“I Used to Care but Things Have Changed”: A Genealogy of Compassion in Organizational Theory

TY - JOUR

T1 - “I Used to Care but Things Have Changed”

T2 - A Genealogy of Compassion in Organizational Theory

AU - Simpson, Ace V.

AU - Clegg, Stewart

AU - Pitsis, Tyrone

N1 - Funding Information: The work performed in the authors' laboratory was helped financially by the Fonds Cancérologique de la Caisse Générale d'Epargne et de Retraite and by the Ministry of Agriculture. R. Kettmann and G. Marbaix are Maître de Recherche and L. Willems is Aspirant of the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique. A Van den Broeke is a Fellow of the Lady Tata Memorial Trust. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2014.

PY - 2014/10/1

Y1 - 2014/10/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - ethics

KW - management history

KW - organization theory

KW - positive organizational scholarship

KW - power and politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905091726&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1056492614521895

DO - 10.1177/1056492614521895

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84905091726

SN - 1056-4926

VL - 23

SP - 347

EP - 359

JO - Journal of Management Inquiry

JF - Journal of Management Inquiry

IS - 4

ER -