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This study examines whether compassion at work increases service employees’ job performance. More specifically, the purpose of this study is to show the mechanism through which experienced compassion in an organization affects the job performance of service employees.

The employees from a department store in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. Out of 550 questionnaires, a total of 309 usable questionnaires were obtained after list-wise deletion, for a 61.6 per cent response rate.

The results of this study suggest that the evaluative perspective of positive work-related identity mediates the relationship between compassion at work and service employees’ job performance. In addition, the findings of this study demonstrate that there is significant mediating effect of service employee creativity on the relationship between compassion at work and job performance. Furthermore, the relationship between compassion at work and job performance was sequentially mediated by the evaluative perspective of positive work-related identity and the creativity of service employees.

The common method variance in the self-reported variables imposes a need for caution in the interpretation of the findings. Future studies could avoid the problem of common method bias by, for example, using supervisor ratings of creativity and job performance. On the other hand, this study will add to the growing body of research on service marketing by highlighting the role of compassion at work to enhance service employees’ job performance.

This study offers new insight for practitioners (i.e. CEOs, top management teams, employees) by suggesting that they may promote service employees’ job performance if they pay more attention to compassionate acts in service marketing.

As services are becoming more important and harder to sell simultaneously, this study provides a new perspective to improve service employees’ job performance by examining its link with compassion at work.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to a workplace that lacks mindfulness and compassion. The authors first hypothesize that supervisors’ mindfulness is related to the mindfulness of their direct followers, and that both are related to employees’ compassion at work. The authors also hypothesize that compassion mediates the link between supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness and cyberloafing, and that empathic concern mediates the link from compassion to cyberloafing.

A questionnaire was distributed to followers working in groups of three with the same leader in all of the 100 banks in London (UK). Supervisors and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) for analyses.

Results showed that supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness were significantly related to each other and to compassion at work, but compassion acted as a mediator only in the case of supervisors’ mindfulness. Empathic concern mediated the compassion-cyberloafing link.

The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias and specificities of banks and their work processes can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results.

Findings suggest that mindfulness training may facilitate compassion at work, which, in turn, will restrain the occurrence of cyberloafing at work.

This is the first study to analyze how and why employees refrain from harming their organizations out of compassion.

Recent emphasis in research and theory building on compassion in organizations has not yet received sustained attention by organization development and change scholarship. Compassion at work, however, has been reported as instrumental in coaching, ad hoc organizing, prosocial behavior during challenging times, and other processes central to developing and changing organizations. It also has been theorized to bring about an untapped organizational capability, contribute to fostering a climate of workplace forgiveness, and to facilitate development of social entrepreneurship. In this essay, we begin to outline what the recent advances in the compassion literature offer researchers and practitioners of organization development and change. We briefly review how compassion is defined across different contexts, how it can be seen through a positive lens and within broader lines of inquiry on social and emotional dynamics at work, and how interpretive approaches to studying compassion might fit with the study of change. Seeing compassion scholarship as more than a specialized trend in positive organizational behavior, we offer ample opportunities for diverse and novel inquiry into development and change at work.

This study aims to examine how employees' perceptions of organizational actions, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), affect their compassionate acts in organizations through employee perceptions of organizational justice and affective organizational commitment.

The employees from 87 firms in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. Out of 400 questionnaires, a total of 253 usable questionnaires were obtained after list-wise deletion, for a 63.3 percent response rate. The firms belong to a variety of industries (banking and financial services, manufacturing, hospitals, education, etc.).

The results indicate that employees' perceptions of CSR positively relate to compassion at work through organizational justice perceptions (i.e. perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice), and affective organizational commitment, in a sequential manner, in addition to their direct effects on compassion at work.

This study sheds new light on both the compassion and the CSR literature due to its attempt to bridge the macro concept of CSR with micro research in compassion. This is, apparently, one of the first pieces of research in the management literature to specifically address compassion as a consequence of employees' CSR perception.

Purpose: Although there has been increasing scholarly attention regarding the unethical concerns of prosocial behavior at work, scarce research has been done to conceptualize this type of compassionate behavior. To address this research gap, we identify the unethical concerns of a supervisor's compassion and address how this compassion, when combined with unethical implications, impacts subordinates' unethical behavior. Study Design/Methodology/Approach: We drew on sensemaking theory to develop a theoretical model and a four-quadrant taxonomy explaining how subordinate's interpretation of the context and supervisors' actions affected their unethical behavior through emotional responses and shared moral identity with supervisors. Findings: Our propositions suggest that subordinates' different roles in supervisors' compassionate process – the sufferer (receiver) or bystander (witness), and supervisors' unethical behavior at the domain of private or public activities impact their interpretations of meaning and shape their corresponding emotional responses, moral identity, and unethical behavior. Originality/Value: Our theoretical model contributes to a wholistic understanding of compassion at work by identifying the unethical implications of compassion appraisal. It depicts the complex process of how leaders' contradictory information shapes employees' unethical behavior. Research Limitations: The theoretical model and propositions lack the support of empirical data.

Adapting a positive business ethics framework, the purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective to manage bullying at work. Specifically, this paper reports an empirical study which examines how the good work of servant leadership may lower employees’ exposure to workplace bullying, with compassion as a mediator and social cynicism beliefs (SCBs) as a moderator.

Survey data were gathered from 337 essential health professionals working in various public and private health-care organisations in Pakistan. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research model.

This study found that perceived servant leadership helps in lessening employee exposure to workplace bullying by strengthening their compassion. However, SCBs moderate the mediating role of compassion in employees’ perceptions of the servant leadership–bullying relationship.

This study has implications in developing models of leadership to build employees’ empathetic resources to combat workplace bullying. The authors found that servant leadership and workplace compassion, embodying positive, ethical and sustainable attributes, play a crucial role in managing bullying at work by promoting relational dignity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the relationships between employee perceptions of servant leadership, workplace bullying and employee compassion while considering SCBs as a boundary condition.

Based on a new management paradigm rooted on care and compassion, this study explores the consequences of compassion at work on organizational learning and firm performance.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the research model by using data from two different samples.

Results confirm that compassion increases firm performance through organizational learning capability; however, compassion do not enhances directly firm performance.

The study findings indicate that when compassion is propagated among organizational members, organizations are better able to learn so they obtain a competitive advantage that is difficult to imitate and leads to higher firm performance.

This study takes a step forward on literature by providing empirical evidence for a promising area of management research such is compassion in organizations.

The authors draw on this approach to explore the consequences of compassion and altruism in the workplace for firm performance, using organizational resilience as a mediating variable.

In recent years, a paradigm shift has been proposed in the organizational sciences that includes a change from self-centeredness to interconnectedness. This emergent management paradigm considers that employees are not only motivated by self-interest but also by other-centered values, such as altruism and compassion for others. This alternative proposal suggests the need for a more humanistic perspective for management. To carry out the research, the authors applied a structural equation model to a sample of highly innovative companies from different sectors.

The results confirm that compassion at work leads to a climate based on altruism, which indirectly increases firm performance by means of organizational resilience. This study contributes to the organizational literature by revealing some benefits of promoting altruism and compassion in organizations.

This study therefore provides a detailed analysis of the consequences of altruism and compassion in organizations and reveals some organizational conditions that can drive firm performance. Moreover, this study is the first to suggest and empirically validate that a work climate based on altruism enhances organizational resilience. In turn, organizational resilience enables the firm to take appropriate actions to convert unexpected and adverse situations that potentially threaten its survival into sources of opportunity and growth.