Bringing Compassion into Business: the Role of Self/Other Compassion in Organizational Relationships

Over the last decade, research on positive psychology has skyrocketed. One area in particular that has gained attraction is compassion. In short, compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering, a common yet detrimental aspect to an individual’s personal and professional life. Suffering can take on a variety of forms – from feeling undervalued by your supervisor and organization to grieving the death of a family member. This experience can happen inside the walls of the workplace or spillover from an individual’s personal life. Regardless of where, when, and how an individual suffers, an increasingly important question that is asked is “should businesses care?” (Worline & Dutton, 2017). Many would argue yes, as compassion helps from both a strategic level – increasing an organization’s overall bottom line (Worline & Dutton, 2017) – and an individual level – protecting an employee from negative experiences (Reizer, 2019; Schabram & Heng, 2021) and improving their overall well-being (Zessin, Dickhauser, & Garbade, 2015). Despite that the topic is both “timely and timeless,” it is surprising that there is a lack of attention given to compassion in the workforce. A recent review illustrates that the healthcare industry dominates the majority of research on compassion (Dodson & Heng, 2021). While research in that setting may be important, it is also useful to explore compassion from a business lens. For instance, encouraging compassion in the workplace may appear beneficial, but research on helping professions demonstrates that it can lead to compassion fatigue (Boyatzis, Smith, & Blaize, 2006; Figley, 2002). Thus, an important question to consider is what does compassion mean in the workplace? Does it result in positive organizational outcomes, but come at cost to the individual? Further, the literature on compassion has shown to be empirically messy or inconsistent (Dodson & Heng, 2021). The literature has teased out two components of compassion: self-compassion (kind acts toward the self; Neff, 2003) and other-compassion (kind acts toward others; Lazarus, 1991). The former has been studied as a state (Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen, & Hancock, 2007), trait (Anjum Liang, Durrani, & Parvez, 2020), and process (Schabram & Heng, 2021), while the latter has been conceptualized as a process (Dutton, Workman, & Hardin, 2014). Taken together, these shortcomings pave the way for future research to investigate the implications of compassion in the organizational context and conceptualizations and comparisons of the constructs. This symposium seeks to investigate the role that self- and/or other- compassion play in addressing employee suffering – a common yet understudied area. Our symposium includes five papers that collectively make three important contributions. First, we contribute to the compassion literature by expanding scholars’ knowledge to both the antecedents and consequences of compassion, which shows that compassion can be harnessed in organizations and can benefit the individual employee as well as surrounding employees or a diverse workgroup. Second, we explore various conceptualizations of compassion, which paints a clearer picture on how compassion can be utilized and studied in the workplace. Third, we consider the role that compassion may have for the self and other employees, highlighting both the potential upsides and downsides from an organizational perspective. We hope this symposium will encourage future research and stimulate further discussion around the importance of studying and practicing compassion at work. Clearance to Care: The Impact of Sufferer Self-Compassion on Observer Compassion Presenter: Yu Tse Heng; U. of Virginia Presenter: Charmi Patel; Henley Business School, U. of Reading The Effects of Forgone Identity Preference and Existential Meaning Beliefs on Compassion Presenter: Rachel Burgess; W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State U. When to Care: Self- and Other-Compassion on Citizenship Behavior Presenter: Sara Krivacek; Clemson U. Presenter: Thomas Joseph Zagenczyk; North Carolina State U. Presenter: Kristin L. Scott; College of Business, Clemson U. Presenter: Yannick Griep; Radboud U., Netherlands Exploring the Possible Benefits of Self-Compassion for Interracial Interactions Presenter: Jean-Marc Moke; York U. Presenter: Natalya Alonso; Haskayne School of Business, U. of Calgary Presenter: Brent John Lyons; Schulich School of Business, York U. The Straining Effect of Leader Identity Threat and the Exacerbating Role of Overidentification Presenter: Jordan Nielsen; Purdue U. Presenter: Thomas Ptashnik; U. of Iowa Presenter: Amy E. Colbert; U. of Iowa