Theorising Organisational Compassion – Could Gossip Help?

This chapter is based on the premise that universities are organisations and workplaces with employees that include educators, teachers, researchers, leaders, managers, and those working in roles that support student learning. They all do work that has real consequences for students, staff, and society. It argues that insights from contemporary thinking and theorising about organisational compassion have real relevance and application in 21st century universities. This represents an alternative to higher educational theories and models based on neoliberal ideology, performance philosophy and metrics, and unimaginative academic writing. The chapter argues that these are old and outdated models which have led to organisational systems and processes that are no longer fit for purpose. The changing landscape of organisation and work requires a radical change in thinking that challenge: (i) traditional approaches to research and knowledge production; and (ii) unnecessary proliferation of theoretical constructs in academic writing. The chapter explores approaches to putting pedagogical practice into organisational theorising about compassion through the critical lenses of compassion as interpersonal work and narrative and advances a new lens of compassion as relational pedagogy. The chapter concludes with fresh thinking about the relationships between gossip, compassion, organisational communication and knowledge, and what this might mean for future research, policy and practice