Being there or being competent? How co-worker support contributes to unit performance.

In this dissertation, I address three gaps in the workplace social support literature that has demonstrated the consequential nature of perceived workplace support. First, a relationship between social support and organizational performance has been implied, but not directly tested. Second, it challenges an implicit and limiting assumption of this research stream that social support is important to the degree that it keeps a person in their work role (through reduced turnover), rather than by influencing how competently that person actually does their work. Finally, while there is evidence for the importance of perceptions that support is readily available within the workplace, researchers know little about the development of these perceptions. I address these gaps through two complementary research methods in the context of nursing homes. In the first study, I develop and test a resource and competence-based theoretical model of co-worker support and unit-level performance in long-term care organizations, which proposes that perceived co-worker support generates three key psychological, emotional, and social resources---namely, self-efficacy, gratitude, and trust---which in turn are positively related to competent work behaviors (perseverance and collaboration) that positively impact quality of care outcomes. I test this model using survey data from nurse aides and unit managers from 25 units in across 6 nursing homes and through a combination of structural equation modeling and means comparisons. These findings provide general support for the model, with all hypothesized relationships but the one between trust and collaboration supported. Through the ethnographic study, I both elaborate some of the constructs proposed in the theoretical model and provide a situated view of the development of perceived co-worker support. These ethnographic findings reveal a range of challenges facing nurse aides and the competence with which they are overcome. These findings also suggest that it is the support that the nurse aides provide each other in the face of resident death that may lead to general perceptions of support availability. Taken together, the findings of the survey and ethnography illuminate the antecedents and organizational performance implications of perceived co-worker support, as we'll as resource and competence mechanisms that link the two.Ph.D.GerontologyHealth and Environmental SciencesHealth care managementManagementOccupational psychologyPsychologySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126220/2/3238020.pd

Understanding compassion capability

We elaborate a theory of the foundations of a collective capability for compassion through a detailed analysis of everyday practices in an organizational unit. Our induced theory of compassion capability draws on the findings of an interview study to illustrate and explain how a specific set of everyday practices creates two relational conditions — high quality connections and a norm of dynamic boundary permeability — that enable employees of a collective unit to notice, feel and respond to members’ suffering. By articulating the mechanisms that connect everyday practices and a work unit’s compassion capability, we provide insight into the relational micro-foundations of a capability grounded in individual action and interaction

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In this chapter, we examine work by those who have responded to Frost’s (1999) call for research that accounts for suffering and compassion in work organizations. We add to this line of inquiry by reviewing the organizational research on compassion published over the past decade and illuminating connections with extant research on related phenomena. In particular, we explore current understandings of the nature and impact of compassion at work, the conditions that facilitate compassion in work organizations, and efforts to institutionalize compassion. In pointing to what we see as fruitful directions for future research, we invite more scholars to see suffering and compassion as critical and pervasive aspects of organizational life

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