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Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations
Includes bibliographical references
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
GSB: Faculty
2016
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| _version_ | 1867613244749774848 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Train, Katherine Judith |
| author2 | April, Kurt |
| author_browse | April, Kurt Train, Katherine Judith |
| author_facet | April, Kurt Train, Katherine Judith |
| author_sort | Train, Katherine Judith |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16920 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:04.194Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | GSB: Faculty |
| publisherStr | GSB: Faculty |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16920 Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations Train, Katherine Judith April, Kurt Service industry Organisational culture compassion Includes bibliographical references Compassion in organizations is researched as a three-stage process of collective noticing another's pain, empathic concern or feeling another's pain and taking action to ease their suffering, and is ascribed to the orchestration of spontaneous individual acts of compassion in accordance with specific organizational architecture. Situations with limited resources leading to resource exhaustion require further studies to address the risks and liabilities of compassion organizing (Dutton, Worline, Frost, & Lilius, 2006). South African human service organizations face resource limitations within a challenged socio-economic environment. Given these limitations, agents may experience personal distress limiting the capacity for compassion. This study examines agent capacities required for compassion capability in South African human service organizations. The research applies the ontological lens of enaction, an interpretive design, and the descriptive phenomenological method in psychology (Giorgi, 2009), adapted for human science in organizations. Data was collected, with semi-structured interviews, as concrete descriptions of experiences, from thirty-three participants, from five organizations. Eleven participants underwent multiple interviews. Intensity sampling was applied to gain understanding of information-rich cases that were intense but not extreme, maximum variation sampling to access primary themes across a range of service providers. Texts, as transcriptions of audio recordings, were analyzed applying the phenomenological reduction to search for invariant organizational behavioural meanings. Texts were read for a sense of the whole; broken down to meaning units; and transformed to phenomenological expressions of meaning. Descriptions of experiences were categorized according to empathic concern or personal distress, like experiences were grouped by organization as units of description. Units of description were compared between the organizations. The key findings were that compassion in organizations characterized by resource limitation requires special attention, particularly when agent and client share common experiences of adversity, initiating experiences of personal distress. The overcoming of personal distress requires agent capacities of individual and participatory sensemaking: identifying reaction, identifying non-verbal cues in self and other; engaging capacities of emoting, intending and urging. Sustainable practice of compassion is characterized by the intention to facilitate new sensemaking of the experience of the suffering, witnessing the suffering as well as the alleviation of suffering. 2016-02-08T14:26:41Z 2016-02-08T14:26:41Z 2015 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16920 eng application/pdf GSB: Faculty Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Service industry Organisational culture compassion Train, Katherine Judith Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| title_full | Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| title_fullStr | Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| title_short | Compassion in organizations: sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability. A phenomenological study in South African human service organizations |
| title_sort | compassion in organizations sensemaking and embodied experience in emergent relational capability a phenomenological study in south african human service organizations |
| topic | Service industry Organisational culture compassion |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16920 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT trainkatherinejudith compassioninorganizationssensemakingandembodiedexperienceinemergentrelationalcapabilityaphenomenologicalstudyinsouthafricanhumanserviceorganizations |