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Mindfulness in Organizations: A Cross-Level Review

April 2016
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 3(1)

DOI:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062531

Authors:

Kathleen M Sutcliffe

Johns Hopkins University

Timothy J Vogus

Vanderbilt University

In recent years, research on mindfulness has grown rapidly in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Specifically, two bodies of research have emerged: One focuses on the intrapsychic processes of individual mind-fulness and the other on the social processes of collective mindfulness. In this review we provide a pioneering, cross-level review of mindfulness in organizations and find that mindfulness is neither mysterious nor mystical, but rather can be reliably and validly measured, linked to an array of individual and organizational outcomes, and induced through meditative and nonmeditative practices and processes at the individual and collective levels. Our analysis of the combined literatures further reveals that although each literature is impressive, there is a significant need for multilevel mindfulness research that simultaneously examines individual and collective mindfulness and broadens its conception of context. This research agenda provides a more robust understanding of the antecedents, processes, and consequences of individual and collective mindfulness as well as more definitive evidence maximizing mindfulness and its benefits in practice.

Definitions of collective mindfulness

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Mindfulness in Organizations:

A Cross-Level Review

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe,1Timothy J. Vogus,2

and Erik Dane3,∗

1Carey Business School and School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,

Maryland 21202; email: ksutcliffe@jhu.edu

2Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203;

email: timothy.vogus@owen.vanderbilt.edu

3Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77252;

email: erik.i.dane@rice.edu

Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2016.

3:55–81

First published online as a Review in Advance on

January 29, 2016

The Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and

Organizational Behavior is online at

orgpsych.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:

10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062531

2016 by Annual Reviews.

∗The authors contributed equally to this review.

Keywords

mindfulness, collective mindfulness, awareness, high-reliability

Abstract

In recent years, research on mindfulness has grown rapidly in organizational

psychology and organizational behavior. Speciﬁcally, two bodies of research

have emerged: One focuses on the intrapsychic processes of individual mind-

fulness and the other on the social processes of collective mindfulness. In

this review we provide a pioneering, cross-level review of mindfulness in

organizations and ﬁnd that mindfulness is neither mysterious nor mystical,

but rather can be reliably and validly measured, linked to an array of in-

dividual and organizational outcomes, and induced through meditative and

nonmeditative practices and processes at the individual and collective levels.

Our analysis of the combined literatures further reveals that although each

literature is impressive, there is a signiﬁcant need for multilevel mindfulness

research that simultaneously examines individual and collective mindfulness

and broadens its conception of context. This research agenda provides a

more robust understanding of the antecedents, processes, and consequences

of individual and collective mindfulness as well as more deﬁnitive evidence

maximizing mindfulness and its beneﬁts in practice.

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ANNUAL

REVIEWS

Further

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INTRODUCTION

“Live in the present.” It’s an ancient piece of advice, advanced throughout the ages. It is also the

centerpiece of one of the most rapidly ascending lines of scholarship today: mindfulness research.

The inﬂuence of mindfulness extends well beyond the legions of peer-reviewed studies on the

topic and even a journal, Mindfulness, devoted to the scientiﬁc study of its eponymous subject to

include an outpouring of popular press writing trumpeting the beneﬁts of mindfulness, widespread

adoption of mindfulness practice in training and development programs of major corporations

ranging from Google to General Mills, features on prominent news programs such as 60 Minutes,

and even apps downloadable to most smartphones. Universities, too, have taken up the call. For

example, the director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center

leads on average 200 people every week in a silent Mindfulness Awareness meditation class held

at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater (Hanc 2015).

Growth in the scholarly and practitioner popularity of mindfulness has paralleled and con-

tributed to a corresponding growth in journalistic and scholarly critique (e.g., Ehrenreich

2009). More speciﬁcally, critics have deemed organizational implementations of mindfulness

McMindfulness (Purser & Loy 2013) and criticized foundational mindfulness research as lacking

sufﬁcient rigor (e.g., Coyne 2014), or argued that the existing treatments of collective forms of

mindfulness (e.g., Weick et al. 1999) have neutered it of its emancipatory potential (Purser &

Milillo 2015). Still, the surge of interest in the topic dovetails with the observation that mindful-

ness can be studied systematically and rigorously. Through a combination of survey, experimental,

neurocognitive, and inductive methods (e.g., conversation analysis, ethnography), researchers have

placed mindfulness under the microscope, putting centuries-old claims about its beneﬁts to the

test.

Although such so-called scientization of mindfulness has also been critiqued, research has found

that, consistent with longstanding historical claims, mindfulness matters. Evidence shows that it is

associated with some of the very outcomes—enhanced psychological and physical well-being (e.g.,

Brown et al. 2007), for example—that people have long ascribed to it. Moreover, research indicates

that mindfulness can prove beneﬁcial in ways that even historical accounts of the phenomenon did

not anticipate. To illustrate, researchers have demonstrated that mindfulness can slow aging (Epel

et al. 2009), improve standardized test performance (Mrazek et al. 2013), and produce measurable

changes in the human brain (H¨

olzel et al. 2011a). More germane to our review, organizational

research indicates that individual mindfulness is positively related to employee outcomes such as

work engagement (Leroy et al. 2013) and job performance (Dane & Brummel 2014), suggesting

that mindfulness contributes to an organization’s bottom line.

More recently, researchers have begun to investigate the employee and organizational conse-

quences of collective mindfulness—deﬁned as the collective capability to discern discriminatory

detail about emerging issues and to act swiftly in response to these details (Weick et al. 1999,

2000; Vogus & Sutcliffe 2012)—and, in doing so, have found an array of beneﬁts. For employees,

mindful organizing is associated with lower turnover rates (Vogus et al. 2014a), and for organi-

zations, collective mindfulness is positively related to salutary organizational outcomes including

greater customer satisfaction (Ndubisi 2012); more effective resource allocation (Wilson et al.

2011); greater innovation (Vogus & Welbourne 2003); and improved quality, safety, and reliabil-

ity (e.g., Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a,b). Interestingly, these effects are most commonly observed in

particularly trying contexts characterized by complexity, dynamism, and error intolerance.

Our review suggests that mindfulness research in the organizational sciences carries the po-

tential to shift our thinking on the nature of mindfulness itself. The view of mindfulness ad-

vanced here—one buttressed by cross-level observations drawn from a careful review of more

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than 100 empirical studies and an additional survey of dozens of conceptual papers—suggests that

mindfulness is a more social construct than its name, implied mechanisms, and measurement

implies. As revealed through our organizational and cross-level investigation, mindfulness is em-

bedded in and powerfully shaped by multiple aspects of context, both in how it is triggered and

how it connects to other processes and individual and organizational outcomes. Highlighting such

connections, our review spotlights the emerging literature on collective mindfulness, which, as

with many collective constructs (Morgeson & Hofmann 1999), is not only shaped by top-down

organizational practices and processes but also enacted through a bottom-up process of social

action and interaction. However, collective mindfulness adds nuance with its particular character,

namely the focus of attention in collective mindfulness on the unexpected and the content of social

processes that undergird anticipating, detecting, and responding to it (Weick et al. 1999). Although

underemphasized in the literature, this claim follows from points raised in our review and provides

guidance as to where scholars could focus their attention moving forward. Researchers in orga-

nizational psychology and organizational behavior are especially and even uniquely well-suited to

integrate individual and collective mindfulness through multilevel theorizing and empirical re-

search that could augment existing accounts of mindfulness and also reorient research in notable

directions.

Despite these signiﬁcant advances and noteworthy possibilities, mindfulness research remains

in its nascent stages, especially in the organizational sciences. The purpose of this review is to

synthesize multiple lines of research on mindfulness to provide organizational scholars with a

better understanding of what mindfulness is (across various levels of analysis), how it can be

measured, what fosters its development, and why and how it matters in the workplace. In addition,

we highlight numerous promising avenues for further research, speciﬁcally discussing the cross-

level and cross-cultural aspects of mindfulness. In the aggregate, the observations and frameworks

advanced in this review not only provide greater clarity of this burgeoning scholarly domain, but

also serve as a “user’s guide” for scholars and practitioners seeking to navigate, enrich, and apply

the insights emerging from this timeless and timely line of inquiry.

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?

Although individual-level mindfulness does not have a single, universally accepted deﬁnition,

progress on this front is apparent. Indeed, within organizational psychology and organizational

behavior, deﬁnitions of individual mindfulness are more convergent than divergent. Table 1

features numerous deﬁnitions of individual mindfulness culled from articles recently published by

organizational and psychological scholars. For precision, we include each deﬁnition in its entirety,

along with (wherever relevant) the citation(s) the authors included alongside their deﬁnition (to

provide further insight into the conceptual lineage associated with the deﬁnition).

Common across these deﬁnitions is the observation that mindfulness is a particular state of

consciousness—one in which an individual focuses attention on present-moment events. For ex-

ample, Zhang & Wu (2014, p. 24) deﬁne mindfulness as “a mental state with the characteristics of

present-focused awareness and attention.” Similarly, mindfulness has been described as “a recep-

tive state of mind wherein attention, informed by awareness of present experience, simply observes

what is taking place” (Niemiec et al. 2010, p. 345). Deﬁning mindfulness as a present-moment

focused state of consciousness aligns with historical perspectives on the concept and is in keeping

with investigations of the topic in cognitive and social psychology (e.g., Brown & Ryan 2003,

Brown et al. 2007, Mrazek et al. 2012). Indeed, several of the deﬁnitions included in Table 1 are

rooted in a foundational observation published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Table 1 Deﬁnitions of individual mindfulness

Source Deﬁnition of individual mindfulness

Baas et al. (2014) A state of conscious awareness resulting from living in the moment (Brown & Ryan 2003,

Kabat-Zinn 1994)

Carlson (2013, p. 175) Attention to one’s current experience and nonevaluative observation of that experience

(Bishop et al. 2004)

Creswell & Lindsay (2014, p. 402) Monitoring one’s present-moment experience with acceptance

Dane (2011, p. 1000) A state of consciousness in which attention is focused on present-moment phenomena

occurring both externally and internally

Eisenbeiss & van Knippenberg (2015) A meta-cognitive ability deﬁned as “a state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking

place in the present” (Brown & Ryan 2003, p. 822) and involves conscious perception and

processing of external stimuli (in contrast to automatic tendencies)

H¨

ulsheger et al. (2013, p. 310) A state of nonjudgmental attentiveness to and awareness of moment-to-moment

experiences (Bishop et al. 2004, Brown & Ryan 2003)

H¨

ulsheger et al. (2014, p. 1114) A state of consciousness in which individuals pay attention to the present moment with an

accepting and nonjudgmental attitude (Brown et al. 2007, Kabat-Zinn 1994)

Langer (2014, p. 11) An active state of mind characterized by novel distinction-drawing that results in being

(a) situated in the present, (b) sensitive to context and perspective, and (c) guided (but not

governed) by rules and routines

Leroy et al. (2013, p. 238) A receptive attention to and awareness of external (e.g., sounds) and internal (e.g., emotions)

present-moment states, events, and experiences (Brown & Ryan 2003, Dane 2011)

Niemiec et al. (2010, p. 345) A receptive state of mind wherein attention, informed by awareness of present experience,

simply observes what is taking place

Reb et al. (2014) Present-moment awareness with an observing, nonjudging stance (e.g., Bishop et al. 2004,

Brown et al. 2007, Mikulas 2011)

Ruedy & Schweitzer (2010, p. 73) An individual’s awareness, both internally (awareness of their own thoughts) and externally

(awareness of what is happening in their environment)

Zhang et al. (2013, p. 433) A present-focused awareness and attention (the presence factor) with an open attitude

toward ongoing events and experiences (the acceptance factor) (Bishop et al. 2004)

Zhang & Wu (2014, p. 24) A mental state with the characteristics of present-focused awareness and attention (Bishop

et al. 2004, Brown et al. 2007, Langer 1989b)

that mindfulness is “the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present”

(Brown & Ryan 2003, p. 822).

Some deﬁnitions included in Table 1 indicate that the present-moment attentiveness associated

with mindfulness concerns not only external events but also internal (or intrapsychic) events,

such as intuitions and emotions. For example, Leroy et al. (2013, p. 238) note that mindfulness

involves attending to “external (e.g., sounds) and internal (e.g., emotions) present-moment states,

events and experiences,” and Ruedy & Schweitzer (2010, p. 73) observe that mindfulness concerns

awareness of one’s “own thoughts” as well as “what is happening in [one’s] environment.” Thus,

mindfulness entails awareness of “phenomena occurring both externally and internally” (Dane

2011, p. 1000).

The portrait of individual-level mindfulness suggested thus far—i.e., paying attention to in-

ternal and external present-moment events—provides a basis for comparing and differentiating

mindfulness from other attention-related concepts. For example, mindfulness is similar to absorp-

tion (Rothbard 2001) and ﬂow (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), insofar as each of these states involves

directing attention to present-moment events. However, mindfulness is distinct from these con-

cepts because it involves wide attentional breadth—that is, it involves directing attention toward

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not only external events and phenomena but also internal events (Dane 2011; see also Sheldon

et al. 2015 for empirical distinctions between mindfulness and ﬂow).

Despite the similarities across various deﬁnitions of mindfulness, differences exist. Most no-

tably, deﬁnitions differ on whether mindfulness consists solely of focusing attention on present-

moment events or whether additional features or qualities characterize mindfulness. For example,

as reﬂected in Table 1, some deﬁnitions suggest that, to be mindful, one’s connection to the

present moment must be nonjudgmental (e.g., H ¨

ulsheger et al. 2013, Sheldon et al. 2015). That

is, in attending to present-moment events, one refrains from making judgments or evaluations,

and thus maintains a nonjudging stance (Reb et al. 2014). This view of mindfulness aligns closely

with traditional Eastern perspectives on the topic, which emphasize the importance of adopting

an open and accepting attitude toward the events one encounters (see Bishop et al. 2004).

A different line of research—one pioneered by Ellen Langer—deﬁnes mindfulness as “an active

state of mind characterized by novel distinction-drawing that results in being (1) situated in the

present; (2) sensitive to context and perspective; and (3) guided (but not governed) by rules and

routines” (Langer 2014, p. 11; see also Langer 1989b). This deﬁnition departs from the others

included in Table 1, most notably for its focus on drawing distinctions. Indeed, Langer’s view of

mindfulness is more directly tied to creative thinking than to Eastern perspectives on the concept.

This does not mean, however, that Langer’s views on mindfulness are incommensurate with

Eastern perspectives. In fact, Langer (2014) has suggested the line often drawn between other

accounts of mindfulness and her own is unduly stark.

Research on collective mindfulness exhibits greater deﬁnitional coherence than its individual

analogue. This is primarily a function of Weick et al.’s (1999) highly inﬂuential work, which intro-

duced the concept to organizational psychology and organizational behavior and has continued to

serve as the canonical conceptualization. Their deﬁnition of collective mindfulness is alternatively

referred to as mindful organizing (the two terms used interchangeably throughout our review)

and originally builds on the individual-level work of Langer (1989a) and her three aspects of

mindfulness (Weick et al. 1999). Collective mindfulness comprises ﬁve interrelated processes at

multiple organizational levels: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify interpretations,

sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise (Vogus & Sutcliffe

2012; Weick et al. 1999; Weick & Sutcliffe 2001, 2006, 2007). Preoccupation with failure is the

active consideration and ongoing wariness of the possibility of failure that treats any failure or

near miss as an indicator of potentially larger problems (LaPorte & Consolini 1991). Reluctance

to simplify interpretations means actively questioning received wisdom and operating assump-

tions to better uncover blind spots (Schulman 1993). Sensitivity to operations means creating and

maintaining a current, integrated understanding of operations in the moment (Weick et al. 1999).

A commitment to resilience involves growing employee and organizational capabilities to adapt,

improvise, and learn in order to better recover from unexpected events (van Dyck et al. 2005).

Finally, deference to expertise occurs when decisions migrate to those with the greatest expertise

with the problem at hand, regardless of formal rank (Roberts et al. 1994).

Table 2 features a representative, but not exhaustive, set of deﬁnitions of collective mindfulness

culled from articles recently published by organizational and psychological scholars. The inﬂuence

of Weick and colleagues is evident, as most of the articles reviewed adopt their deﬁnition (or, in

papers that precede it, inform their deﬁnition, e.g., Schulman 1993).

Collective mindfulness was originally developed to explain how high-reliability organizations

(HROs) avoid catastrophe and perform in a nearly error-free manner under trying conditions.

Over time, the focus has expanded to include “organizations that pay close attention to what is

going on around them, refusing to function on ‘auto-pilot’” (Ray et al. 2011, p. 188; also see Fiol

& O’Connor 2003). In either case, unlike individual mindfulness, organizational mindfulness is

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Table 2 Deﬁnitions of collective mindfulness

Source Deﬁnition of collective mindfulness

Ausserhofer et al. (2013, p. 157) To stay mindful, despite hazardous environments, frontline employees consider constantly ﬁve

principles: tracking small failures, resisting oversimpliﬁcation, remaining sensitive to operations,

maintaining capabilities for resilience, and taking advantage of shifting locations of expertise

Barry & Meisiek (2010, p. 1505) The capacity of groups and individuals to be acutely aware of signiﬁcant details, to notice errors in

the making, and to have the shared expertise and freedom to act on what they notice (from Weick

et al. 2000, p. 34)

Carlo et al. (2012, pp. 1081–82) A means to increase organizational reliability and mitigate the adverse potential of unexpected,

so-called black swan events (Taleb 2007), and is characterized by ﬁve mindful behaviors, including

continuous learning from failures and the willingness to consider alternative perspectives

Hales et al. (2012, p. 570) When, in an organizational context, an individual maintains a level of alertness to the activities

surrounding his/her job or task and awareness of how he/she contributes to an overall process

that produces a good or service for a customer

Hargadon & Bechky

(2006, p. 486)

Describes the amount of attention and effort that individuals allocate to a particular task or

interaction, and, through mindful interpretation by group members of an ongoing experience and

the mindful generation of appropriate actions, collective cognition connects individual ideas and

experiences, both redeﬁning and resolving the demands of emerging situations

Hoy et al. (2006, p. 241) Preoccupation with mistakes, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to day-to-day operations,

resilience, and deference to expertise

Knox et al. (1999, p. 26) Actively and continuously question assumptions; promote orderly challenge of operating routines

and practices so successful lessons of the past do not become routine to the point of safety

degradation; “outside view” actively solicited or created through active multidisciplinary review of

the routine and debrieﬁng of the unusual to prevent normalization of deviance

Mu & Butler (2009, p. 29) An elevated state of awareness of expectations, a nuanced appreciation of the speciﬁc context, and

an alertness to potentially signiﬁcant changes in the face of new and unprecedented situations;

takes into account the speciﬁc organizational situation rather than following bandwagon effects

Ndubisi (2012, p. 537) Systems and processes to promote individual and collective mindfulness; a way of working marked

by a focus on the present, attention to operational detail, willingness to consider alternative

perspectives, and an interest in investigating and understanding failures

Ray et al. (2011, p. 188) Referred to by some as organizational mindfulness, a construct developed initially to describe how

high-reliability organizations avoid catastrophic errors (Weick & Sutcliffe 2001), but now

increasingly used to characterize organizations that pay close attention to what is going on around

them, refusing to function on “autopilot”; “mindful” organizations “induce a rich awareness of

discriminatory detail and a capacity for action” (Weick et al. 1999, p. 88)

Valorinta (2009, p. 964) Mindfulness refers to processes that keep organizations sensitive to their environment, open and

curious to new information, and able to effectively contain and manage unexpected events in a

prompt and ﬂexible fashion

Wilson et al. (2011, p. 808) The combination of ongoing scrutiny of existing expectations based on newer experiences,

willingness, and capacity to invent new expectations based on newer experiences, willingness and

capacity to invent new expectations that make sense of unprecedented events, a more nuanced

appreciation of context and ways to deal with it, and identiﬁcation of new dimensions of context

to improve foresight and current functioning (from Weick & Sutcliffe 2001, p. 42)

Barrett et al. (2006), Vogus &

Sutcliffe (2007a,b), Vogus &

Welbourne (2003), Vogus

et al. (2014a), Weick (2005),

Weick & Sutcliffe (2003)

All use the categories of collective mindfulness and the deﬁnitions from Weick et al. (1999) and/or

later adaptations by Weick & Sutcliffe (2001, 2007); other studies, such as LaPorte & Consolini

(1991; preoccupation with failure, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and

deference to expertise), Roberts et al. (1994; deference to expertise), and Schulman (1993;

reluctance to simplify interpretations), constitute collective mindfulness

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not viewed as an intrapsychic process or even an aggregation of intrapsychic processes. Instead,

organizational mindfulness is a function of social practices, both action (Weick & Roberts 1993)

and communication (Cooren 2004). In other words, collective mindfulness is a means of engaging

in the everyday social processes of organizing that sustains attention on detailed comprehension

of one’s context and on factors that interfere with such comprehension (Vogus & Sutcliffe 2012;

Weick et al. 1999; Weick & Sutcliffe 2001, 2006, 2007). The emergence of collective mindfulness

in the course of ongoing organizing across organizational levels (Vogus & Sutcliffe 2012) puts it in

tension with recent characterizations of organizational mindfulness as a relatively enduring, stable,

and shared property of organization (Ray et al. 2011). Recent work by Carlo et al. (2012, pp. 1102–

3) has reinforced a cross-level, emergent, and fragile deﬁnition of collective mindfulness as “a

totality with intricately connected and interdependent components, from which organizational

mindfulness emerges at the system level.”

Although closely connected to Langer’s foundational work, research in organizational be-

havior highlighting collective mental processes independently informed and shaped the initial

formulation of collective mindfulness. Sandelands & Stablein (1987, pp. 137–38) proposed that

organizations are mental entities capable of thought. As they argued, although the mind is com-

monly deﬁned by what it is able to do, such as think, feel, perceive, or will, it is “not so much

a substance with intellective powers as it is a process of forming ideas.” Westrum (1992, 1997)

suggested that some organizations (e.g., HROs) are “generative, thinking entities, protected by a

comprehensive envelope of human thought” (1997, p. 237). Weick & Roberts (1993) showed that

the reliable operations on naval aircraft carrier ﬂight decks resulted from the “collective mind,”

embodied in the interrelating of crewmembers’ social activities and interactions.

Weick et al.’s (1999) formulation of collective mindfulness has been subsequently reﬁned to

make enriched organizational attention and present moment awareness more focal (Weick &

Sutcliffe 2006). This clariﬁcation of collective mindfulness has led to illustrations of “Eastern”

perspectives on collective mindfulness (e.g., Weick & Putnam 2006) and increasing research in

the domain of organizational attention (e.g., Rerup 2009). For example, building on Weick &

Sutcliffe (2006), Rerup (2009) empirically illustrated attentional triangulation as a mindfulness-

like state characterized by stability (concentration), vividness (complexity of representation of

issues), and coherence (compatibility across individuals and collectives).

The conceptual elaboration and reﬁnement of collective mindfulness have also been met with

criticism. Fiol & O’Connor (2003) argued that two of the ﬁve processes of collective mindfulness

needed signiﬁcant change. First, they noted that a sensitivity to operations is mindfulness and not

distinctive. Second, they argued that a preoccupation with failure limits the relevant contexts and,

consequently, reformulated it as preoccupation with failure or success. Levinthal & Rerup (2006)

posit that in its focus on attention and novelty, research on collective mindfulness underplays what

they see as the critical importance of routine action, as well as Weick et al.’s (1999) focus on creat-

ing, enriching, and sustaining mindfulness. Lastly, as the collective mindfulness literature began to

more formally adopt some of the language and concepts from the Buddhist tradition (e.g., Weick

& Putnam 2006), Purser & Milillo (2015) have argued that the treatment of Buddhist doctrine is

inappropriate and incomplete, stripping important context and emancipatory aims foundational

to the perspective. These critiques, however, have remained at the periphery of collective mind-

fulness research but may provide useful future conceptual and empirical reﬁnements.

Although deﬁnitional progress and convergence may well continue, we do not view complete

deﬁnitional convergence as essential for research on individual and collective mindfulness to

proceed. That multiple perspectives on mindfulness exist is emblematic of the richness of the

mindfulness construct and the deep and wide-ranging lines of inquiry and practice that lie at the

construct’s core. Nevertheless, we do see value in cataloging and consolidating deﬁnitions, and

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Trait State

Single

dimension

Multiple

dimensions

Single

dimension

Multiple

dimensions

Single

dimension

Multiple

dimensions

Not meditation

Meditation

Not meditation

Meditation

Not meditation

Meditation

Not meditation

Meditation

Trait

MAAS

FMI PHLMS

FFMQ

TMS SMSState

MAAS

Individual

SOS HROP

OMP

Collective

Figure 1

Measures of mindfulness decision tree. Abbreviations: FFMQ, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; FMI, Freiburg Mindfulness

Inventory; HROP, high-reliability organization perceptions; MAAS, Mindful Attention Awareness Scale; OM, organizational

mindfulness; OMP, organizational mindfulness processes; PHLMS, Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale; SMS, State Mindfulness Scale;

SOS, Safety Organizing Scale; TMS, Toronto Mindfulness Scale.

we hope this review provides an advance in this direction. We further hope that articulating the

individual-level foundations of collective mindfulness paired with the distinctive ways in which

collective mindfulness is enacted illustrates points of connection, but also opportunities for putting

these two concepts in relation to each other. (We return to the latter topic in the ﬁnal section,

Future Research Directions.)

MEASURING MINDFULNESS

Through our review of the literature, we encountered numerous scale-based approaches—and

related techniques—for capturing individual-level mindfulness empirically. Given that many of

these scales and their respective merits and applications have been reviewed recently (see Bergomi

et al. 2013), we refrain from proﬁling them in depth. Instead, consistent with our focus on mind-

fulness in the workplace, we focus on the ﬁt between speciﬁc mindfulness scales and the various

theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and contexts by which organizational scholars may opt

to study mindfulness. Bringing together the observations and prescriptions offered in this section,

Figure 1 provides researchers with a framework for selecting an individual-level mindfulness

measurement approach given their theoretical interests and empirical objectives.

As individual-level mindfulness is, by its very nature, a state of consciousness, researchers have

developed scales for assessing mindfulness at the state level, such as the Toronto Mindfulness

Scale (Lau et al. 2006) and the State Mindfulness Scale (Tanay & Bernstein 2013). Such scales ask

respondents to report how mindful they were during a task they just completed or a meditation

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session they just engaged in. For an alternative, “real time” option for assessing state-level

mindfulness, researchers might consider employing experiential sampling methods. For example,

with the assistance of a smartphone app, researchers may contact research participants at random

points during a given day or week and ask them to report what they are thinking about, how they

are feeling, and whether their mind is on task (or situated in the present moment) versus off task

(or away from the present altogether) (see Killingsworth & Gilbert 2010).

As with many state-level concepts (e.g., positive and negative affect), mindfulness can be con-

ceptualized and measured not only as a state but also as a trait. Trait-level assessment is well-suited

to correlational research linking mindfulness to global indicators of health and well-being as well

as overall job performance. Researchers have their pick of several validated trait-level scales (e.g.,

Baer et al. 2008, Brown & Ryan 2003, Cardaciotto et al. 2008, Chadwick et al. 2008). If they are

interested in the degree to which people tend to be mindful at work, researchers may consider

adapting an existing trait-level measure to capture the degree to which one tends to be mindful

within a given work context (see, e.g., Dane & Brummel 2014, Reb et al. 2015).

In selecting a measurement scale or technique, researchers should also consider how they

view mindfulness conceptually. As noted above, deﬁnitions of mindfulness vary in their features

and therefore some measurement approaches match certain deﬁnitions better than others. To

illustrate, if one views mindfulness primarily in terms of attending to the present moment, one

might consider using Brown & Ryan’s (2003) Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), given

that it focused on this particular feature (see Van Dam et al. 2010 for an item-level assessment of the

MAAS). Similarly, if one holds a multifaceted perspective on mindfulness, other measures, such as

the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al. 2008) or the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory

(Buchheld et al. 2001), are better candidates. By the same logic, researchers embracing Langer’s

(1989a,b) view of mindfulness should consider utilizing the Langer Mindfulness Scale, available

for purchase through IDS Publishing (see Haigh et al. 2011 for a psychometric examination of

this scale).

Finally, researchers should devote thought to whether meditation is germane to their re-

search question or target population. Given the historical connections between mindfulness and

meditation—and that, in some cases, researchers have used meditative training programs to

“develop” mindfulness among study participants (discussed in the next section)—some mind-

fulness scales are catered toward those who meditate (e.g., Lau et al. 2006, Walach et al. 2006). At

the same time, other scales—particularly those rooted in an individual differences perspective—

presume no experience or familiarity with meditation including the MAAS (Brown & Ryan 2003)

and the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (Cardaciotto et al. 2008). In short, depending on how one’s

study is designed (e.g., does it involve a meditative training program?) and what population(s) one

is studying, one may opt for a mindfulness scale that calls for an understanding of (or experience

with) meditation—or requires no such knowledge.

Relative to individual mindfulness, measurement of organizational mindfulness is much less

developed with few valid measures. In fact, the majority of research examining organizational

mindfulness is qualitative. Speciﬁcally, two-thirds of the works we identiﬁed as empirically inves-

tigating organizational mindfulness were qualitative, including action research (e.g., Hales et al.

2012), case studies (e.g., Bigley & Roberts 2001, Carlo et al. 2012, Madsen et al. 2006, Rerup

2009, Valorinta 2009), interview-based studies (Roth et al. 2006, Wilson et al. 2011), observa-

tional studies (Cooren 2004, 2006; Klein et al. 2006; LaPorte & Consolini 1991; Roe & Schulman

2008; Schulman 1993; Weick & Roberts 1993), and reanalyses of governmental reports (e.g.,

Weick 2005, Weick & Sutcliffe 2003) or previously published research (e.g., Barry & Meisiek

2010, McPhee et al. 2006). At its early stage of development, it is not surprising to observe a

preponderance of qualitative research. These approaches allow researchers to develop a sense of

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the grounded and ongoing nature of organizational mindfulness in a variety of settings extending

beyond traditional high-reliability settings (e.g., aircraft carrier ﬂight decks; Weick & Roberts

1993) to include architectural design and construction (Carlo et al. 2012), drug rehabilitation cen-

ters (Cooren 2004), and retail organizations (Valorinta 2009). Although helpful in detailing and

representing the collective mindfulness construct across settings, several studies merely illustrate

the known dimensions of collective mindfulness in different settings (e.g., health care; Wilson et al.

2011). Qualitative studies also inherently trade off replicability and generalizability for richness.

To build on the qualitative foundations of collective mindfulness research, quantitative mea-

surement of collective mindfulness and its constituent processes have begun to proliferate. The

direct assessment of collective mindfulness has almost exclusively taken the form of survey mea-

sures. Survey measures of collective mindfulness usually take one of two forms: a unidimensional

construct such as the Safety Organizing Scale (SOS; Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a) or a multifactor mea-

sure such as organizational mindfulness where each of the ﬁve processes (e.g., preoccupation with

failure) represents a separate construct (although it may feed into a second-level factor; Ray et al.

2011). However, most measures of collective mindfulness have been subjected to limited validity

testing. For these instruments to be valid, they need to demonstrate traditional psychometrics

by meeting traditional thresholds for reliability and validity (e.g., convergent, discriminant, and

criterion) as well as justify individual survey responses being aggregated to the collective level.

Vogus and Sutcliffe’s SOS is a nine-item, unidimensional survey measure that demonstrates

reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity (from trust in leadership and affective com-

mitment), the appropriateness of aggregating the measure, and criterion validity by linking it

to organizational (e.g., patient safety, turnover) and individual (emotional exhaustion) outcomes

across three studies of registered nurses in hospitals (Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a,b; Vogus et al.

2014a). Ausserhofer et al. (2013) followed a similar approach in validating their versions of the

scale in French, German, and Italian. Valentine et al. (2010) developed an eight-item organiza-

tional mindfulness scale on the basis of Weick & Sutcliffe’s (2001) focus on individual assessments

of a company’s dedication to stakeholder interests, quality assurance, managing uncertainty, and

positive business practices, ﬁnding support for reliability and validity (linked to corporate eth-

ical values as an antecedent and role conﬂict as an outcome); however, their measure was not

aggregated to a collective measure.

Ray et al. (2011) developed and validated a measure of organizational mindfulness in a sample

of business schools. Their 42-item measure supported ﬁve distinct factors corresponding to each

of the ﬁve components of collective mindfulness described by Weick et al. (1999), but their mea-

sure was validated at the individual, rather than the collective level. Similarly, Mu & Butler (2009)

validated a ﬁve-factor, 38-item measure of organizational mindfulness processes in student and

professional service organization samples. In addition to ﬁnding support for their hypothesized

model, they also compared the levels of each of the ﬁve factors to top management preferences re-

garding how much each should exist in the organization. Commitment to resilience and deference

to expertise illustrated the largest gap from “ideal” levels in a professional service organization.

Hoy et al. (2006) validated in a sample of middle schools three similar 10-item measures, one

for faculty, one for principals, and one for schools; they found support for aggregating individual

survey responses to the collective level and linked their measures to corresponding measures of

trust. Barrett et al. (2006) developed and validated a two-factor measure of high-reliability or-

ganizations’ perceptions. They found support in a small sample of employees of a Midwestern

ﬁre department for two factors—self-efﬁcacy and organizational risk responsiveness—in a con-

ﬁrmatory factor analysis, but did not aggregate their measure nor demonstrate criterion validity.

Although all these measures need further reﬁnement and validation, they are promising in their

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ability to discriminate subcomponents of collective mindfulness and isolate their potential unique

antecedents and consequences.

Other research has also used a range of indirect measures of collective mindfulness as part of

quantitative studies. For example, Vogus & Welbourne (2003) undertook content coding of the

company prospectuses companies ﬁled for their initial public offerings as a way to illustrate how a

set of speciﬁc human resource practices led to innovation and ﬁrm performance. Mindfulness has

also been indirectly examined using proxies for its absence such as workarounds (Wheeler et al.

2012); using survey measures of related concepts such as care reliability, information reliability,

and pre-emptive conﬂict handling as assessed by customers (Ndubisi 2012); or by inferring its

existence through a set of speciﬁc outcomes (Knox et al. 1999).

Despite the evident progress validating measures of collective mindfulness—with some ex-

ceptions (e.g., Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a)—most existing measures of collective mindfulness lack

sufﬁcient discriminant validation from related concepts such as psychological safety (Edmond-

son 1999), safety climate (leader and organizational attention and priority given to safety; Zohar

1980), transactive memory systems (Lewis 2003), team situation awareness (Salas et al. 1995),

and other teamwork behaviors (e.g., backup behavior; LePine et al. 2008), among others. This

represents a key gap because research on collective mindfulness is predicated upon it being a con-

ceptually and empirically distinct construct. In other words, for collective mindfulness research to

make signiﬁcant inroads in mainstream organizational psychology and organizational behavior,

more construct validation (especially assuring that measures of collective mindfulness are, in fact,

collective measures) and better development of its nomological network are essential.

HOW MINDFULNESS DEVELOPS: EXPLORING ANTECEDENTS

Much research concerned with the development of individual-level mindfulness maintains—and

seeks to demonstrate—that mindfulness can be developed through meditation (e.g., Jensen et al.

2012, Michel et al. 2014, Mrazek et al. 2013, Wolever et al. 2012). Such research takes its cue

from programs such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (Kabat-Zinn 2003) and mindfulness-

based cognitive therapy (Teasdale et al. 2000)—programs designed to help people achieve greater

well-being through systematic and somewhat lengthy (several weeks, in many cases) training con-

sisting of meditation sessions and exercises. Accordingly, in adopting or adapting such programs,

researchers have focused not only on developing mindfulness through meditation but also on

documenting speciﬁc outcomes associated with health and well-being [e.g., reduced stress and

improved sleep quality (see Wolever et al. 2012; see also Eberth & Sedlmeier 2012 for a meta-

analysis of meditative training programs and their outcomes)].

Building on the view that mindfulness is a byproduct of meditation—and condensing the

timescale signiﬁcantly—experimental research has shown that state mindfulness can be activated

through brief meditation-related instructions and exercises (e.g., Hafenbrack et al. 2014, Ostaﬁn

& Kassman 2012, Papies et al. 2012, Reb & Narayanan 2014). For example, Hafenbrack et al.

(2014) induced mindfulness through a 15-minute exercise that involved focusing attention on

one’s breath. Papies et al. (2012) induced mindfulness by displaying pictures to subjects and

instructing them to consider the content—as well as the transience—of their reactions to the

pictures they viewed. That state mindfulness can be induced in a short time frame through a

variety of approaches has likely contributed to the bourgeoning of research on mindfulness in

cognitive and social psychology (ﬁelds well-suited to experimental methods).

If one looks beyond research linking mindfulness to meditation, the body of work document-

ing antecedents to individual-level mindfulness is remarkably thin. Through our review of the

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literature, we identiﬁed only a handful of studies investigating factors that inﬂuence the

development of mindfulness and/or predict its occurrence. Interestingly, compared to other

ﬁelds of psychology, organizational psychology and organizational behavior have played a more

pioneering role here.

Dispositional Factors

As noted above, mindfulness can be theorized and measured as both a state and a trait. Although

the origins of trait mindfulness have received little scholarly investigation, research indicates

that trait affect is related to other dispositional characteristics. Through a meta-analysis, Giluk

(2009) found that trait mindfulness is negatively related to neuroticism and positively related to

conscientiousness and trait-level positive affect. To be sure, correlation does not imply causation,

and it is therefore possible that high trait mindfulness explains and predicts a factor such as positive

trait affect rather than the other way around. Even so, it may be the case that trait mindfulness is

not only related to but also explainable via other aspects of one’s personality—a possibility that

gains theoretical import when contrasted with the prospect that mindfulness is primarily a product

of meditation rather than dispositional or genetic inﬂuences.

Job Experience

Through a study of paramedics in Austria, researchers found that in acquiring experience,

paramedics increased their level of mindful awareness; however, past a certain level of experi-

ence, mindfulness declined (Mitmansgruber et al. 2008). This ﬁnding aligns with the observation

that, through overtraining or entrainment, a higher incidence of mind wandering (and hence, less

mindfulness) is apt to occur within the task domain (Smallwood & Schooler 2006). Nevertheless, a

decline in mindfulness at high levels of experience is perhaps not inevitable in all cases or contexts.

Indeed, from the standpoint of focusing attention widely and drawing multiple distinctions (key

features of mindfulness by varying accounts), a high level of experience may prove invaluable. In an

inductive study of how trial lawyers focus their attention in the courtroom, Dane (2013) found that,

compared to their less experienced colleagues, highly experienced trial attorneys were more adept

at focusing their attention widely across events occurring in the courtroom (e.g., reactions from

the judge, jury members, and opposing counsel) and more attuned to the ways such events could be

enlisted to strengthen their case (e.g., interpreting an unexpected event as a potential opportunity).

As experience is, by its very nature, complex in its character and multifaceted in its consequences

on cognition and behavior, considerably more research is needed to determine whether and how

experience of various forms relates to mindfulness across numerous performance contexts.

Organizational Factors

Through an online survey of working adults, Reb et al. (2015) found that supervisor support was

positively related to employee awareness (a context-speciﬁc dimension of mindfulness capturing

employees’ awareness of their experiences, actions, and feelings at work) and that organizational

constraints (e.g., conﬂicting job demands) were negatively related to employee awareness and

positively related to employee absentmindedness (an additional context-speciﬁc dimension of

mindfulness). As research on organizational inﬂuences on individual-level mindfulness remains

in its infancy, we perceive much potential for further research in this area. In engaging this

topic, scholars may wish to consider whether and how research on collective mindfulness and its

antecedents (which we now turn to) inform our understanding of mindfulness at an individual level.

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ANTECEDENTS OF COLLECTIVE MINDFULNESS

Consistent with the individual-level literature, there have been longstanding, but largely unan-

swered calls to empirically investigate the antecedents of collective mindfulness (e.g., Argote

2006). A closer read of the relevant literature on collective mindfulness, however, does provide a

suggestive set of leader and organizational antecedents of collective mindfulness.

Leader Behaviors and Practices

Madsen et al. (2006; see also Roberts et al. 2005) documented the effects of two different lead-

ership regimes on collective mindfulness in a pediatric intensive care unit. Speciﬁcally, leaders

trained in high-reliability principles implemented continuing staff education, supporting front-

line staff decisions, and postevent debrieﬁngs. In other words, a change in leadership resulted in

new practices that empowered the bedside caregiver and enhanced teamwork, resulting in more

mindful interactions among staff (Madsen et al. 2006, Roberts et al. 2005). A subsequent change

in leadership that reverted to a more “traditional” approach undermined collective mindfulness.

Rerup (2009) also used a longitudinal case study to illustrate how Novo Nordisk’s implementation

of the Novo Nordisk Way (e.g., a set of values and practices such as organizational audits and

boundary-spanning facilitators that connected units) fostered greater and sustained attention to

weak signals and overall attention quality. In a study of trauma units, Klein et al. (2006) found that

active leaders with more conﬁdence in themselves and their subordinates more frequently and

skillfully engaged in dynamic delegation (i.e., deference to expertise) in response to the patient’s

condition. Knox et al. (1999) found that clear purpose, language, and procedures were key enablers

of collective mindfulness. A handful of quantitative studies corroborate the importance of trust

in leadership (Hoy et al. 2006, Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007b) and supportive leadership (Ausserhofer

et al. 2013) for collective mindfulness.

Organizational Practices

A wide range of organizational practices that aid collective mindfulness are observed in HROs.

The most consistently documented organizational practices that enable collective mindfulness in-

clude active socialization (e.g., through vivid stories; Weick & Roberts 1993), continuous training

and simulations of rare events (LaPorte & Consolini 1991), and empowerment (i.e., delegating

authority; Roberts et al. 1994). For example, airline ﬂight crews trained in crew resource manage-

ment such as training in effective communication, how to work as a team (e.g., workload sharing),

error detection, and decision making are more mindful in their team communication and pro-

cesses (McKinney et al. 2005). Additional human resource practices including careful selection

practices (e.g., that minimize hubris; Schulman 1993), positive employee relations’ climate and

extensive training (Vogus & Welbourne 2003), and organizational HR effectiveness (Wheeler

et al. 2012) are associated with indicators of mindfulness (e.g., fewer workarounds). A qualitative

study of railroad operations showed that the combined use of a proactive set of interpersonal

(i.e., communication) and technology-mediated (i.e., radios) monitoring practices aided collective

mindfulness (Roth et al. 2006). Valorinta (2009) offers impressive case studies of two organizations

to illustrate how information technology both enhances and inhibits collective mindfulness. IT

enhances mindfulness by heightening attention through cultivating awareness of IT risks, careful

analysis of issues, and increased organizational collaboration, as well as by enriching action reper-

toires (i.e., providing a toolbox for innovation and mandating change). IT inhibits mindfulness

by routinizing, automating, and otherwise making work inﬂexible and difﬁcult to enact. Finally,

Barry & Meisiek (2010) suggest that the physical work environment, notably arts-based initiatives,

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can foster mindfulness by directing attention away from immediate work concerns and toward

analogous artifacts in ways that break habitual ways of seeing and believing.

WHY MINDFULNESS MATTERS: INDIVIDUAL AND

ORGANIZATIONAL CONSEQUENCES

Emerging from and catalyzing the growth of research on mindfulness is the observation that

mindfulness matters: It enhances physical and mental well-being (Brown et al. 2007) and improves

performance and cognitive ability across a variety of task domains (e.g., Moore & Gardner 2014,

Schmertz et al. 2009). As noted earlier, some beneﬁts associated with mindfulness are quite striking.

For example, mindfulness-related meditation training has been shown to increase gray matter

density in the human brain (H ¨

olzel et al. 2011a), improve working memory capacity ( Jha et al.

2010), and slow aging (Epel et al. 2009).

Consistent with the aims of this review, we focus on outcomes most pertinent to the work-

place. In doing so, we review research examining the effects of mindfulness on various reﬂections

of worker well-being (e.g., work-related stress), overall performance in work settings, and perfor-

mance on speciﬁc types of tasks found in organizations.

Worker Well-Being

Research has shown that trait mindfulness is positively related to worker well-being across a range

of industries and occupations (e.g., Mitmansgruber et al. 2008, Roche et al. 2014, Schultz et al.

2014). Research has also demonstrated that meditative training programs reduce work-related

stress (e.g., Bazarko et al. 2013, Wolever et al. 2012). Although decreased stress is certainly in

keeping with the intention of such training programs, that mindfulness-based stress reduction

programs have proved beneﬁcial in studies focusing on employees in corporate settings suggests

that the uptick of such programs in industry is not misplaced (see Gelles 2015 for more on the

emergence of meditation and mindfulness in corporate settings).

Further informing our understanding of mindfulness and worker well-being, H ¨

ulsheger et al.

(2013) found through a ﬁeld experiment with working professionals that mindfulness reduced

emotional exhaustion and increased job satisfaction. Along related lines, research has demon-

strated positive relationships between trait mindfulness and work engagement and its subcom-

ponents (e.g., vigor) (Leroy et al. 2013, Marzuq & Drach-Zahavy 2012). Both correlational and

meditation-based research indicates that mindfulness promotes work/life balance among workers

across multiple industries (Allen & Kiburz 2012, Michel et al. 2014). And in assessing mindful-

ness through a daily diary approach, H ¨

ulsheger et al. (2014) showed that mindfulness at work is

positively associated with sleep quality among working professionals.

There has been very limited attention to the consequences of collective mindfulness for

worker well-being. A recent study by Vogus et al. (2014a) ﬁnds a complex relationship between

collective mindfulness and emotional exhaustion in a study of nurses. Speciﬁcally, the relationship

between collective mindfulness and emotional exhaustion depended on the group’s performance

history, with collective mindfulness acting as a resource to cope with a history of adverse events

that lowers emotional exhaustion; however, collective mindfulness itself acts as an emotionally

exhausting demand when a group experiences few adverse events. This ﬁnding suggests that

collective mindfulness is demanding (Levinthal & Rerup 2006, Schulman 1993, Weick & Sutcliffe

2001), but especially helpful in the most difﬁcult circumstances. In a qualitative study of ﬁreﬁghter

discourse, Scott & Trethewey (2008) found a similarly nuanced relationship with the collective

mindfulness of ﬁreﬁghters being associated with amplifying weak signals and engaging in swift

action for novel threats.

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Overall Performance

Through recent research, scholars have connected mindfulness to global measures of behavior

and performance in the workplace. In a study of nuclear power plant operations, Zhang et al.

(2013) found that trait mindfulness was positively related to job performance for operators who

held jobs high in task complexity (see also Zhang & Wu 2014, for relationships between trait

mindfulness and safety performance in the same industry). Dane & Brummel (2014) found a

positive relationship between workplace mindfulness and job performance among those working

in a dynamic performance environment (the restaurant service industry) that remained signiﬁcant

when controlling for three dimensions of work engagement. Further, Reb et al. (2015) found

positive relationships between work-related mindfulness and task performance and organizational

citizenship behavior, respectively, within their survey of working adults.

Also relevant to overall performance, Eisenbeiss & van Knippenberg (2015) found that em-

ployees high in trait mindfulness responded more strongly to ethical leadership in terms of the

effort and helping behaviors they put forth. This suggests that, in the presence of an ethical leader,

individuals high in trait mindfulness are more likely to perceive and embrace the values and behav-

iors they perceive in ethical leaders—and to perform accordingly. Mirroring this ﬁnding, through

a pair of cross-industry, survey-based studies, Reb et al. (2014) found that the trait mindfulness

of supervisors is positively related to the well-being and performance of their employees. This

ﬁnding suggests that the mindfulness of one person in an organization can inﬂuence the well-being

and performance of others.

Consistent with collective mindfulness’ connection to high reliability, numerous studies have

qualitatively associated it with greater organizational reliability (LaPorte & Consolini 1991,

Schulman 1993, Weick & Roberts 1993) and more effective response to disasters (Bigley & Roberts

2001), near-disasters (Rerup 2009), and traumas (Klein et al. 2006). In health care contexts, qualita-

tive studies have also linked observed changes in collective mindfulness to mortality rates (Madsen

et al. 2006, Roberts et al. 2005) and clinical outcomes (Knox et al. 1999). Other reanalyses of high

proﬁle disasters such as the Columbia Space Shuttle (Weick 2005), “excess deaths” of pediatric

patients at the Bristol Royal inﬁrmary (Weick & Sutcliffe 2003), and increases in mortality rates

in a pediatric intensive care unit (Madsen et al. 2006, Roberts et al. 2005) have all been used to

show the negative consequences of the absence of collective mindfulness.

A series of quantitative studies in hospital nursing units has found that collective mindfulness

is associated with fewer medication errors (Ausserhofer et al. 2013; Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a,b)

and patient falls (Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007a). The positive effects of collective mindfulness were

found to be stronger in workgroups that trusted their leaders and most fully implemented stan-

dard operating procedures (i.e., care pathways; Vogus & Sutcliffe 2007b). In an action research

study of ﬁve intensive care units, Hales et al. (2012) investigated linkages between a 10-day col-

lective mindfulness intervention and multiple forms of costs and found evidence of a decrease

in the number of negative incidents between a nurse and a patient’s family, a 50% reduction

in the number of failed nurse supervisor inspections, and a slight improvement in patients dis-

charged alive. However, for other costs (e.g., patient length of stay, cost per patient) there were

no effects. Ndubisi (2012) found that three indicators of collective mindfulness (care reliability,

information reliability, and preemptive conﬂict handling) were positively associated with cus-

tomer orientation, customer satisfaction, and, in turn, customer loyalty in a hospital setting. In

a qualitative study of professional service ﬁrms, Hargadon & Bechky (2006) ﬁnd that mindful

interactions trigger moments of reﬂective reframing where individuals demonstrate the difﬁculty

of their problems and share their prior experiences that can help solve them and elicit collective

creativity.

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Task Performance

Through numerous experimental studies, researchers have examined relationships between mind-

fulness and performance on various types of tasks. Such research indicates, for example, that a

core dimension of trait mindfulness, observation of external and internal phenomena, facilitates

the generation of creative ideas (Baas et al. 2014). Similarly, scholars have found that trait mind-

fulness predicts performance on insight problem solving (Ostaﬁn & Kassman 2012) and helps

people maintain cognitive ﬂexibility (Moore & Malinowski 2009). Similarly, research indicates

that, through meditation training, people can overcome rigid patterns of thinking (Greenberg

et al. 2012).

Experimentally induced mindfulness has also been shown to help people avoid falling victim to

the sunk-cost bias (Hafenbrack et al. 2014) and to reduce people’s tendency to emphasize negative

information over positive information (Kiken & Shook 2011)—notable ﬁndings given how difﬁcult

it can be to resist or overcome cognitive biases. Equally remarkable, researchers demonstrated that

individuals who participated in a two-week mindfulness-training course improved their Graduate

Record Exam reading comprehension scores signiﬁcantly (Mrazek et al. 2013).

Additionally, research indicates that mindfulness can improve performance in negotiations.

Speciﬁcally, Reb & Narayanan (2014) found that individuals assigned to perform a short exercise

designed to foster mindfulness claimed more value than others on a distributive negotiation task.

Although this result points to a competitive beneﬁt of mindfulness, research suggests as well

that mindfulness can foster cohesiveness and thereby increase the performance of work groups. In

particular, Cleirigh & Greaney (2015) found that groups composed of people who participated in a

brief mindfulness intervention outperformed control condition groups on a decision-making task.

Research has also linked mindfulness to the moral domain. Here, researchers have observed

that trait mindfulness is negatively related to unethical behavior on tasks susceptible to cheating

or misreporting (Ruedy & Schweitzer 2010) and that mindfulness-related training is positively

related to compassionate behavior (Lim et al. 2015). Along related lines, research indicates that

both experimentally induced mindfulness and trait mindfulness are negatively related to retaliatory

behavior in the face of injustice (Long & Christian 2015).

Although, generally, research paints a favorable portrait of the consequences of mindfulness for

well-being, overall performance, and task performance, a few studies have exposed performance-

related risks and limitations of mindfulness. In particular, experimental research has demonstrated

that trait mindfulness is negatively related to both implicit learning (Stillman et al. 2014) and

performance on judgments of semantic coherence (Remmers et al. 2015). Such ﬁndings serve

notice that mindfulness is not categorically beneﬁcial—a point worth considering as research

trumpeting the merits of mindfulness continues to blossom.

How Does Mindfulness Work? Unpacking the Mechanisms

As research documenting the consequences of mindfulness (especially its beneﬁts) has grown,

scholars have devoted thought to how and why mindfulness contributes to the outcomes reviewed

above. Echoing historical perspectives on the beneﬁts of mindfulness, scholars have made the

argument that, in a mindful state, individuals tend to be less likely to internalize the phenomena and

events that surround or befall them. That is, by focusing on the here-and-now and remaining open

to and accepting of unfolding events, individuals defray the tendency to take things personally—a

tendency that can leave people vulnerable to interpreting events as a reﬂection or indictment of

who they are (Ryan & Brown 2003). In reperceiving (Shapiro et al. 2006) the world in a manner

that promotes the decoupling of self (Glomb et al. 2011), individuals are less prone to provocation

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or indignation and more open, curious, and content—qualities promoting self-insight and mental

and physical well-being (Carlson 2013).

Linking mindfulness to a concept popular in the psychological sciences, researchers have also

argued that mindfulness facilitates self-regulation (e.g., Glomb et al. 2011, H¨

olzel et al. 2011b,

Shapiro et al. 2006) and have suggested that, through meditative training, people can develop

their self-regulatory capacities (Masicampo & Baumeister 2007). By its nature, self-regulation

enables people to assume greater control over their actions and thus reduces their dependence

on automatic mental processes (Glomb et al. 2011). Consistent with the view that mindfulness

improves self-regulation and thereby reduces automatic responding, experimental research, for

example, has demonstrated that individuals induced toward a mindful state are less impulsive

in their reactions to attractive food than others (Papies et al. 2012). Experimental research also

indicates that mindfulness reduces people’s vulnerability to implicit biases concerning age and

race (Lueke & Gibson 2015).

Complementing these observations, research indicates that mindfulness can improve a sub-

component of self-regulation—emotion regulation—which in turn helps workers resist engaging

in surface acting, an approach associated with emotional exhaustion (H ¨

ulsheger et al. 2013). As

self-regulation is associated with a wide range of salutary and performance-related outcomes (see

Tangney et al. 2004), the self-regulatory beneﬁts of mindfulness may help account for the effects

of mindfulness on both well-being and performance.

Individual and collective mindfulness may also produce favorable outcomes in the workplace

through the interplay with perception and interpretation. In many work contexts, it is critical

for individuals to attend closely to their surroundings, as the events and phenomena occurring

around them may contain key information and, at times, signal potential threats (Bazerman 2014,

Ocasio 2011). Mindfulness should prove pivotal in this regard given its wide attentional breadth

(Dane 2011). Furthermore, mindfulness may increase the vividness with which people interpret

their surroundings (Valentine et al. 2010, Weick & Sutcliffe 2006), especially searching for (and

ﬁnding) weak signals of impending danger (Rerup 2009). By its nature, attentional vividness enables

people to see more nuances and complexities in the events they observe. Thus, attentional vividness

should enable workers to identify opportunities associated with their present circumstances and

help them perform effectively (Dane 2013, Rerup 2009).

The ﬁve processes comprising collective mindfulness are seen to operate through social pro-

cesses such as conversations. The content and form of conversations constitute important mecha-

nisms through which collective mindfulness inﬂuences outcomes including coproduction and co-

completion of utterances (Cooren 2004, 2006), reﬂective reframing (Hargadon & Bechky 2006),

questioning working hypotheses and rigorously discussing errors and the possibility that some-

thing was missed (Madsen et al. 2006, Roberts et al. 2005), and portraying hazards in uncertain and

novel terms (Scott & Trethewey 2008). The larger system of interaction surrounding conversa-

tion, including shared shorthands (McKinney et al. 2005), shared mental models (Roth et al. 2006),

common beliefs regarding organizing practices (McPhee et al. 2006), and how one’s interactions

ﬁt into and support the system (Weick & Roberts 1993), also importantly shapes the speciﬁc

content of conversations. Collective mindfulness also cultivates feelings of efﬁcacy, empowerment

(Klein et al. 2006), and a learning orientation (G¨

artner 2013).

The mechanisms reviewed here are not mutually exclusive and, indeed, may coincide in some

cases. For example, as some researchers have suggested, decoupling of self may either give rise to

(Shapiro et al. 2006) or follow from (Glomb et al. 2011) self-regulation. Similarly, for collective

mindfulness, discourse and norms or systems of interaction are reciprocally and tightly linked.

Nevertheless, some mechanisms may be more pertinent to some outcomes than others. In the

realm of well-being, for example, decoupling of self and self-regulation may prove paramount

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whereas, when it comes to job performance, self-regulation, attentional vividness, or conversational

practice may be more relevant.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Our review illustrates the signiﬁcant theoretical and empirical progress in the mindfulness litera-

tures. Reﬂecting its comparative maturity, the individual mindfulness literature exhibits consider-

able measurement sophistication (multiple, validated measures), well-established antecedents and

interventions, and linkages with a range of outcomes. Work on its mechanisms, as described above,

merits further conceptual development and empirical study. Collective mindfulness research ex-

hibits impressive conceptual coherence and a growing body of qualitative and quantitative work,

but at the same time more needs to be done to expand its reach beyond HROs to organizational

psychology and organizational behavior more broadly (e.g., Carlo et al. 2012; Fiol & O’Connor

2003; Levinthal & Rerup 2006; Weick & Sutcliffe 2001, chapter 1; Weick & Sutcliffe 2007, pp. 18–

21) perhaps by exploring more prosaic contexts (e.g., Ndubisi 2012) or a wider range of outcomes

(e.g., the search for and construction of entrepreneurial opportunities; Barton 2010, Rerup 2005,

Vogus & Welbourne 2003). Despite these signiﬁcant strides, opportunities remain for further

research at the individual and collective levels, as we have suggested throughout the review. In

our discussion we focus on future research that capitalizes on what we see as the unique strength

of organizational researchers—cross-level studies of mindfulness (see Table 3 for a summary of

questions for future research). We include both conceptual and empirical approaches to better

integrating individual and collective mindfulness.

CROSS-LEVEL MINDFULNESS RESEARCH

Evidence is building that is suggestive of a multilevel and reciprocal relationship between individ-

ual and collective mindfulness. For example, leaders who initiate more mindful social processes

such as appreciative inquiry and scenario planning, engage diverse stakeholders, and fuel efforts

to be in the present by considering new perspectives, categories, and new information may fuel

individual mindfulness (Fiol & O’Connor 2003, Ritchie-Dunham 2014). Alternatively, research

by Cleirigh & Greaney (2015) suggests that individual mindfulness inﬂuences group interactions

and group/organizational performance. Schultz et al. (2014) ﬁnd that individual mindfulness re-

duces defensive responses to some situations. Naturally we can speculate the salutary mechanisms

through which lower defensiveness may inﬂuence collective interactions. However, given that

research is limited, we might simply conclude that individual mindfulness may matter to col-

lective mindfulness. More research is needed to create a generalizable multimethod model for

mindfulness, which combines top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. We offer numerous possi-

bilities for future research starting with the interplay of individual and collective mindfulness and

moving to top-down cultural and organizational enablers of mindfulness, bottom-up mechanisms

through which mindfulness imprints culture, and close with the potential importance of affective

mechanisms.

Individual and Collective Mindfulness

One of the most important unanswered questions relates to the form of the relationship between

individual and collective mindfulness. Is there a relationship? If so, to what extent are individual

and organizational mindfulness linked? Although the early conception of collective mindfulness

grew out of Langer’s (1989a) research on individual mindfulness, collective mindfulness was not

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Table 3 Areas for future research

Research need Potential research questions

The relationship between individual and

collective mindfulness

Is there a relationship between individual and collective mindfulness?

What level of individual mindfulness is necessary for a group to be collectively mindful?

Can a single mindful individual induce collective mindfulness?

Does the mean level or spread in individual mindfulness matter more for collective

mindfulness?

Do the effects of individual mindfulness on collective mindfulness depend on supportive

leaders or organizational processes (e.g., group norms)?

Does collective mindfulness inﬂuence individual mindfulness? If so, does it require

sustained exposure to collective mindfulness?

National culture and mindfulness Do cultures characterized by a focus on the present observe higher levels of individual

and collective mindfulness?

Are collectivistic cultures and their attendant levels of interdependent selves, dialectical

thinking, and duality associated with higher levels of individual and collective

mindfulness?

Organizational culture and practice

antecedents of mindfulness

What are nonmeditative means by which organizations can foster individual mindfulness?

Are leader inclusiveness and a climate of psychological safety associated with higher levels

of collective mindfulness?

How does collective mindfulness shape organizational culture over time?

Contextual boundary conditions on

mindfulness–performance relationship

Do the positive performance effects of individual and collective mindfulness only hold for

complex or dynamic work environments and jobs?

Are the performance beneﬁts of individual and collective mindfulness greater than the

costs of inducing mindfulness (e.g., mindfulness training)?

Affective underpinnings of mindfulness Does emotion regulation in the form of feeling rules reduce arousal and foster greater

individual and collective mindfulness?

Do affective forecasting accuracy and emotional intelligence result in higher levels of

individual and collective mindfulness?

Does emotional ambivalence (e.g., simultaneous doubt and hope) sustain collective

mindfulness over time?

grounded in an assumption that individual mindfulness is a necessary precondition for it. It is

possible, however, that the thought processes of individual mindfulness are an antecedent. If

individual mindfulness does augur collective mindfulness, what is the composition of the group

necessary to produce collective mindfulness? Does the average level of individual mindfulness

matter more or the dispersion of levels? Alternatively, can a single highly mindful individual

through processes resembling minority inﬂuence (e.g., Nemeth & Staw 1989) foster higher

levels of collective mindfulness? Are factors such as group norms or leader behaviors necessary

for translating individual mindfulness into collective mindfulness? It is also possible, and worth

exploring, that sustained engagement with a group exhibiting the rich patterns of acting and

interacting of mindful organizing correspondingly inﬂuences individual mindfulness.

National Culture

Along related lines, scholars could explore whether the degree to which employees tend to be

mindful varies from one culture to another (across the same types of positions and organizations).

This possibility ﬁnds support in research suggesting that national cultures differ in the degree to

which they are oriented toward the past, present, and future, respectively (e.g., Guo et al. 2012,

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Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner 1998). It is perhaps the case, for example, that mindfulness

tends be high in nations characterized by a high focus on the present. At the same time, it may

be the case that, as with individuals, cultures can rank high (or low) across all three temporal

targets (see Shipp et al. 2009)—and that certain combinations (e.g., focusing highly not only on

the present but also the past and/or the future) may be well-suited to mindfulness. Through

empirical investigation, researchers could assess these possibilities and, more generally, explore

how the routing of attention within and across time at the individual level is shaped by the broader

cultural environments (both organizational and national) in which individuals work. Similarly,

collective mindfulness may be more likely to emerge and be sustained in collectivistic cultures

frequently characterized by a strong interdependent self (Markus & Kitayama 1991), dialectical

thinking (Peng & Nisbett 1999), or organizational capabilities for duality (Farjoun 2010), all of

which merit exploration.

Organizational Culture and Practices

Research is also underdeveloped with regard to where, when, and how mindfulness arises in

work settings. Although some prominent corporations, including Google and General Mills, have

adopted meditation training designed to foster mindfulness among their employees (see Gelles

2015), it is perhaps safe to assume that, at least in corporate America, such practices remain

the exception to the rule. Nevertheless, various aspects of organizations, such as their level of

supportiveness (Reb et al. 2015), may shape the degree to which an organization’s members are

individually mindful, regardless of whether the organization has instituted programs speciﬁcally

designed to develop employee mindfulness. By pursuing this observation further, scholars could

deepen our understanding of the interplay between organizational factors and individual-level

mindfulness and gain insight into how mindfulness in organizations can be fostered or “managed”

through nonmeditative means. Similar organizational practices can also fuel collective mindfulness

as they instill and shape the social practice. Factors such as psychological safety (Edmondson 1999),

where members of a workgroup feel safe to take an interpersonal risk, or leader inclusiveness

(Nembhard & Edmondson 2006), whereby leaders solicit divergent opinions from workgroup

members, might be especially promising for fostering collective mindfulness. In addition, mindful

organizing may have a reciprocal relationship with the content of an organization’s culture. That is,

the interactions occurring through processes of mindful organizing (e.g., questioning assumptions,

attempting to learn from small discrepancies and deviations) may reinforce, or even amplify,

cultural values such as psychological safety, learning orientation, reﬂection, and learning. The

top-down effects of culture and organizational practices on both forms of mindfulness as well as

the bottom-up process through which mindful processes shape culture merit further exploration.

Contextual Boundary Conditions

Although research points to the performance beneﬁts of mindfulness in the workplace, our review

suggests that these beneﬁts may be ampliﬁed within (or perhaps limited to) speciﬁc contexts

(e.g., dynamic work environments or complex jobs). Further work is therefore needed to better

understand the circumstances under which mindfulness is conducive to performance and, as noted

above, the forms of performance to which it is conducive, especially at the organizational level.

Another contextual boundary condition that has received little attention in existing research is the

cost of mindfulness. In collective mindfulness research, this question has received little attention

because for HROs the costs of a disaster (e.g., nuclear meltdown) outweigh virtually any investment

to avoid it. However, making individual and collective mindfulness applicable to a wider array of

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contexts depends on a more careful measurement of the costs of developing it and the beneﬁts

achieved relative to those costs (e.g., the cost of individual mindfulness training relative to its

beneﬁts on productivity, turnover, etc.). It would also be useful to understand when and why

mainstream organizations pursue these processes of mindful organizing in the absence of obvious

threats (Sutcliffe & Vogus 2014).

Affective Mechanisms

Emotion regulation (i.e., reducing arousal) is a mechanism that seems to underlie individual mind-

fulness and could help bridge individual and collective forms of mindfulness. Individual mindful-

ness research ﬁnds that mindfulness fosters emotion regulation that reduces emotional exhaustion

(H ¨

ulsheger et al. 2013). The salutary effects of emotion regulation might help collectives sustain

the demanding processes of mindful organizing (Schulman 1993), especially in trying conditions.

Thus, emotion regulation may be a promising mechanism by which individual mindfulness fosters

collective mindfulness. In addition, group or organizational feeling rules (Hochschild 1979) may

help regulate emotion and guide interpretations in ways that foster individual and/or collective

mindfulness. Other affective mechanisms also seem promising for future research, including emo-

tional intelligence and affective forecasting accuracy in accounting for the beneﬁts of mindfulness

(see Emanuel et al. 2010, Schutte & Malouff 2011). Vogus et al. (2014b) have previously outlined

how emotional ambivalence, the simultaneous experience of two emotions, in the form of simul-

taneous doubt and hope may help sustain collective mindfulness in HROs. The role of emotional

ambivalence for individual and collective mindfulness also merits empirical investigation.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND CONCLUSION

Although operating differently, mindfulness in individuals and collectives has far-reaching beneﬁts

for health and well-being, work meaningfulness, and individual and organizational performance.

Thus, two courses of action seem merited: (a) Leaders and their organizations should think about

individual and collective forms of mindfulness as targets for intervention, and (b) careful con-

sideration should be paid to the range of interventions documented to elicit mindfulness (e.g.,

mindfulness training, careful selection and stafﬁng, and leader behaviors). In other words, we en-

dorse a holistic approach to assessing an organization’s mindfulness needs and one that chooses

the focus based on where mindfulness is most critical to the organization (e.g., for individual,

independent task performance or team-based work) and the employee.

Mindful engagement with one’s life and work has been of enduring interest to philosophers,

practitioners, and scholars alike. We have moved beyond more general treatments of mindfulness

as a cognitive phenomenon to illustrate how, in organizations, individual mindfulness is contex-

tually embedded and processes of collective mindfulness are socially enabled and enacted with

both forms of mindfulness signiﬁcantly beneﬁtting individuals and their organizations in multiple

ways. We argue that an organizational perspective on mindfulness holds promise for developing an

integrated multilevel theory of mindfulness by fully depicting the varied ways in which individual

mindfulness, collective mindfulness, and organizational context are mutually constitutive.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any afﬁliations, memberships, funding, or ﬁnancial holdings that

might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Sue Ashford and Fred Morgeson for constructive and insightful feedback,

which improved greatly the coherence of our contribution. We also thank Samuel Hughes for his

help early on with the literature.

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Annual Review

of Organizational

Psychology and

Organizational

Behavior

Volume 3, 2016

Contents

Stumbling Toward a Social Psychology of Organizations: An

Autobiographical Look at the Direction of Organizational Research

Barry M. Staw ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp1

Team-Centric Leadership: An Integrative Review

Steve W.J. Kozlowski, Stanton Mak, and Georgia T. Chao pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp21

Mindfulness in Organizations: A Cross-Level Review

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Timothy J. Vogus, and Erik Dane pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp55

Themes in Expatriate and Repatriate Research over Four Decades:

What Do We Know and What Do We Still Need to Learn?

Maria Kraimer, Mark Bolino, and Brandon Mead ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp83

Identity Under Construction: How Individuals Come to Deﬁne

Themselves in Organizations

Blake E. Ashforth and Beth S. Schinoff pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp111

Dyadic Relationships

Robert C. Liden, Smriti Anand, and Prajya Vidyarthi ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp139

Genetics and Organizational Behavior

Richard D. Arvey, Wen-Dong Li, and Nan Wang ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp167

Safety Climate in Organizations

Mark A. Grifﬁn and Matteo Curcuruto ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp191

To Seek or Not to Seek: Is That the Only Question? Recent

Developments in Feedback-Seeking Literature

Susan J. Ashford, Katleen De Stobbeleir, and Mrudula Nujella ppppppppppppppppppppppppp213

Dynamic Modeling

Mo Wang, Le Zhou, and Zhen Zhang ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp241

Learner Control and e-Learning: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

Kenneth G. Brown, Garett Howardson, and Sandra L. Fisher ppppppppppppppppppppppppppp267

vii

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Charisma: An Ill-Deﬁned and Ill-Measured Gift

John Antonakis, Nicolas Bastardoz, Philippe Jacquart, and Boas Shamir ppppppppppppppp293

The Nonconscious at Work

Michael G. Pratt and Eliana Crosina pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp321

How Technology Is Changing Work and Organizations

Wayne F. Cascio and Ramiro Montealegre pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp349

Impression Management in Organizations: Critical Questions,

Answers, and Areas for Future Research

Mark Bolino, David Long, and William Turnley ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp377

Employer Image and Employer Branding: What We Know and What

We Need to Know

Filip Lievens and Jerel E. Slaughter ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp407

The Social Context of Decisions

Richard P. Larrick ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp441

Adaptive Measurement and Assessment

Matt Barney and William P. Fisher Jr. ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp469

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and

Organizational Behavior articles may be found at http://www.annualreviews.org/

errata/orgpsych

viii Contents

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Improving Workplace Safety Through Mindful Organizing: Participative Safety Self-Efficacy as A Mediational Link Between Collective Mindfulness and Employees’ Safety Citizenship

Article

Jan 2024
J RISK RES

Mindful organizing is a team-level capability that allows teams in high-risk environments to anticipate when something can potentially go wrong and adapt their operations just in time to protect the organizational system from negative consequences. This study aimed to extend our understanding of how mindful organizing affects employees’ propensity to engage in a broad range of safety citizenship behaviours through the mediation of participative safety self-efficacy. Participative safety self-efficacy is a psychological state that enables individuals to have confidence in their capability to engage in constructive behaviours that go beyond the formal requirements of their job description. A multilevel mediation model was tested using data collected from a large sample of chemical workers (N = 443) operating in fifty work teams. The findings showed that mindful organizing on a team level fosters both individual safety citizenship (helping; voice; initiative) and prescribed safety compliance through enhancing individual participative self-efficacy. This mediation relationship is significantly stronger for safety citizenship than for safety compliance.

Exploring the pathways to enhanced task performance: the roles of supportive leadership, team psychological safety, and mindful organizing

Article

Nov 2023

Purpose The study investigated the predictive role of supportive leadership and psychological safety for mindful organizing and the subsequent impact of mindful organizing on individual task performance. Mindful organizing, a concept from high-reliability organizations (HROs), can improve performance in various industrial settings. The limited availability of novel predictors for mindful organizing necessitates exploring this concept in the context of adventure tourism. Design/methodology/approach Through a cross-sectional research approach, 394 respondents were selected from the adventure tourism industry in Malaysia. The proposed causal research model was evaluated through structural equation modeling (SEM), aggregation and bootstrapping. Findings Psychological safety and supportive leadership significantly impacted mindful organizing. Mindful organizing, in turn, was positively associated with individual task performance. The mediating role of mindful organizing between psychological safety and task performance was statistically significant. However, the mediating role of mindful organizing between supportive leadership and task performance was not statistically significant. Practical implications Managers in the adventure tourism industry should consider applying mindful organizing to increase employee productivity and develop collective sensemaking. Also, developing a culture of support among managers and coworkers, emphasizing the team's psychological safety, may boost the morale and productivity of the workforce. Originality/value This research has identified and empirically tested new antecedents, psychological safety and leadership for mindful organizing in the adventure tourism context and has addressed a significant research gap (Sutcliffe et al. , 2016) by broadening the scope of mindful organizing research to encompass contexts beyond those exclusively considered HROs.

The role of empowering leadership, safety culture and safety climate in the prediction of mindful organizing in an air traffic management company

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2023
SAFETY SCI

Mindful organizing is the collective capability of teams to anticipate, detect, and contain early signs of emerging problems, act proactively, and recover quickly if unexpected events and errors occur. The present study aimed to add to our currently limited understanding of antecedents of mindful organizing: empowering leadership, safety culture, and team safety climate. To do so, we tested a moderated mediation model using a sample of 73 Air Traffic Management company employees. The model evaluated whether safety climate mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and mindful organizing, and whether safety culture understanding as enacted value of safety moderates the effect of empowering leadership on team safety climate. The results showed that a strong safety climate was a significant predictor of mindful organizing. Moreover, empowering leadership influenced mindful organizing indirectly through its positive effect on the safety climate in a work unit. However, the moderating role of safety culture was not confirmed.

Feeling stressed but in full flow? Leader mindfulness shapes subordinates' perseverative cognition and reaction

Article

Sep 2023

Purpose This study aims to illustrate the mechanisms underlying the effect of stress on flow states in the context of a multilevel organization, in which case employees' perseverative cognition and reactions to challenge–hindrance stressors are affected by leader mindfulness. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 employed a three-wave time-lag survey, and study 2 conducted a diary study across 10 workdays to replicate the results of study 1. Multilevel structural equation modeling and Monte Carlo simulation were performed using Mplus 8.0 software to test all hypotheses. Findings Problem-solving pondering transmits the nonlinear effect of challenge stressors on flow, and affective rumination mediates the negative effect of hindrance stressors on flow. Leader mindfulness amplifies the tendency of followers to ruminate on the positive aspects of challenge stressors, consequently increasing their positive reactions and flow. Although leader mindfulness fails to influence followers to ruminate less on hindrance stressors, it negates the harmful effect of affective rumination on the flow experience. Originality/value This study is one of the first to examine the associations between stressor types and flow in the workplace. The authors also develop a new theory that highlights the ability of leader mindfulness to shape subordinates' stress, cognitions and reactions through social modeling and the authors identify the boundaries of its beneficial effects.

Aandachtige leidercommunicatie in hybride tijden: Pilottest van een nieuwe training

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023

Anouk Decuypere

Deze studie heeft als doel om de effectiviteit van een nieuwe training voor leidinggevenden m.b.t. aandachtige leidercommunicatie te testen. Aandachtige leidercommunicatie verwijst naar "een open, aandachtige houding tijdens een gesprek met een werknemer". De potentiële werkings-mechanismen van de training werden getest door de integratie van de Zelf-Determinatie Theorie en Kahn's psychologische voorwaarden voor bevlogenheid. De training werd longitudinaal getest met twee groepen leidinggevenden (N T1 = 18) uit publieke organisaties en hun medewerkers (N T1 = 129). Doordat de datavergaring tijdens een lockdown met verplicht thuiswerken plaatsvond, werd ook communicatie in de digitale om-geving onderzocht. Data van medewerkers lieten positieve resultaten zien betreffende (tevredenheid met aandachtige) communicatie van leiders, dienend leiderschap, vertrouwen in de leider, en mindfulness in communicatie, hoewel niet bij beide trainingsgroepen. Psycholo-gische behoeftebevrediging medieerde de relatie tussen aandachtige leidercommunicatie en burnout. Kahn's psychologische voorwaarden voor persoonlijke bevlogenheid (beschikbaarheid, betekenisvolheid en veiligheid) medieerden de relatie tussen aandachtige leidercommunicatie en zowel bevlogenheid als burnout. Uit open vragen over de lockdown bleek dat de ervaring van werknemers met betrekking tot thuiswerken varieerde van zeer positief tot extreem negatief. Zij rapporteerden over het algemeen geen effect op het leiderschap van hun leidinggevende, terwijl leiders aangaven dat thuiswerken hun communicatie met werknemers drastisch beïnvloedde.

Twenty years of research on mindfulness at work: A structured literature review

Article

Dec 2023
J BUS RES

When saying “enough” is not enough: How cultivating households’ mindfulness through gamification can promote energy sufficiency

Article

Nov 2023

Calling to the Mind: Exploring the Interlinkages of Mindfulness, Morality, and Ecological Sustainability

Chapter

Oct 2023

Ecosystems across the world are facing catastrophic effects due to high degree of environmental pressures coupled with lack of ecological consciousness among a large section of the society. This is partly attributed to the fact that people tend to equate their well-being with enhanced consumption, and material accumulation, and are reluctant to adopt lifestyle changes toward sustainable consumption. However, a number of recent studies demonstrate that human well-being is rooted in a complex array of psychological factors and sociological influences, rather than material wealth alone. In this chapter we contribute to these existing debates by analyzing how mindfulness can be used as a tool to promote ecological sensitivity and ethical behaviors among practitioners. Based on empirical research among Buddhist and Sikh mindfulness practitioners in India and Vietnam, the study demonstrates how ethical dimensions of mindfulness can help to motivate an orientation toward sustainability and other centeredness. These in turn pay a “double dividend” in terms of contribution to a sustainable way of life as well as a greater sense of well-being.

Updating in the mountains: A sensemaking perspective on ski guiding

Article

Sep 2023

For a ski guide, updating on the ever-changing natural conditions and group dynamics is essential to stay safe and provide a good experience for clients. In this paper, we explore how guides update their understanding in the mountains. Our data arise out of a one-season participant ethnography of ski guiding in Norway.

Mindful but forgetful: The negative effect of trait mindfulness on memories of immoral behavior

Article

Sep 2023

Drawing from existing theory and empirical evidence on mindfulness, we posit that trait mindfulness is associated with less accurate memories of immoral conduct. We report three studies that provide evidence of this argument. One significant implication of this finding is that it provides a more balanced and complete view of mindfulness. Specifically, while mindfulness is widely promoted for its positive effects for employee well‐being, mindfulness may inadvertently promote a biased moral self‐perception based on inaccurate memories of one's past immoral conduct. In a fourth study, we explore this implication and demonstrate that memory mediates the negative relationship between trait mindfulness and self‐reported immoral conduct. This research contributes to literatures on mindfulness, memory, morality, and to the growing body of work assessing the importance of mindfulness.

Mindful(l) intuition: Does mindfulness influence the access to intuitive processes?

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2014

The assumption that mindfulness facilitates the access to intuitive processes has been theoretically formulated but not investigated yet. Therefore, the present study explored whether the intuitive performance in a judgment of semantic coherence task of N = 94 participants was related to trait mindfulness. In contrast to our hypothesis, self-reported mindful-ness and the mindfulness facet, acting without judgment in specific, were negatively associated with intuitive performance. In an exploratory part of the study, we induced mindfulness, rumination, and distraction. We expected that participants in the mindfulness condition would outperform participants in the other two conditions in the intuition task. Even though we used a well-established paradigm to induce mindfulness, there were no differences between groups in intuition. We propose that future studies investigating the impact of mindfulness on processes such as intuition, should use more intensive manipulations of mindfulness. Possible explanations for the current findings and limitations are discussed.

Mindfulness at Work

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2011
Res Person Hum Resour Manag

In this chapter, we argue that state and trait mindfulness and mindfulness-based practices in the workplace should enhance employee outcomes. First, we review the existing literature on mindfulness, provide a brief history and definition of the construct, and discuss its beneficial effects on physical and psychological health. Second, we delineate a model of the mental and neurobiological processes by which mindfulness and mindfulness-based practices improve self-regulation of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, linking them to both performance and employee well-being in the workplace. We especially focus on the power of mindfulness, via improved self-regulation, to enhance social relationships in the workplace, make employees more resilient in the face of challenges, and increase task performance. Third, we outline controversies, questions, and challenges that surround the study of mindfulness, paying special attention to the implications of unresolved issues for understanding the effects of mindfulness at work. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our propositions for organizations and employees and offer some recommendations for future research on mindfulness in the workplace.

Mindfulness in Organizations: A Cross-Level Review

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