Kindness in Management and Organizational Studies

Michelle Thomason

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781802621587
• eBook ISBN: 9781802621594
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Kindness in Management and Organizational Studies is the first book in a ground-breaking series exploring Kindness at Work. This edited collection offers multiple perspectives in the understanding, interpretation, enactment, and resistance to the concept of kindness in a business context. Through the diverse offerings of each author we gain and reflect on new knowledge, formulate new questions, and find direction for our next steps.

The collection of texts range in topics that include Indigenous storytelling about sanctified kindness to an examination of key management theories using ANTi-History to intergenerational stories on kindness and bouncing back. Compassion and kindness, care ethics, and the framing of kindness are also a part of the text. Unbiased compassion and work on the continuing and chronic occupational hazards of sexual harassment and discrimination is presented as well as benevolent sexism and performative kindness. Kindness and communication, Kindness and leadership and a case study of Kindness in the public service are also offerings in this first book on Kindness at Work.

Kindness in Management and Organizational Studies is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students in business, leadership, and human resources. It offers illuminating new perspectives and insights to scholars that enables the analyses of leadership and management styles, organizational psychology, and HR practice and theory.

Chapter 1

Patterns and Possibilities: Exploring the Meaning of Kindness

Kristin S. Williams and Heidi Weigand

Abstract

In this chapter, authors take a narrative/interpretive approach by sharing insights from millennials and Generation Z as to the definition of kindness as a behaviour and action. Sixty-six individuals living in North America, Africa and Europe were interviewed during the pandemic (October 2020). They were asked to describe an incident in which they expressed kindness and/or in which it was expressed to them. Authors identified five themes (metapatterns) which denote different ways kindness is described through narrative. These kindness behaviours include: (1) kindness as a small act, (2) kindness as an event, (3) kindness as intervention and (4) kindness as consideration. The fifth form of kindness operates with more performative qualities, and the authors' have dubbed it as ‘kindness [that] makes me feel good’. Authors attempt not to constrain or essentialize what kindness behaviour is, but rather to reveal patterns while also leaving room for possibilities.

Keywords: Kindness; narrative/interpretive approach; Generation Z; management and organizational studies; theory and practice; culture

Introduction

We have the last 18 months of the pandemic exploring kindness. Kindness has operated as a subject of our shared research interests and the way in which we have chosen to develop our research relationship. Quite surprisingly, we have also come to understand that kindness has ontological properties, particularly if viewed as a state of becoming in our social reality. We also believe it has epistemological qualities, in that kindness has led to ways of knowing and learning about our social reality. Despite these deep insights, our concrete ideas about what kindness is remains illusive. Our research has argued that it is both a durable personality trait as well as a pro-social behaviour, thereby recognizing that it is both innate and the product of socialization (Weigand, Williams, Okoroafor, Liuzzo, & Ganuelas Weigand, 2021a, 2021b). We also know that kindness is strongly linked with well-being (Cotney & Banerjee, 2019) and has contagious qualities (Hafenbrack et al., 2020). We have also noted that it operates differently across generations in which macro level events influence lived experience and COVID presents as one such macro level event (Weigand et al., 2021a, 2021b).

In this chapter, we hope to prime the space for the continuing chapters, where authors will engage in various debates and ideas about kindness. We are reticent to restricting our ideas about what kindness can be and prefer to take an approach which reveals possibilities. Here, we offer some insights into our learnings of the perceptions of kindness by two key generational groups: Millennials/Generation Y (born between 1981 and 1994/1996) and Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012/2015). ^{1 , 2} Because of what we perceive to be the value of kindness, we are keen to broaden the debates about its instrumentality but also its beauty and complexity.

Approach

For this chapter, we are taking a narrative/interpretive approach by sharing insights from millennials and Generation Z. We interviewed 66 individuals during the pandemic (October 2020) who are living in North America, Africa and Europe. ³ Specifically, we asked them to help us understand kindness as action. Elsewhere, we have shared our findings on the perception of kindness in the context of the pandemic (Weigand et al., 2021b). For this chapter, we simply asked our participants to describe an incident in which kindness was expressed to them and an incident in which they expressed kindness to others. They were not bound in any way as to what should constitute these narratives.

Specifically, our narrative approach looked for repetition or metapatterns, while also appreciating complexity (Dailey & Browning, 2014). Narratives are stories of events and happenings, situated in a time and place (Dailey & Browning, 2014). In this way, we recognize that the act of talking and enlivening narratives through voice (enunciation) constitutes a social reality (Weick, 1979). Narrative repetition involves the echoing of similar ideas across people and time, and curates the essence of a main idea which remains intact, coherent and potentially durable (Dailey & Browning, 2014; Deleuze & Guatarri, 1987). It should also be noted that these narratives reflect a dialogic conversation between those that speak and those that listen, and new meanings are construed throughout that process as well as through analysis (Boje, 2001).

Our attempt in sharing the forthcoming narratives is not to constrain or essentialize what kindness behaviour is, but rather to both recognize patterns while also leaving room for plurality and possibility. We appreciate how very difficult it is to generate a consensus over complex ideas, but we also appreciate that some underlying understanding must be generated to create a shared perception and experience, thereby granting access to a greater understanding. We believe that narratives hold within them both the notion of a control and the notion of resistance and that these tensions are not always in conflict, but rather communicate the dynamic nature of narratives and why ideas cannot be fixed (Ricoeur, 1992). Though we realize that we are offering here a taxonomy of sorts, we do not wish to limit such ideas from expanding (Boje, 2001).

Kindness Narratives

While reading the verbatim transcripts of our interviews, we noted five dominant metapatterns and here we will share those patterns and examples under the following curated themes: (1) kindness as a small act, (2) kindness as an event, (3) kindness as intervention, (4) kindness as consideration and (5) kindness [that] makes me feel good.

Kindness as a Small Act

The first set of narratives describe kindness as a small act. Kindness as a small act is not perceived to be a significant burden, but it is memorable and appreciated. It also tends to be the way that people describe their own acts of kindness.

Kindness Expressed to the Participants

P11: There was this one time where I was working. And my shift was only my break was only like 15. So I was in the line was really, really long, the line was so long. And I, like felt so bad, because like, my break was going to finish and I wasn't going to have anything to eat. So the person in front of me saw that I had on the store name on my shirt, and just asked me if I wanted to, you know, go in front. And I feel like because he said that the people in front did the same thing.

P24: I think like, generally now, even with COVID people are still holding doors open for me like if you're going to department store or something. And that just kind of shows that people are not like, not scared, but they're always kind of willing to do that for someone else.

P5: Well, when I was in [city], I, it was my first time by myself in [country] and I, it was my first time by myself and another city, another country. And I found that people were very, were willing to help me. Like, for example, one time I was lost, and I couldn't, I didn't know how to get back home. And this guy literally took his phone, Googled the address for me, took me to the subway station, like things like that, I think, yeah, this guy was a stranger [and I] never saw him again, but [he] still took five minutes of his time to show me how to get home.

P64: I go to gym like a lot in the evening. And so usually after the gym, I get tired […] But like my room, my roommate, [he] knew that I was gonna be tired from the gym. So he actually took the liberty of making us, like cooking for us. And that was very nice.

Kindness Expressed by the Participants

P10: Well, I know, there were times where my friend […] needed some kind of a document picked up and stuff, I think, anyhow, it's a small thing, but she really needed that document in time, and I don't have a car. So I bused downtown, which takes me about 40 minutes to make sure she had what she needed. You know, so I just stopped what I was doing my day and looked out for her because she needed that at a time.

P15: One of my friends has just had like alike a little bit of an upset like a what her her basketball coach brought up something which she thought was not gonna be discovered. And it has to do with like relationships. But it's kind of took her off guard and really stressed her out. And, you know, I had, I had a, a seminar to get to that evening, but I saw how distressed she was in that moment and why she would never expect me to have like missed a seminar. I decided that, you know, her mental well-being and, you know, my presence was more important to her than being on the seminar. So I missed the seminar, I was no trouble. I just, you know, handled expectations, but she was really grateful for it. And I felt like I really helped her in that moment when she needed me.

P29: When we're at the airport […] I saw this older lady struggling to get her luggage and stuff. So I just helped her grab her luggage. And she asked again, hey, do you mind picking up that one as well? Took no effort for me. So I just grabbed it helped her out and she was on her way.

Kindness as a small act struck us as very accessible, easy to describe in a narrative form and the kind of action where our participants could cite several common examples. COVID restrictions seem to have also inspired many helping and connecting behaviours that also fit into this theme and included examples of carrying out social distanced conversations across driveways, bringing food to neighbours and proactively reaching out to talk to people who might be feeling lonely while isolating.

Kindness as an Event

Our second kindness theme is kindness as an event. Kindness as an event requires coordination. It can be large scale, but not always. It is kindness with rules and structure and a sense of duty. It may be inspired by tragedy or milestones, and it represents one or several individuals coming together to support, recognize or show gratitude to someone in what is perceived to be a meaningful way.

Kindness Expressed to the Participants

P16: But the big one that comes to mind is that we lost a son in 2015. And we just had such an outpouring of support and kindness from the community, people were making meals for us. They were coming and, you know, just spending time with us holding our hand. Anything administrative, they needed like, or we needed, like, help with [government agency], or, you know, insurance questions or anything like that, like people just kind of took care of that for us. Again, it's just anticipating those needs and helping to support people where you can.

P20: They always like appreciate my work. By like, the whole [of] our team comes together and like they always appreciate my work by like, giving me like a goodbye gift. Like we thought that like last year, it was the last goodbye. But then because of the pandemic I rejoined the team. Yeah. So this year, also, I received a farewell gift. And I felt that like it really shows that they appreciate what you do for them. Like they really value your work.

P45: I had received money from my dad, right about $500. […] I took it out right to pay to the school for my tuition. And it was in my wallet […] And I forgot my wallet on the bus. Right? There's $500 in cash. And I'm stressed, you know, you don't know how to track nothing, right? And all of a sudden, I received this [social media] message from this lady. And she said, I looked you up on Facebook, [you] left your wallet on the bus. You know, [you] had some money in it. And she gave it to me every single penny [that] was in even the hidden pockets.

P50: Oh, there was a time when, when I had first like, started doing poetry and stuff. Back in [country]. I met a man who really liked doing poetry and everything. He was a bit old, he was retired. But this guy like basically, he used to run a small hotel kind of thing. So he let me use his like little hotel space to have like a free poetry event. So I didn't have to pay anything for using that space […] I think that was one of those one of the most standing out moments of kindness I've had in my life.

Kindness Expressed by the Participants

P11: It was this program back in my high school where we used to feed kids on every Saturday morning. So um, and just playing with the kids, because it became like, such a routine thing for everybody. Like, you just go there, you give them food and you go back. But I actually love playing with the kids. And that for me was a little bit kind because nobody really used to talk to them, because they were not as clean or you know, nobody would want to touch them.

P50: There was recently one of my friends who I met through [student association]. I met him at a conference. He lives in [country], his home, his home got flooded. And he lost most of his stuff. He reached out to me, he sent me a message like, hey, this happened is anyway […] Or you can help. And I was like, Yeah, I can help out. So me and a couple of other people, we put some money together. And we basically set up […] $220 to buy some parts for his daughter and some of the other girls in the [area].

Kindness as an event is a coordinated activity. It requires thought, preparation and potentially delayed action. It seems to be inspired by not only a sense of duty but also appreciation, the desire to recognize someone and/or support or help individuals. In some cases, those enlisted are learning about kindness while enacting it, and this in turn sets up an expectation for future to carry out similar such actions. Therefore, kindness as an event sets an expectation, informing social rules and etiquette.

Kindness as Intervention

Kindness as an intervention is very specific and intentionally helping behaviour where one or many parties step in and offer help, assistance or support. It is important to recognize that helping behaviours exist on a spectrum and operate contextually and share a relationship with concepts like dignity, autonomy and trust (Lefevor & Fowers, 2016). This behaviour was easiest to detect in narratives where individuals were describing kindness behaviour shown to them. At times, it appears that this kind of kindness needs some life experience to guide the understanding that intervention is needed, but not necessarily special expertise in executing the behaviour.

Kindness Expressed ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Patterns and Possibilities: Exploring the Meaning of Kindness
• Chapter 2 Choosing Kindness: Finding Kindness in Management and Organization Studies
• Chapter 3 Strength through Kindness: Celebrating the Success of Women Leaders and Feminine Leadership Styles
• Chapter 4 Communicating Kindness at Work
• Chapter 5 Kindness as an Imperative
• Chapter 6 Leading with Compassion: Co-designing a Workshop That Responds to a Report of Sexual Harassment or Discrimination with Unbiased Compassion
• Chapter 7 Care Ethics and Kindness in Management and Organizational Studies
• Chapter 8 Intergenerational Stories of Kindness: A Catalyst for Bouncing Back
• Chapter 9 Dear Masie: A Story-net of Kindness
• Chapter 10 Be a ‘Good Girl’: The Durability and Enigmatic Nature of Benevolent Sexism as a Form of Performative Kindness
• Chapter 11 Conceptualizing and Constructing Kindness
• Index