The benefits of organizational compassion identified by research include boosting organizational trust, pride, connection, motivation, and commitment (; ; ) fostering coworker bonding and support towards others in need () and facilitating post-trauma healing (; ; ). Recognition of these organizational benefits has bolstered growing interest in organizational compassion (for overviews see ; ; ; ). Despite these benefits, recent research has critiqued the POS literature on organizational compassion as overlooking the power dynamics and potential for negative outcomes inherent in any relational process (; ; ). The enthusiastic mainstream discourse on the organizational benefits of compassion has glossed over an extensive body of work in philosophy, literature, and academic research indicating the limits of compassion (). As an example, Aristotle () defined virtue as the golden mean between the vices of deficiency and excess (). Hence, if compassion is the mean then its deficiency would be the vice of callousness, and its excess the vices of pity or heart” “bleeding sentimentality (). Failure to recognize and account for the negative aspects of compassion indicates a lack of reflexivity and critical reasoning, so crucial for good academic scholarship and virtuous organizational practice. The mainstream discourse has additionally overlooked insights on compassion from other cultural traditions. Generally, western theories and concepts of management dominate curriculums, textbooks and journal publications (; ). POS has been specifically critiqued as promoting emotions that are within the western context but in other cultural settings (). Globalization has led “positive” “negative” to further questioning of the universality of management theories and recognition that corporate and regional cultures are not homogeneous in their logics and epistemologies (). Scholars have responded by exploring historical management concepts from texts rooted in regional cultural heritages (; ; ). While these ancient texts proscribe practices for effectively governing a kingdom state, they are increasingly being reinterpreted within the context of corporate management (; ; ; ). Aware of these critiques, in October 2012 I accepted an invitation to visit the Kingdom of Bhutan as an opportunity to explore a state where compassion is propounded a guiding principle of public administration. Bhutan is one of the world’s only two states where Buddhism is the official religion. Hence, considering that Buddhism holds compassion as one of its primary ethics, Bhutan provides an ideal setting for investigating the value of compassionate governance. The Constitution of The
The benefits of organizational compassion identified by research include boosting organizational trust, pride, connection, motivation, and commitment (; ; ) fostering coworker bonding and support towards others in need () and facilitating post-trauma healing (; ; ). Recognition of these organizational benefits has bolstered growing interest in organizational compassion (for overviews see ; ; ; ). Despite these benefits, recent research has critiqued the POS literature on organizational compassion as overlooking the power dynamics and potential for negative outcomes inherent in any relational process (; ; ). The enthusiastic mainstream discourse on the organizational benefits of compassion has glossed over an extensive body of work in philosophy, literature, and academic research indicating the limits of compassion (). As an example, Aristotle () defined virtue as the golden mean between the vices of deficiency and excess (). Hence, if compassion is the mean then its deficiency would be the vice of callousness, and its excess the vices of pity or “bleeding heart” sentimentality (). Failure to recognize and account for the negative aspects of compassion indicates a lack of reflexivity and critical reasoning, so crucial for good academic scholarship and virtuous organizational practice. The mainstream discourse has additionally overlooked insights on compassion from other cultural traditions. Generally, western theories and concepts of management dominate curriculums, textbooks and journal publications (; ). POS has been specifically critiqued as promoting emotions that are “positive” within the western context but “negative” in other cultural settings (). Globalization has led to further questioning of the universality of management theories and recognition that corporate and regional cultures are not homogeneous in their logics and epistemologies (). Scholars have responded by exploring historical management concepts from texts rooted in regional cultural heritages (; ; ). While these ancient texts proscribe practices for effectively governing a kingdom state, they are increasingly being reinterpreted within the context of corporate management (; ; ; ). Aware of these critiques, in October 2012 I accepted an invitation to visit the Kingdom of Bhutan as an opportunity to explore a state where compassion is propounded a guiding principle of public administration. Bhutan is one of the world’s only two states where Buddhism is the official religion. Hence, considering that Buddhism holds compassion as one of its primary ethics, Bhutan provides an ideal setting for investigating the value of compassionate governance. The Constitution of The
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