Corrosive work relationships are like black holes that swallow upenergy that people need to do their jobs. In contrast, high-qualityrelationships generate and sustain energy, equipping people to dowork and do it well. Grounded in solid research, this book uses energy as ameasurement to describe the power of positive and negativeconnections in people's experience at work. Author Jane Duttonprovides three pathways for turning negative connections intopositive ones that create and sustain employee resilience andflexibility, facilitate the speed and quality of learning, andbuild individual commitment and cooperation. Through compelling and illustrative stories, Energize YourWorkplace offers managers, executives, and human resourceprofessionals the resources they need to build high-qualityconnections in the workplace.

Dutton, J. E. (2003). Energize your workplace: How to build and sustain high-quality connections at work. Jossey-Bass Publishers. 

This paper presents two views on the effects of compassion at work. The first view presents a quantitative model, indicating that experienced compassion relates to employee and organizational outcomes. Through analysis of compassion stories, the second view reveals mechanisms through which compassion has its effects, uncovering how acts of compassion are cues for sensemaking about the self, co-workers, and the organization. Together, the two views provide evidence that acts of compassion at work create important effects.

Lilius, J. M., Worline, M. C. Dutton, J. E., Kanov, J., Frost, P. J., Maitlis, S. (2003), What Good is Compassion at Work? 

This paper describes two studies that explore core questions about compassion at work. Findings from a pilot survey indicate that compassion occurs with relative frequency among a wide variety of individuals, suggesting a relationship between experienced compassion, positive emotion, and affective commitment. A complementary narrative study reveals a wide range of compassion triggers and illuminates ways that work colleagues respond to suffering. The narrative analysis demonstrates that experienced compassion provides important sensemaking occasions where employees who receive, witness, or participate in the delivery of compassion reshape understandings of their co-workers, themselves, and their organizations. Together these studies map the contours of compassion at work, provide evidence of its powerful consequences, and open a horizon of new research questions.

Lilius, J. M., Worline, M. C., Maitlis, S., Kanov, J. Dutton, J. E., & Frost, P., (2008). The contours and consequences of compassion at work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29(2), 193-218. 

Human physiological systems are highly responsive to positive social interactions, but the organizational importance of this finding largely has been unexplored. After reviewing extant research, we illustrate how consideration of the physiology of positive social interactions at work opens new research questions about how positive social interactions affect human capacity and how organizational contexts affect employee health and physiological resourcefulness. We also address the practical implications of integrating physiological data into organizational research. Our paper invites a fuller consideration of how employees' bodies are affected by everyday work interactions and, in so doing, encourages a stronger tie between human physiology and organizational research.

Heaphy, E. D., & Dutton, J. E., (2008). Positive social interactions and the human body at work: Linking organizations and physiology. The Academy of Management Review, 33(1), 137-162. 

Thriving describes an individual's experience of vitality and learning. The primary goal of this paper is to develop a model that illuminates the social embeddedness of employees' thriving at work. First, we explain why thriving is a useful theoretical construct, define thriving, and compare it to related constructs, including resilience, flourishing, subjective well-being, flow, and self-actualization. Second, we describe how work contexts facilitate agentic work behaviors, which in turn produce resources in the doing of work and serve as the engine of thriving. Third, we describe how thriving serves as a gauge to facilitate self-adaptation at work. We conclude by highlighting key theoretical contributions of the model and suggesting directions for future research.

Sprietzer, G., Sutcliffe, K., Dutton, J., Sonenshein, S., Grant, A. M., (2005). A socially embedded model of thriving at work. Organization Science, 16(5), 537-549. 

The practice of behavior analysis has become a booming industry with growth to over 30,000 Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who primarily work with children with autism and their families. Most of these BCBAs are relatively novice and have likely been trained in graduate programs that focus primarily on conceptual and technical skills. Successfully working with families of children with autism, however, requires critical interpersonal skills, as well as technical skills. As practitioners strive to respond efficiently and compassionately to distressed families of children with autism, technical skills must be balanced with fluency in relationship-building skills that strengthen the commitment to treatment. The current article provides an outline of important therapeutic relationship skills that should inform the repertoire of any practicing behavior analyst, strategies to cultivate and enhance those skills, and discussion of the potential effects of relationship variables on treatment outcomes.

Taylor, B. A., LeBlanc, L. A., & Nosik, M. R., (2019). Compassionate care in behavior analytic treatment: Can outcomes be enhanced by attending to relationships with caregivers?. Behavior Analysis in Practice 12, 654-666. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-018-00289-3 

Compassion is an interpersonal process involving the noticing, feeling, sensemaking, and acting that alleviates the suffering of another person. This process has recently received substantial attention by organizational researchers and practitioners alike. This article reviews what researchers currently know about compassion as it unfolds in dyadic interactions in work organizations. We begin by reviewing what we know about the benefits of compassion for the person who is suffering, for the provider of compassion, and for third parties who witness or hear about compassion at work. The heart of the article focuses on what research tells us about embedding compassion in the personal, relational, and organizational contexts in which compassion takes place. We conclude by discussing implications for practice and for the future research agenda regarding this vital interpersonal process.

Dutton, J. E., Workman, K. M., & Hardin, A. E. (2014). Compassion at work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1, 277-304. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091221. 

In this article we introduce AMR's Special Topic Forum on Understanding and Creating Caring and Compassionate Organizations. We outline why the time is right for such a forum, uncover scholarly and philosophical roots of a focus on compassion and care, and provide a brief introduction to the diverse and rich set of articles contained in this forum. We describe the innovative theorizing uncovered by the special issue articles and summarize the rich set of possibilities they suggest for the practice of organizing.

Rynes, S. L., Bartunek, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Margolis, J. D. (2012). Introduction to special topic forum: Care and compassion through an organizational lens: Opening up new possibilities. The Academy of Management Review, 37(4), 503-523. 

Recognizing the prevalence of suffering among management teachers and students, we raise the importance of compassion as central to the practice of management teaching. To aid in understanding how suffering and compassion arise in management teaching, we call upon a theoretical view of their rhizomatic structure, which conveys the widespread, complex, and largely unspoken spreading of suffering and corresponding need for compassion in the work of management teaching. To meet this suffering with compassion, we propose two clusters of practices central to teaching that lend themselves to helping management teachers see possibilities for more skillfully intertwining suffering and compassion. The first focuses on how management teachers can design the context for teaching in ways that make compassion more likely, focusing specifically on roles and networks. The second draws upon Honneth’s recognitional infrastructure to focus on how teachers can approach the relational practice of teaching with emphasis on enriching human recognition of suffering. We conclude with a caution about overly simplistic approaches and overly individualized views of compassion in the work of management teaching. We call for systemic approaches to action that will enrich our imaginations as we approach management teaching and its role in our collective responsiveness to suffering.

Worline, M. C., & Dutton, J. E. (2022). The courage to teach with compassion: Enriching classroom designs and practices to foster responsiveness to suffering. Management Learning, 53(1), 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076211044611 

Purpose Recognising the value of positive organisational behaviour at the workplace, this paper aims to provide a major review of the current state of research on positivity, and subsequently proposes new pathways for more theory building relating to important constructs conceptually related to positivity. Following the integration of emerging but disparate research on workplace positivity and related concepts, the paper develops a conceptual framework depicting the relationships amongst authentic leader behaviours, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, thriving and job performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers a systematic critical review of published studies representing the literature addressing authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, thriving, psychological capital and job performance. The paper relied on computerised keyword searches in the main business source databases of Emerald, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost and SpringerLink. Findings This paper leads to a conceptual framework proposing direct relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and job performance. Further, authentic leadership is proposed to potentially nurture organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance, given the theoretical linkages between these conceptually relevant variables related to positivity. Additionally, organisational virtuousness and psychological capital are projected to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee thriving. Finally, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital and employee thriving are designated as mediators of the relationship between authentic leadership and job performance. Research limitations/implications This paper proposes a conceptual framework focusing on one form of positive leader behaviour and also assumes specific causal pathways using a positivistic research approach to understanding the leadership–performance relationship. The paper did not examine all possible antecedents of positivity at the workplace. Practical implications The proposed conceptual framework should form the basis of many organisational interventions, especially in relation to boosting authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance. By suggesting the association between authentic leadership, psychological capital and organisational virtuousness, this paper highlights potential benefits from effective leaders’ commitment to enhancing psychological capital and organisational virtuousness and engendering thriving behaviour and job performance. Originality/value This novel paper has the potential to stimulate the empirical studies on workplace positivity through the association of authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and thriving.

Shahid, S., & Muchiri, M. K. (2018). Positivity at the workplace: Conceptualising the relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness, thriving and job performance. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 27(1). DOI:10.1108/IJOA-05-2017-1167 

This chapter focuses on how leaders matter for the expression of compassion in organizations. Leaders are imbued with both instrumental and symbolic power to shape individual and organizational responses to suffering. To understand how leaders impact a system’s compassionate responses, we focus on leadership moves, defined as actions taken by leaders in relation to those who are suffering and/or those who are seeking to alleviate suffering. We identify twelve leadership moves and offer a theoretical view of how these twelve leaders’ moves impact the way emergent compassion processes unfold. We focus particularly on the importance of (1) how leadership moves shape the expression of suffering; (2) how leaders draw attention to pain; (3) how leaders feel and express emotion; and (4) how they frame and narrate suffering. This review illuminates the variety of ways that leaders matter and invites further research into new questions about compassion and leadership.

Worline, M. & J. Dutton. (2017). How leaders shape compassion processes in organizations. In E. Seppala, J. Doty, M. Worline, D. Cameron, S. Brown, and E. Simon-Thomas (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Compassionate Science: Oxford University Press. Doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190464684.013.31 

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspectives define interpersonal work experiences such as positive work relationships and high-quality connections by the mutual growth and empowerment experienced by relationship or connection partners. Listening has been implicated as a key mechanism for building such positive interpersonal work experiences, but it is unclear how listening spurs on mutual, rather than one-sided growth, in relationship and connection partners. In this paper, we argue that management education currently focuses on the intrapersonal capability of listeners to execute key verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Less emphasis is placed on the mutual experience co-created between speaker and listener and, thus, on the potential for mutual growth and empowerment. We articulate what “being relational” in the listening experience means, and use experiential learning theory to articulate how educators might create learning spaces for “being relational” through conversations between listener and speaker. Throughout the paper we contend with issues of individual and structural power asymmetries inherent in understanding listening as a relational process.

Hinz, J., Stephens, J. P., & Van Oosten, E. B. (2022). Toward a pedagogy of connection: A critical view of being relational in listening. Management Learning, 53(1), 76–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076211047506 

In-depth interviews with business school faculty members suggest that work relationships are more than strategically chosen means to career mobility. Relationships are career-defining ends as well, and negative relationships may be as consequential as helpful ties. Findings also showed significant gender differences: women, more than men, told stories about harm; men, more than women, told stories about help. Work- place relationships may play different roles for professionals and managers, and men's and women's different relational experiences may foster different career logics, or ways of striving for success.

Gersick, C. J. G., Dutton, J. E., & Bartunek, J. M. (2000). Learning from academia: The importance of relationships in professional life. The Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1026-1044. 

Research indicates that Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) in the work context have a small positive impact on improving desirable work outcomes, and a small to moderate effect on reducing undesirable work outcomes, suggesting that the effects of PPIs are not trivial, but also not large. Whereas this may be related to the difficulty of changing oneself or one’s happiness levels, the relatively small effects of PPIs may also be due to the predominant use of one-off interventions instead of more structural interventions that reflect policy level commitment. Furthermore, since most PPIs tend to focus on the individual, one could question the long-term effectiveness of such interventions, especially when the work environment remains unchanged. In this manuscript, I introduce a typology of PPIs in organizations by distinguishing between the organizational level they target (the individual or group level), and between one-off and structural interventions. I argue that different types of interventions can strengthen each other, and that to make a sustainable contribution to the optimal functioning of workers, PPIs need to comprise a wide variety of one-off and structural interventions targeting both individuals and groups in organizations. Furthermore, I make suggestions for improving the long-term effectiveness of PPIs by drawing on the literature on transfer of training, nudging, and positive design.

van Woerkom, M. (2021). Building positive organizations: A typology of positive psychology interventions. Frontiers In Psychology, 12 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.769782 

The present research tested whether mindfulness, a state characterized by focused, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, increases prosocial behavior in the workplace or work-related contexts. Study 1a was a longitudinal field experiment at a US insurance company. Compared to workers under waitlist control, employees who were assigned to a daily mindfulness training reported more helping behaviors over a five day period both in quantitative surveys and qualitative daily diaries. Study 1b, conducted in a large consulting company in India, extends these findings with a field experiment in which co-workers rated the prosocial behavior of teammates in a round robin design. Moving from devoting time to devoting money, in Studies 2a and 2b we find that individuals randomly assigned to engage in a focused breathing meditation were more financially generous. To understand the mechanisms of mindfulness’ effects on prosocial behavior, Study 3 found support for empathy and moderate support for perspective taking as mediators. This study also examined the effects of induced state mindfulness via two different mindfulness inductions, focused breathing and loving kindness meditation. Our results indicate that secular state mindfulness can make people more other-oriented and helpful. This benefit holds even in the workplace, where being helpful toward others might face constraints but is nevertheless of great importance.

Hafenbrack, A. C., Cameron, L. D., Spreitzer, G.M., Zhang, C., Noval, L.J., & Shaffakatf, S. (2020). Helping people by being in the present: Mindfulness increases prosocial behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 159, 21-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.08.005  

This study examines how trust, connectivity and thriving drive employees’ innovative behaviors in the workplace. Using a sample of one hundred and seventy two employees across a variety of jobs and industries, we investigated the relationship between trust, connectivity (both measured at Time 1), thriving and innovative work behaviors (both measured at Time 2). Trust and connectivity were hypothesized to create a nurturing environment that enables people to thrive and be innovative in their work. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate a sequential mediation model in which connectivity mediates the relationship between trust and thriving, and thriving mediates the relationship between connectivity and innovative behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications for employee thriving and innovative behaviors at work are discussed.

Carmeli, A, & Spreitzer, G.M. (2009). Trust, connectivity, and thriving: Implications for innovative work behavior. Journal of Creative Behavior, 43(3), 169-191. 

Organizational learning is an important means for improving performance. Learning is a process, that is, often relational in the sense of relying on interactions between people to determine what needs improving and how to do it. This study addresses the question of how the quality of work relationships facilitates learning behaviours in organizations through the ways it contributes to psychological safety. Data collected from 212 part-time students who hold full-time jobs in organizations operating in a wide variety of industries show that capacities of high-quality relationships (measured at time 1) are positively associated with psychological safety, which, in turn, are related to higher levels of learning behaviours (measured at time 2). The results also show that experiences of high-quality relationships (measured at time 1) are both directly and indirectly (through psychological safety) associated with learning behaviours (measured at time 2). These findings shed light on the importance of quality relationships in the workplace for cultivating and developing perceptions of psychological safety and ultimately learning behaviours in organizations.

Carmeli, A., Brueller, D., & Dutton, J.E. (2009). Learning behaviors in the workplace: The role of high-quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 26(1), 81-98. 

This research contributes to an improved understanding ofauthentic leadership at the work-life interface. Webuild on conservation of resources theory todevelop a leader-follower crossover model of the impact of authentic leadership on followers’ job satisfaction through leaders’ and followers’ work-life balance. The model integrates authentic leadership and crossover literatures to suggestthat followersperceive authentic leaders to better balance their professional and private lives, which in turn enables followers to achieve a positive work-life balance, and ultimatelymakes them more satisfiedin their jobs. Data from working adults collected in a correlational field study (N= 121) and an experimental study (N= 154) generally supported indirect effects linking authentic leadership to job satisfaction through work-life balance perceptions. However, both studies highlighted the relevance of followers’ own work-life balance as a mediatormore so thanthe sequence of leaders’and followers’work-life balance.We discuss theoretical implications of these findings from a conservation of resources perspective, andemphasize how authentic leadership represents an organizationalresource at the work-life interface. We also suggest practical implications of developing authentic leadership in organizations to promote employees’ well-being as well as avenues for future research.

Braun, S., & Peus, C., (2018). Crossover of work-life balance perceptions: Does authentic leadership matter? Journal of Business Ethics, 149 (4), 875-893. DOI:10.1007/s10551-016-3078-x  

Virtuousness in organizations involves individuals and teams being resilient, or bouncing back from setbacks in ways that allow them to adapt and grow. In two studies, we focus on emotional carrying capacity (ECC), wherein relationship partners express more of their emotions, express both positive and negative emotions, and do so constructively, as a source of resilience in individuals and in teams. Study 1’s findings indicate that ECC is positively related to individual resilience and that ECC mediates the link between relationship closeness and individual resilience. Study 2’s findings indicate a similar pattern for resilience at the team level: ECC is positively related to team resilience and mediates the connection between trust and team resilience. Together, these studies provide insight into how emotional expression in relationships is a key mechanism in explaining resilience, a foundational element for the pursuit of long-term virtuousness for individuals and for teams.

Stephens, J.P., Heaphy, E., Carmeli, A., Spreitzer, G.M., & Dutton, J.E. (2013). Relationship quality and virtuousness: Emotional carrying capacity as a source of individual and team resilience. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 49(1), 13-41.  

In four studies we examine whether and why respectfully engaging with other organizational members can augment creativity for individuals and teams. We develop and test a model in which respectful engagement among organizational members facilitates relational information processing, which in turn results in enhanced creative behaviors. We found a similar pattern across all four studies – respectful engagement is indirectly related, through relational information processing, to creative behavior at both the individual and team levels. These findings underscore the importance of respectful engagement in facilitating relational information processing and fostering creative behaviors at both the individual and team levels.

Carmeli, A., Dutton, J.E., & Hardin, A.E. (2015). Respect as an engine for new ideas: Linking respectful engagement, relational information processing and creativity among employees and teams. Human Relations, 68 (6), 1021-1047. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726714550256  

This study is situated in the paradigms of positive organizational scholarship (POS) and positive organizational behaviour (POB). It draws upon the theoretical mechanisms of social learning and emotional contagion to suggest that psychological capital may spread through work teams to impact team outcomes such as performance, innovation, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The degree to which team psychological capital (TPsyCap) mediated the relationship between leader psychological capital (LPsyCap) and team outcomes was also tested (n = 94 teams; n = 94 leaders; n = 550 employees). Using structural equation modelling, LPsyCap and TPsyCap were both related to team-level organizational citizenship behavior, team performance, and team innovation. However, the relationship between LPsyCap and TPsyCap was not significant. These findings support the positioning of psychological capital as an important resource for optimal team functioning but also suggest that workplaces cannot expect that leaders, through their own psychological capital alone, can create team-level psychological capital. Instead, the current research suggests that other organizational initiatives and experiences are needed to enhance LPsyCap. The results contribute to a better understanding of POS and POB in general and, specifically, to the recently emerging construct of team psychological capital.

Waters, L., Strauss, G., Somech, A., Haslam, N., & Dussert, D. (2020). Does team psychological capital predict team outcomes at work? International Journal of Wellbeing, 10(1), 1-25. doi:10.5502/ijw.v10i1.923 

We develop a theory to explain how individual compassion in response to human pain in organizations becomes socially coordinated through a process we call compassion organizing. The theory specifies five mechanisms, including contextual enabling of attention, emotion, and trust, agents improvising structures, and symbolic enrichment, that show how the social architecture of an organization interacts with agency and emergent features to affect the extraction, generation, coordination, and calibration of resources. In doing so, our theory of compassion organizing suggests that the same structures designed for the normal work of organizations can be redirected to a new purpose to respond to members' pain. We discuss the implications of the theory for compassion organizing and for collective organizing more generally.

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

Teams often fail to reach their potential because members’ concerns about being socially accepted prevent them from offering their unique perspectives to the team. Drawing on relational self and self-affirmation theory, we argue that affirmation of team members’ social worth by trusted people outside the team helps them internalize an identity as a valued contributor, thereby reducing social acceptance concerns and facilitating information sharing in teams. We devised three intervention studies to demonstrate the causal effect of social worth affirmation in teams. In Study 1, senior executive teams in which members experienced social worth affirmation performed better on a crisis simulation that required information sharing in teams (compared to control teams). In Study 2, with U.S. military cadets, we examined social acceptance concerns as a mechanism by which social worth affirmation influences information sharing. In Study 3, we showed that social worth affirmation improves virtual teams’ ability to share information by exchanging unique information cues. Our results suggest that affirmation of the social worth of team members through their personal relationships broadens their sense of self, thereby reducing their social concerns about being accepted by other members. This, in turn, leads to better information sharing in teams.

Cunningham, J. L., Gino, F., Cable, D. M., & Staats, B. R. (2020). Seeing oneself as a valued contributor: Social worth affirmation improves team information sharing. Academy of Management Journal, 64 (6). https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.0790  

What if all organizations are filled with untapped resources? What if seeing and utilizing resources depended upon how people see and talk to each other? What if changing the way we see and talk to each other could transform organizational capacity? This paper is about learning to activate conversations that challenge assumptions, stimulate learning and facilitate change. We begin with a case that illustrates the failure to see potential. We propose that the ability to see potential is rooted in shared assumptions and beliefs, and link these assumptions to organizational discourse. Through a second case example, we show the difference that discourse can make. We conclude with an assessment tool that managers can use to help themselves and others reflect on their assumptions, alter their discourse and access vital resources.

Heynoski, K., & Quinn, R.E. (2012). Seeing and realizing organizational potential: Activating conversations that challenge assumptions. Organizational Dynamics, 41(2), 118-125. 

This research investigated the link between ethical leadership and performance using data from the People’s Republic of China. Consistent with social exchange, social learning, and social identity theories, we examined leader–member exchange (LMX), self-efficacy, and organizational identification as mediators of the ethical leadership to performance relationship. Results from 72 supervisors and 201 immediate direct reports revealed that ethical leadership was positively and significantly related to employee performance as rated by their immediate supervisors and that this relationship was fully mediated by LMX, self-efficacy, and organizational identification, controlling for procedural fairness. We discuss implications of our findings for theory and practice.

Walumbwa, F. O., Mayer, D. M., Wang, P., Wang, H., Workman, K., & Christensen, A. L. (2011). Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader-member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 204-213.