Compassion Lab

 

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"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
-- William Faulkner

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, December, 1950



A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe… He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us … Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
-- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

 

 

We are a group of researchers working in business schools who strive to create a new vision of organizations as sites for the development and expression of compassion. We are part of a broader community of scholars who are dedicated to developing a perspective on organizations as sites for human growth and the development of human strengths.

Publications

Books

Frost, P. J. (2003). Toxic emotions at work: How compassionate managers handle pain and conflict. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 2nd edition (2007).

Refereed Journal Articles

Lilius, J., Worline, M., Maitlis, S., Kanov, J., Dutton, J., & Frost, P. (2008). The contours and consequences of compassion. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 193-218.

Dutton, J., Worline, M. C., Frost, P. J., Lilius, J. (2006). Explaining compassion organizing. Administrative Science Quarterly, 51, 1, 59-96.

Rhee, S.Y, Dutton, J., & Bagozzi, R. (2006). Making sense of organizational actions in response to tragedy: Virtue frames, organizational identification and organizational attachment. Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, 3, 1-2: 34-59.

Kanov, J. Maitlis, S., Worline, M. C., Dutton, J. E., Frost, P.J. & Lilius, J. (2004). Compassion in organizational life, American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 6, 808-827. Reprinted in J. V. Gallos (Ed.), Organization development: A Jossey-Bass reader (The Jossey-Bass Business and Management Reader Series). Jossey-Bass.

Maitlis, S. & Ozcelik, H. (2004). Toxic decision processes: A study of emotion and organizational decision making. Organization Science, 15, 4, 375-393.

Dutton, J. E., Frost, P. J., Worline, M. C., Lilius, J. M., & Kanov, J. M. (2002). Leadership in times of trauma, Harvard Business Review, January. Reprinted in Harvard Business Review on Building personal and organizational resilience. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Frost, P. J. (1999). Why compassion counts! Journal of Management Inquiry, 8, 2, 127-133.

Frost, P. J. & Robinson, S. L. (1999). The toxic handler: Organizational hero and casuality. Harvard Business Review, July-August, pp. 96-106.


Book Chapters

Dutton, J. E., Lilius, J. M. & Kanov, J. M. (2007). The transformative potential of compassion at work. In D. Cooperrider, R. Fry and S. Piderit, (Eds.), New Designs for Transformative Cooperation, pp. 107-126. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Frost, P. J., Dutton, J. E., Maitlis, S., Lilius, J.M., Kanov, J.M., & Worline, M. C. (2006). Seeing organizations differently: Three lenses on compassion. In C. Hardy, S. Clegg, T. Lawrence & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of Organization Studies, 2nd Edition, pp. 843-866. London: Sage Publications.

Worline, M. C., & Boik, S. (2006). Leadership lessons from Sarah: Values based leadership as everyday practice. In K. Cameron & E. Hess (Eds.), Leading with Values: Positivity, Virtue, and High Performance, pp. 108-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Frost, P., Dutton, J., Worline M., & Wilson, A. (2000).  Narratives of compassion in organizations.  In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotions in Organizations, pp. 25-45. London: Sage Publications.