Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/18726
Title: | “I Used to Care but Things Have Changed”: A Genealogy of Compassion in Organizational Theory |
Authors: | Simpson, AV Clegg, S Pitsis, T |
Keywords: | Positive organizational scholarship (POS);compassion;organization studies;genealogy;power;Foucault |
Issue Date: | 2014 |
Publisher: | Sage Publications |
Citation: | Journal of Management Inquiry, 2014, 23 (4), pp. 347 - 359 |
Abstract: | © The Author(s) 2014. We explore the use of compassion as a technology of power and subjectivity within organizations. Using a genealogical method, we trace the history of concern with compassion in organizations as a mode of employee discipline. The article applies a perspective developed from Foucault, focused on power/knowledge relations and the role that they play in the formation of the subject in organizations. Organizational compassion has been constantly re-defined and re-evaluated according to changing organizational objectives for shaping employee subjectivity. While one may think of compassion as a “good” phenomenon, we counsel caution against doing so in all contexts as a generic endorsement of a “positive” agenda. As we show, compassion may be a mode of power. |
URI: | http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/18726 |
DOI: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1056492614521895 |
ISSN: | 1056-4926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1056492614521895 1552-6542 |
Appears in Collections: | Brunel Business School Research Papers |
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