Collective Compassion: Responding to Structural Barriers to Compassion With Agentic Action in Healthcare Organizations

Abstract

This study investigates compassion among coworkers in healthcare organizations through a lens of structuration theory. The purpose of this study is to examine how healthcare workers exercise agency to (re)produce or transform structures related to the communication of compassion in the workplace, particularly in the context of COVID-19. This study utilizes a phronetic iterative approach and data collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with healthcare workers ( N = 27). Qualitative data revealed how healthcare workers responded to structural constraints in managed care through agentic action such as earnest script-breaking, creating spiral time, and coordinating compassion as a collective. Extending compassion scholarship, this study highlights compassion as a communicative, collective, and co-constructed process. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, followed by directions for future research.