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Cultivating organizational compassion in healthcare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2019

Ace Volkmann Simpson Open the ORCID record for Ace Volkmann Simpson [Opens in a new window] ,
Ben Farr-Wharton  and
Prasuna Reddy
Ace Volkmann Simpson*
Affiliation:
Brunel Business School, Brunel University, London
Ben Farr-Wharton
Affiliation:
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Australia
Prasuna Reddy
Affiliation:
Faculty of Science, Engineering & Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ace.simpson@brunel.ac.uk
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Abstract

The compassion of healthcare workers towards patients is widely recognized, but research suggests a dearth of compassion among co-workers. Indeed, workplace bullying and negative employee outcomes are over-represented in the healthcare sector (including burnout and substantial staff turnover). In this paper, we discuss the cultivation of compassion for healthcare workers, using the lens of positive organizational scholarship. Our concern is not only with the individual level compassion (i.e. between employees), we also consider how compassion can be cultivated systemically across healthcare institutions at the organizational level. More specifically, we present a proposed Noticing, Empathising, Assessing and Responding Mechanisms Model of Organizational Compassion as a tool for consciously cultivating workplace compassion in healthcare organizations.

Keywords

group dynamicshealthcare managementhealth and wellnesspositive organizational scholarship (POS)
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 26 , Special Issue 3: Positive Organisational Scholarship in Healthcare (POSH) , May 2020 , pp. 340 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019

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