyle, 2017). ...
This study asks what behaviours might convert professional disturbances in maternity wards into opportunities for learning within healthcare and how that process is influenced by models of management and leadership. A framework of Cultural History Activity Theory helped to analyse moments of fractured collaboration in which uncertainty about roles and differences in professional status was a factor. Implications for professional learning are discussed along with the frames that might give coherence and utility to future research. We conclude that any interventions to support professional learning should reflect the broadly compassionate ethos that informs the commitments and activities of healthcare workers.
... Two decades after Frost's (1999) prolific call for compassion research in organizations, scholars have accumulated a body of evidence for compassion's positive roles in everyday work lives and the craft of management. Compassion not only positively contributes to the emotional discourses in organizations and enables a shared concern for others (Worline & Dutton 2017), but it may also be a critical driving factor at the root of organizing processes (Dutton et al. 2006), develop into a beneficial competence and a powerful capability in work units (Lilius et al. ...
This article calls upon case researchers to write case studies about compassion in healthcare organizations and offers several synthesizing vignettes from the current literature in support for doing so. It also provides case teachers and readers with the ideas for what to consider when exploring cases of how compassion presents itself (or does not) in healthcare settings. It aims at addressing the gaps in case research and teaching about the culturally sensitive healthcare compassion, compassion fatigue, leadership, organizational processes, and self-compassion.
... Care workers' subject position, premised on a talent for caring, transforms the nature of the actions proper to the grammar of care, since the material tasks entailed in caring for recipients are inextricably linked with caring about them (Baines, Evans, & Neysmith, 1998). In stark contrast to the grammar of economic exchange's interpretation of care as the routine repetition of unskilled tasks, a communitarian vision highlights competencies such as empathy and spontaneity (Frost, 1999) that enable care workers to adapt care practices to meet the needs of specific recipients. Sass' (2000) study of interactions within a nursing home, for example, showed how care workers' creative use of personalized "courtesies [or] . . . ...
All economies are confronted by a growing care crisis: Both public and private organizations are struggling to recruit and retain adequate numbers of workers willing to provide care for elderly or chronically ill persons. While some social commentators argue that poor pay and excessive workload, caused by understaffing and insufficient funding, lie at the heart of the problem, we propose that the pressing labor shortages stem partly from the problematic relationship between care work and dignity and are influenced by the broader sociopolitical context. We elaborate on how dominant discourses construct specific "grammars of care" which indicate who should care, what constitutes care, and the actions proper to the care relationship. We show that the discourses of economic exchange, entrepreneurial professionalism, and communitarianism constrain care workers' choices in important ways, thereby limiting workers' ability to achieve workplace dignity. Finally, we call for action with some optimism: as the meanings attributed to care work are communicatively constructed, the grammar of care can be rescripted in ways that enhance dignity.
... 359). Importantly, Frost's (1999) reflections on his experience of receiving compassionate care when receiving treatment for cancer led to a rethinking about the role of compassion in organizations: ...
This book explores how global organisations and institutions manage Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) across their operations and within different cultural and value settings. It blends empirical evidence from collaborative research with original practical insights.
In addition, the book demonstrates how the idea of narratives can be used as an approach to achieving EDI goals, presenting powerful stories on EDI implementation and challenges stemming from EDI-related abuses. Taken together, the book’s respective chapters depict the complexity of EDI in a nuanced way, reflecting the disparate realities of those involved in its implementation. The combination of academic research and insights from practitioners in the field give the book a unique position in the global management literature on EDI, while also yielding a wealth of valuable lessons and conclusions.
... The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions has been applied to the context of positive organisational scholarship , and research into compassion within organisations has been building for several years (Atkins & Parker, 2012;Dutton, Workman, & Hardin, 2014;Dutton & Workman, 2012;Frost, 1999;Kanov et al., 2004;Lilius et al., 2008;Rynes, Bartunek, Dutton, & Margolis, 2012). A positive example of this outside of palliative care, is the use of Appreciative Inquiry as a method to develop a compassion awareness training program within a group of hospitals, mental health, and primary care services in the United Kingdom (Curtis et al., 2017). ...
... Though I will return to this issue later, here I simply want to note that Kanov et al. (2004) proposed a tripartite model of compassion processes that includes cognitive (noticing, or "pay attention"), affective (feeling, or "be astonished"), and behavioral (acting, or "tell about it") components. Moreover, I believe that the most archetypical illustration in organizational scholarship of what Oliver was discussing is Peter Frost's (1999) paper, "Why compassion counts." Frost was an organizational scholar who taught at the University of British Columbia until his death in 2004. ...
Contemporary emphases on calculating the impact of our scholarship can be deadening if they lead us to refrain from contemplation. Thus, in this essay, I show the importance of contemplation and what contemplative dimensions of our scholarship might include. Based on four lines from the poem “Sometimes” by the poet Mary Oliver, I summarize ways that many activities carried out by organizational scholars embody Oliver’s “Instructions for living a life,” which consist solely of “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” My summary shows some of the range of contemplative activities within our field, as well as integral relationships between contemplation and compassion. I conclude by highlighting the importance of the roles such activities play in our experiences of academic life and in our developmental journeys as scholars.
... This is perhaps what Marchington and Wilkinson (2002) meant by "neo-unitarism," where sharing the same objectives and working together harmoniously would lead to a win-win situation mainly between managers and workers. Frost (1999) called for rethinking organizational theory and business practice to incorporate compassion at work as an important determinant of organizational life. Since then, compassion at work has been found to provide organizations with significant competitive advantages, such as adaptability and change (Madden et al., 2012;Golden-Biddle and Mao, 2012), engagement and commitment (Lilius et al., 2008), learning and innovation (Carmeli et al., 2009;Cooperrider and Godwin, 2011), and high-quality service and brand loyalty (Brooks, 2013;McClelland, 2012). ...
Purpose- This study examines whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s Internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to a workplace that lacks mindfulness and compassion. We first hypothesize that supervisors’ mindfulness is related to the mindfulness of their direct followers, and that both are related to employees’ compassion at work. We also hypothesize that compassion mediates the link between supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness and cyberloafing, and that empathic concern mediates the link from compassion to cyberloafing.
Design/methodology/approach- A questionnaire was distributed to followers working in groups of three with the same leader in all of the 100 banks in London (UK). Supervisors and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated. We applied structural equation modeling (SEM) for analyses.
Findings- Results showed that supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness were significantly related to each other and to compassion at work, but compassion acted as a mediator only in the case of supervisors’ mindfulness. Empathic concern mediated the compassion-cyberloafing link.
Research limitations/implications- The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias, and specificities of banks and their work processes can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results.
Practical implications– Findings suggest that mindfulness training may facilitate compassion at work, which, in turn, will restrain the occurrence of cyberloafing at work.
Originality/value- This is the first study to analyze how and why employees refrain from harming their organizations out of compassion.
... This opens up new avenues for investigating the nature of compassion and how compassion might transform experiences in the workplace in positive, proactive ways through HRD. Through this work, we highlight the viability of compassion as an important stream in the research literature, and provide a call to action in agreement with other compassion scholars (Dutton et al., 2006;Dutton & Workman, 2011;Frost, 1999;Frost et al., 2000;Lilius et al., 2008Lilius et al., , 2012Rynes et al., 2012) for HRD researchers to take up serious work in this area. ...
The transformative power of compassion is critical to leader performance and has garnered increasing interest in business settings. Despite substantive contributions toward the conceptual understanding of compassion, prior empirical work on the relationship between compassion and leader performance is relatively limited. This article presents compassionate leader behavior as a conceptualization of a new leadership construct. A two‐stage, sequential, and equal status mixed method research design was utilized to develop and validate a measure of compassionate leadership. Study 1 used a phenomenological approach to understand how leaders engage with compassion and how their experiences and behaviors associated with compassion affect performance within the context of their leadership. Findings indicated that when leaders focused on compassionate behaviors during routine and focal events in the organization, six distinctive themes—integrity, empathy, accountability, authenticity, presence, and dignity—emerged as individual‐level building blocks of compassionate leadership behavior. In Study 2, we developed and validated a Compassionate Leader Behavior Index (CLBI) based on the six emergent behaviors and found general support for compassionate leadership for both practice and research. Implications of study findings and directions for future research in human resource development (HRD) are discussed.
... Recent literature suggests numerous innovations in higher education that address this. Experiencebased learning practices (Anderson, Boud, & Cohen, 2000), problem-based learning (Carroll, 2005;Coombs & Elden, 2004), student-centered learning environments (Biggs, 1990(Biggs, , 1999Estes, 2004;Shuell, 1986), andragogybased course design (Knowles, 1980(Knowles, , 1984Lindemann, 1926;Roglio & Light, 2009), use of film as a teaching resource (Champoux, 1999), the role of compassion in learning organizations and other professions (Frost, 1999), internships (Junco & Mastrodicasa, 2007), online learning environments (Arbaugh, Desai, Rau, & Sridhar, 2010;Arbaugh et al., 2009), service learning, (Godfrey, 1999), and international experiences (Charlebois & Giberson, 2010) are alternatives to the traditional "stand and deliver" classroom. These authors and others (Nadkarni, 2003;Romme, Georges, & Putzel, 2003) are pushing the boundaries of what is considered a learning environment. ...
This paper explores peak learning (PL) experiences through a semi-longitudinal approach across the life space of multiple groups of learners. Appreciative inquiry (AI) was used to gather data through interviews that resulted in unique examples of PL experiences. Once collected, a novel application of phenomenology was employed to identify the structural elements of participants’ experiences. Finally, thematic analysis was applied to the aggregated structural elements of each group to identify those common to all who participated in the AI. The final synthesis description was written in alignment with the structural themes and could be applied as a qualitative assessment to determine the presence of peak learning in learning environments. The description also serves as a foundation of the idea that may be extended through future research.
... While research on compassion at work is still relatively limited, there is growing evidence of its importance for organizations and sound rationales for bringing it to the fore in organization research at this time (e.g., Tsui, 2010). Frost (1999) proclaimed that "compassion counts!" and further asserted (Frost, 2003) that the inevitable suffering generated within organizations requires an academic response. ...
The current explorative study aimed at understanding the subjective meanings of 'compassion' in teaching and its process and determinants. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with teachers who are considered by their colleague to be compassionate, it was found that compassion consists of two phases – identification and compassionate behavior, and triggered by varied sources of suffering (e.g., distress at the student's home, academic failure, chronic illness, exam anxiety, school violence, and special education needs). Likewise, four major factors of compassionate behavior in teaching have been identified: personal background, career experience, close teacher-students relations, and educational leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... Eller den har fokuseret på, hvordan med- arbejdere forholder sig til andre kollegers følelser i saerligt kritiske og dramatiske om- staendigheder (Frost 1999(Frost , 2003), eller når de som nyansatte skal laere at begå sig på en ny arbejdsplads (Fletcher 1999). Forsknin- gen har således ikke direkte set på, hvordan kolleger agerer i forhold til hinanden, når de er optaget af at fastholde og vedligehol- de deres relationer frem for at begynde eller afslutte dem. ...
Når medarbejdere søger at skabe eksempelvis en lærende eller udviklingsorienteret arbejdspladskultur, forudsætter sådanne mål, at den enkelte tør lade sig udfordre, og derved bliver identitetsarbejdet et emotionelt involverende anliggende mellem kolleger. Ved at tematisere forudsætninger for og måder hvorpå individer aktivt håndterer andres følelser og koble det perspektiv med positive følelsers generative rolle, fremhæver artiklen hidtil underbelyste dimensioner af medarbejderes identitetsarbejde. Ud fra en fremstilling af et 'other emotion management' perspektiv analyserer artiklen, hvordan kollegers bearbejdning af hinandens følelser og skabelse af selvtillid indgår som en essentiel del i medarbejderes identitetsarbejde. Artiklen specificerer, hvordan man er afhængig af andre i en emotionsbearbejdende forstand, for medarbejdere er afhængige ikke blot af anerkendelse fra ledelsen men også af kollegers bearbejdning af deres følelsesliv for at kunne udvikle sig i deres karriereforløb. En central pointe er her, at fremadrettet og skabende identitetsarbejde forudsætter tilstedeværelse af positive følelser, som hovedsageligt skabes i interaktion med andre.
... Current research and theories on compassion in organizations are human-centred (Frost 1999;Kanov et al. 2004;Lilius et al. 2011;Rynes et al. 2012) with much empirical research documenting and then theorizing how humans compassionately respond and coordinate for the sake of people, usually individuals within a workplace or other institution that have experienced tragic events. This paper, on the other hand, attempts to broaden the investigations by considering the compassion afforded to animals in organizational contexts, with specific attention to the IFFS. ...
Compassion is an emotion that could be useful for improving the lives of animals within the intensive and factory farming system (IFFS). Rhythms that exist within this system play a role in making compassion difficult to realize, which formulates the research question: How do the rhythms of the IFFS shape the affordance of compassion for animals? Drawing on a cultural mode of analysis informed by Henri Lefebvre’s work on rhythms, this paper explored the rhythms of three films that focus on the treatment of animals in this system: Meat; Our Daily Bread and Never Let Me Go. Industrial linear rhythms seem to compromise the compassion offered to animals in the IFFS by manipulating the cyclical rhythms of animals and animalized bodies from birth, through life and at death. Compassion for animals and animalized bodies in the IFFS, this paper concludes, is often provided in a piecemeal and localized manner.
... There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that compassionate leadership can help an organization flourish (Dutton & Workman, 2015;Dutton, Workman & Hardin, 2014;Frost, 2003Frost, , 1999. Boedker conducted a major study in Australia involving 5,600 people in 77 organizations examining the link between profitability and leadership styles. ...
This paper examines an ancient commentary on part of the Hebrew scriptures, attached to the biblical text and shows that there are many important messages about leadership embedded in it. This paper intends to answer a few questions: ―Is Judaism connected to modern management?‖, ―What lesson does the storyteller impart to his audience?‖, ―What does Judaism teach us about leadership?‖, What is the impact of intercultural contexts in management and leadership?‖,―What is the difference between hearing and listening?‖, and ―What is the nature of leaders?‖. The key lessons are that leaders must be compassionate; humble; and have a willingness to listen, make changes, and admit to mistakes. Competent leaders should have full command of the main areas of the leadership elements, and should be able to use each of these elements according to the requirements of the case. This paper also examines the influence of compassionate leadership and servant leadership on productivity and profitability.
... The views of Frost (2003) and other prominent researches of his time at least opened up the dialog of humanising people working inside organisations, as people who suffer, people who care, and people who individually and collectively feel pain. Managers interested in the science of compassion were catalyzed by Frost's (1999) proclamation that compassion counts. While the advance of science and scholarly contribution to care and compassion have been made, a number of management scholars (e.g., Ferraro et al., 2005;Ghoshal, 1996;Khurana, 2007;Mintzberg, 2005) have been observing trends that increasingly show a moving away from the humanistic endeavours and an embracing of models that are more self-interested. ...
... The views of Frost (2003) and other prominent researches of his time at least opened up the dialog of humanising people working inside organisations, as people who suffer, people who care, and people who individually and collectively feel pain. Managers interested in the science of compassion were catalyzed by Frost's (1999) proclamation that compassion counts. While the advance of science and scholarly contribution to care and compassion have been made, a number of management scholars (e.g., Ferraro et al., 2005;Ghoshal, 1996;Khurana, 2007;Mintzberg, 2005) have been observing trends that increasingly show a moving away from the humanistic endeavours and an embracing of models that are more self-interested. ...
... Zero-tolerance policies that fail to make such distinctions can cause more damage than good, especially if coworkers believe an employee's displayed anger was justified under the circumstances or fundamentally "harmless," even if intense (Lindebaum & Geddes, 2016). These distinctions are more than simple semantics in promoting more supportive and compassionate organizational cultures (Frost, 1999), where emotions such as anger are better understood and responded to appropriately. ...
Although workplace anger is not typically viewed favorably and is often an unpleasant experience, in this article we challenge management scholars to better understand when anger can produce positive as well as negative outcomes at work. Our aim is to address the complexity and ambiguity surrounding anger at work and simultaneously offer a more balanced perspective of its potential. First, we clarify features of the anger experience, examining its ntrapersonal, interpersonal, and social-cultural layers as well as differentiating various forms of workplace anger using the Dual Threshold Model (Geddes & Callister, 2007). Second, we address key
misunderstandings operating in organizations with regard to anger by reviewing research that illustrates why expressed anger is allowed and found appropriate (even beneficial) in certain circumstances, and less so in others. Third, we challenge anger’s moniker as a “negative”
emotion by reexamining management literatures that have raditionally eschewed anger, those that have embraced it, and potential areas where anger can shed new light on future research. Finally, we propose that organizations offering “appropriate space” for anger expression can take advantage of its potential to promote constructive conversations and needed change.
... Most prior work has focused on the association between burnout and a lack of compassion (compassion-fatigue), rather than seeking to identify specific factors that might be relevant. Compassion, along with the related constructs of empathy, kindness, and concern, are essential components of effective patient care (Attree, 2001;Bramley and Matiti, 2014;Frost, 2011;Heffernan et al., 2010;Irurita, 1999;McQueen, 2000) and are likely to be negatively impacted by burnout. Research shows a negative relationship between burnout and patient care-satisfaction (Leiter et al., 1998;McHugh et al., 2011;Shanafelt et al., 2002;Vahey et al., 2004) but the reasons for this link remains unclear. ...
Humanistic management emphasises the importance of respecting humanity in and through meaningful work within organisations. In this paper we introduce a Levinasian approach to organising. Levinas argues that the Other appeals to us and allows us to take responsibility towards the Other – i.c. an employee, a customer, a supplier, etcetera. In this article our focus is on employees. By taking the Other as a starting point of his reflections, Levinas helps to transform the organisation and management of work and humans in business organisations. Based on the concept of alterity and becoming susceptible to the appeal that comes to us through what Levinas refers to as the ‘face of the Other’, we argue that the philosopher calls for ‘an agapeic turn’ to management and organisation. This turn means that the focus on the well-being of the employee – and the needs, interests, ideas, and expectations as perceived by him or her – should be at the core of organising. As a result, this paper calls for an increased focus on self-determination and self-organisation to allow the Other both voice and control over her or his behaviour, actions and contributions to the outputs and outcomes of one’s organisational unit. Through our focus on a Levinas approach, we concretize and deepen the traditional understanding of agape, making it more relevant to our functioning in a business setting. As a result, agape is introduced as an analytical concept that guides the structuring and the effectuation of human interaction in and through organisations.
This chapter draws on feminist theories, and specifically the idea of feminist ethics, to propose embodied relational care based on interconnectedness, cohabitation and compassion for each other. Τaking inspiration from feminist thinking, it offers an eclectic proposal for a new ethics for management concerned with the situatedness of embodied ethics, interdependency and relational care. It specifically applies the feminist politics of emancipation to develop an ethics of relationality to rethink issues of equality and inclusivity in the business context. It also offers non-hegemonic notion care, as a political and ontological condition that emerges from this interdependency, for better understanding and addressing the inequalities that current business practices re(produce) in organizations and society.KeywordsRelationalityEthics of carePostructuralismPsychoanalysisPrecarityInterdependence
Objectives:
In this study, we analyzed the validation and effects of a brief intervention of Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy (ABCT). Specifically, the aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of this brief protocol in improving compassion and other related variables.
Method:
The intervention consists of two five-hour sessions, in a controlled trial with one intervention group (ABCT) and one control group. Before and after the intervention, a short questionnaire was administered, focused on compassion and other related variables (i.e. transcendence beliefs, happiness, endo-group solidarity, and global identity). Participants in the experimental group were 17 healthy adults (i.e., students and university teachers) attending a compassion intervention based on ABCT. The control group was composed of 44 participants who did not attend the intervention.
Results:
Results showed that, compared to the control group, the brief ABCT intervention significantly improved compassion, which was the main aim of the intervention, and further analysis showed that it also significantly increased transcendence beliefs and endo-group solidarity. Moreover, the ABCT intervention were empirically validated.
Conclusions:
These results confirm and validate the potential of a brief ABCT intervention.
Despite Peter Frost’s (1999, p. 128) call for organizational scholars and practitioners to “find suffering as a significant aspect of organizational life,” both have largely remained silent about it. This silence misrepresents the fact that suffering is a pervasive, inescapable, and costly organizational reality. Suffering matters, and a recognition of our general inattention to it exposes an under-appreciated shortcoming of established theories and approaches to management. We must acknowledge, account for, and explicitly investigate suffering if we are to truly understand the full humanity of organizational life. Accordingly, this paper outlines promising areas for future research on suffering in organizations.
Purpose
Based on a new management paradigm rooted on care and compassion, this study explores the consequences of compassion at work on organizational learning and firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the research model by using data from two different samples.
Findings
Results confirm that compassion increases firm performance through organizational learning capability; however, compassion do not enhances directly firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
The study findings indicate that when compassion is propagated among organizational members, organizations are better able to learn so they obtain a competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate and leads to higher firm performance.
Originality/value
This study takes a step forward on literature by providing empirical evidence for a promising area of management research such is compassion in organizations.
Bu çalışmanın amacı otel işletmelerinde çalışanların iş ortamında algıladıkları şefkat düzeyinin örgütsel bağlılıklarını etkileyip etkilemediğinin tespit edilmesidir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda Çukurova Bölgesi’nde faaliyet gösteren üç, dört ve beş yıldızlı otel çalışanlarından veri toplanmıştır. Algılanan şefkat düzeyinin eğitim seviyesine, otelin sahiplik durumuna ve sektörde çalışma süresine göre farklılaştığı tespit edilmiştir. Buna göre, algılanan şefkat düzeyi eğitim seviyesi artıkça artmaktadır. Zincir otellerde çalışanların algıladıkları şefkat tek şahsa ait otel işletmelerinde çalışanlara oranla daha yüksektir. Yine, sektörde çalışma süresi arttıkça algılanan şefkat düzeyi azalmaktadır. Algılanan şefkat düzeyi açısından cinsiyet, yaş ve aynı otelde çalışma süresine göre ise anlamlı bir farklılık tespit edilememiştir. Çalışmada, iş ortamında algılanan şefkat düzeyinin duygusal ve normatif bağlılık ile pozitif ilişkili olduğu ve örgütsel bağlılığı olumlu yönde etkilediği tespit edilmiştir.
Volunteering is an activity with a wide range of positive outcomes, particularly for the target of the effort. Still, volunteers can benefit from their activities as well. This is interesting, because the very essence of engaging in an activity voluntarily means that volunteers act “without expectation of reward” (Snyder & Omoto in Social Issues and Policy Review 2, p. 2, 2008) for themselves. But the by-catch of benefits for the volunteers is reported too structurally to be marginalized as mere incidents. Further, the volunteers are often surprised when they reflect on the positive outcomes of their volunteering activities for themselves. As they start with a focus on making a difference for others, they do not expect the richness of differences volunteering activities make in their own lives. This chapter presents a phenomenological study of volunteering experiences in India and what it means to engage in volunteering, with the aim to propose an intervention for experiencing meaning in life. In line with phenomenology’s accent on uncovering experiences and meanings, this chapter yields insights into concrete volunteering actions, unintended effects of volunteering and what engaging in volunteering means for the volunteers themselves. Data were collected by means of 37 semi-structured interviews. Embodied compassionate actions formed the core of volunteers’ work experiences. The frameworks of Embodied Aboutness and Meanings of Life were used as means to structure the embodied compassionate actions and the meaningful outcomes of volunteering. Seven embodied compassionate actions and seven meaningful outcomes were identified. The CARE-protocol (Context, Aboutness, Reflect and Engage) is proposed as an intervention for those who want to experience meaningfulness as well. From our study it appears to be valuable to conduct additional studies on embodied psychology.
The purpose of this article is to detail how Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the hero’s journey, and Carol Pearson’s archetypical stages of human development have inspired an interpretive clinical assessment to construct meaning from songs created by adolescents who identify with Hip Hop Culture and who have experienced extreme trauma. The history and creative elements of Hip Hop Culture are rich with mythic narratives that reflect the lived social, cultural, and political experience of communities marginalized and underrepresented, and it especially connects with a global adolescent audience. Adolescence, as a developmental stage of human growth, can be viewed through the lens of a hero’s journey in which a child moves through a stage of liminality to enter into adulthood. This perspective can be particularly useful for music therapists when making meaning of songs created by adolescents who have experienced childhood trauma. Three songs, representing different stages and archetypes along each songwriter’s hero’s journey, will be presented to reveal the trials, clinical goals, fears, and rewards contained within the lyrical and musical components.
This article is the author’s autoethnographic exploration of change in music education (Randles, 2013, 2015a) as illustrative of a hero collective, a term used here to represent a sociocultural explanation of Campbell’s hero’s journey as outlined in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2008). The hero collective is a term that is inclusive of all individuals working in the field of music education who would like to see much more diversity in offerings and modes of musicianship represented in the curriculum of primary and secondary (K-12), as well as higher education music. Tensions involved in this pursuit are presented as part of the separation-initiation-return cycle of Campbell’s hero’s journey as expressed specifically by Vogler (2007). The hero collective is proposed to be a more realistic explanation of how to conceptualize the hero’s journey, given the current discourse in the creativity literature around sociocultural as opposed to purely individualized notions of creativity (Sawyer, 2012). The author makes the case, in line with previous work, that curriculum development is a creative process, and that the hero’s journey might be used as one way of conceptualizing what the change process might look like in the real world.
The purpose of this study is to focus on how organizational events, i.e. corporate social responsibility (CSR) develops positive emotions among employees through compassion at workplace in banking industry of India. The employees of banking industry in India were surveyed by using self-administered questionnaire. A total of 241 samples were collected by using convenience sampling technique. This is a comprehensive study which answers how CSR induces positive emotion. Findings indicated that CSR influences positive emotions through compassion at workplace, in addition to the direct effect of CSR on positive emotions. In addition to this, findings of the study revealed that compassion mediates the relationship between CSR and positive emotion which is a new contribution to the literature. This study sheds new light on both CSR and positive emotions. This is the first pieces of research in management literature which addresses positive emotion as a consequence of CSR. In addition to this, this is the first pieces of research where AET mechanism is introduced to see the linkage between CSR and positive emotions.
Aufgrund der Klumpung von Interviews in Interviewern können Designeffekte auftreten, die die Umfrageergebnisse maßgeblich beeinträchtigen können. Dabei ist grundlegend davon auszugehen, dass die Varianz eines Messwertes umso größer wird, je ungleicher die Verteilung der Interviews über die Interviewer und je größer die Zahl der Interviews je Interviewer ist.
Objectives
The aim of this study is to describe the current state of workplace violence (WPV) and compassionate behaviour towards nurses and to explain how they affect nurses’ stress, sleep quality and subjective health status.
Design
A cross-sectional online survey study.
Setting
The survey was conducted across eight provinces in China.
Participants
A total of 1024 nurses were recruited to complete an online questionnaire survey from February to May 2016 in China.
Results
Approximately 75.4% participants had experienced some form of violence. Most of the participants experienced WPV such as verbal violence (65.2%), made difficulties (54.5%), tarnished reputation (37.5%), mob behaviour (34.9%), intimidation behaviour (18.8%), physical violence (14.6%) and sexual harassment (5.9%). In this study, 92.4% participants experienced compassionate behaviour from their coworkers (84.9%), supervisors (67.3%), and from their patients (65.3%). The results show that the exposure to WPV behaviour significantly affected the psychological stress (β=0.295, p<0.01), sleep quality (β=−0.198, p<0.01) and subjective health status (β=−0.252, p<0.01) of nurses. The exposure to compassionate behaviour significantly affected the psychological stress (β=−0.229, p<0.01), sleep quality (β=0.326, p<0.01) and subjective health status (β=0.342, p<0.01) of nurses. The results of the mediation analysis showed that psychological stress is a partial mediator in the relationship between violence and sleep quality (β=−0.458, p<0.01) and between violence and subjective health (β=−0.425, p<0.01). Moreover, psychological stress also partially mediated the relationship between compassionate behaviour and sleep quality (β=−0.473, p<0.01), and between compassionate behaviour and subjective health (β=−0.405, p<0.01).
Conclusion
In China, most nurses have experienced different forms of WPV from patients and/or their relatives, as well as experiencing various forms of compassionate behaviour from their coworkers, supervisors and/or patients. This study investigates the prevalence of the different types of WPV and compassionate behaviour. Several aspects of harm to nurses from exposure to violence is confirmed. We found that WPV can damage nurses’ health outcomes, while compassionate behaviours were beneficial to their health outcomes. A harmonious nursing environment should be provided to minimise threats to nurses’ health status.
What could the underdeveloped research area of canine–human companionship teach us about gendered body work as well as offer to the field of organization studies more broadly? This article responds to recent discussions on the animal in the organizational academy. We share an autoethnographic story of female–canine companionship as experienced by one of the authors of the article and her beloved dog, who is currently living on the borderlines between life and death, joy and mourning. We find this example relevant for raising important feminist concerns among organizational scholars about silenced questions around care and grief as well as for developing more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to exploring research topics dealing with vulnerability. Finally, this article offers a critical reflection on the potential and limitations of alternative research in the field of organization studies that recognizes our affective relations with animals.
Media use can be considered as an integral part of virtual communication and thus of present-day human interaction. Nevertheless, research on media use and effects still largely relies on laboratory experiments, treating it as a stable input condition, rather than as a function of human appropriation. In this study, we propose a conceptualization of virtual communication as a dynamic construct dependent on media appropriation, particularly of compensatory adaptation processes. Using longitudinal data gathered from 165 individuals, nested in 34 project teams, we explore compensatory adaptation as a function of communication intensity and physical media richness and develop a continuous score of virtual communication accounting for these compensatory processes. Multilevel analyses demonstrate a significant influence of this communication measure on team performance, increasing over time. These results are discussed with regards to their implications for theories of media use and effects and their relevance for real-life communication processes.
How do you manage a team following the death of an employee? This article explores this question and inquires if managerial responses to suffering can be compassionate with a decentralized team structure, in the restaurant industry where employees are faced with a high degree of emotional labour. To date, the compassion process has suggested that a focal actor, often a manager, first must notice suffering, then must feel empathic concern, and act in ways to alleviate a sufferer’s pain (Kanov et al., 2004). In this study, against the backdrop of the compassion process with a narrative approach and stories-as-text design, the findings articulate the material conditions that impede, disavow and inhibit the compassion process from the point of view of three restaurant managers acting as focal actors and their (rather unsuccessful) attempts to aid and alleviate the suffering of their grieving team members. By explicating the dynamics of their managerial failure using the link of grief and compassion, this article extends our understanding of grief at work and management in the restaurant industry more broadly.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview about the insightful Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) concept, which is considered as one of the most important management theoretical developments over the past decade. Therefore, it reviews the meaning, scope, domains, major constructs, outcomes, and theoretical overlaps related to POS, as well as providing a critical analysis of this umbrella concept. In doing so, it is expected to contribute to further understanding of POS theoretical richness as a path to the improvement of workplaces. Despite the difficulties and problems discussed here (e.g., few empirical work, validity issues, and some theoretical intersections) under the relatively new POS concept has ever gathered germane knowledge that has helped to explain how organizations improve their dynamics and general outcomes by adopting more constructive approaches. On the other hand, it is exciting to find that POS concept researchers have worked with a sizeable number of constructs, topics, and ideas. This review contributes to the POS concept by closely examining some of its major constructs (fundamentally those ones that are more theoretically and empirically developed) such as compassion, connections and relationships, cooperation, courageous, flourishing, forgiveness, meaningful work, positive deviance, positive motions, resilience, thriving and virtuous aspects. The results reveal a richer understanding about their benefits and challenges, as well as emphasizing new possibilities for future studies.
Social science is a moral discourse, presenting claims about the nature of suffering and the proper response to suffering. Through a critique of psychooncology, I argue that social science has lost awareness of this moral dimension. The discourse of psychooncology is contrasted with that of first-person illness narratives to suggest (a) what is missing in the aggregation of ill persons' experiences as `data' for research purposes, and (b) what is missing in therapeutic practice that is ancillary to medical treatment. A hermeneutic stance in both research and therapy is advocated over scientific objectivism, and narrative is proposed as a basis of reconstituting research and therapy.
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68944/2/10.1177_105649269982005.pdf