Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
Mediating positive moods: the impact of experiencing compassion at work LI-CHUAN CHU1,2 1
Associate Professor, School of Health Policy and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung and Consultant, Department of Medical Education, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC
2
Correspondence Li-Chuan Chu School of Health Policy and Management Chung Shan Medical University 11F-2, No. 1219. Jhongming S. RD. Taichung 402 Taiwan ROC E-mail: [email protected]
CHU L.-C. (2016) Journal of Nursing Management 24, 59–69 Mediating positive moods: the impact of experiencing compassion at work
Aim The aim of this study was to examine the mediating effects of positive moods underlying the relationship between experiencing compassion at work and both job performance and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Background Employees who have experienced compassion might have more positive moods while at work; such moods have been connected to a host of important organisational outcomes such as better job performance and OCB. Methods This study adopted a two-stage survey whose participants consisted of 269 registered nurses employed by hospitals in Taiwan. All hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analyses. Results The results showed that positive moods mediate completely the relationship between experiencing compassion at work and both job performance and OCB. Conclusion When nurses frequently feel that their hospital, supervisors or co-workers are willing to listen to them, the strength that arises from this compassion can effectively increase job performance and OCB though the positive moods process. Implications for nursing management It is importance to cultivate a compassionate and caring culture throughout hospitals’ hierarchies, especially from the top down. Nurses will have more opportunities to experience it, witness it, or participate in it when they work within a compassionate and caring organisational culture. Keywords: experiencing compassion at work, job performance, organisational citizenship behaviour, positive moods Accepted for publication: 5 September 2014
Introduction Suffering is an unavoidable part of life in today’s organisations, it refers to unpleasant subjective feelings including physical and emotional pain, psychological distress and existential anguish (Lilius et al. 2011). Events in employees’ personal lives such as the disease or even death of a loved one can cause pain that spills over into the workplace (Harvey 2001, see Lilius et al. DOI: 10.1111/jonm.12272 ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
2008). Suffering can also be triggered by events within the workplace, such as inappropriate organisational policies and practises, inappropriate treatment by superiors, difficulty in getting along with colleagues or workplace bullying (Frost 2003, Hogh et al. 2011). These psychologically painful experiences inevitably affect both employees and organisations (Lilius et al. 2008). Organisations need effective means of controlling the generation of such painful negative emotions.
59
L.-C. Chu
Firms have largely sought to resolve such issues by designing formal programmes and policies such as employee assistance programmes (Pollack et al. 2010) or family-friendly policies (Cortese et al. 2010). Adopting a different approach, Lilius et al. (2008) proposed that compassion at work, an informal, selfinitiated assistance mechanism, can help employees to recover from negative emotions resulting from both work and non-work setbacks. This constructive approach may also buffer the generation and dissemination of negative emotions. Existing studies have shown that compassion at work impacts members’ attitudes, emotions, relational perceptions and alleviates suffering (Lindholm & Eriksson 1993, Lilius et al. 2008, Powley 2009). Lilius et al. (2008) found that employees who report experiencing compassion at work are more likely to report being affectively committed to their organisation, and describe their co-workers and organisations in positive terms. Lilius et al. (2008) also found that employees who experienced compassion are more likely to report positive emotions while at work. Powley (2009) found that work colleagues emerge from a shared trauma and subsequent compassionate treatment with a strengthened quality of relationship with their colleagues and a heightened sense of community and belonging. Lindholm and Eriksson (1993) showed that compassion has an impact in terms of alleviating a patient’s suffering. There are, however, few studies examining whether experiencing compassion at work can boost an employee’s performance. To narrow this gap in the literature on compassion at work, the aim of this study is to examine the effects of compassion at work on a registered nurse’s in-role and extra-role performance (i.e. job performance and organisational citizenship behaviour; OCB) in hospital settings. This study also investigates the mediating role of positive moods in the link between compassion at work and two forms of performance (i.e. job performance and OCB). It takes into consideration the results found in the existing literature: that employees who have experienced compassion might have more positive moods while at work (Lilius et al. 2008); such moods have been connected to a host of important organisational outcomes such as better job performance and OCB (Lee & Allen 2002, Tsai et al. 2007).
Compassion at work Some consider compassion to be an individual characteristic, with people being either compassionate or uncompassionate by nature. Compassion can also be 60
defined as a painful feeling state that one person experiences for another induced by another person’s misfortune or suffering (Nussbaum 1996, see Kanov et al. 2004). Davis (1983), Clark (1997) and Kanov et al. (2004) have explained, however, that compassion is a dynamic process encompassing the three interrelated factors of attention, feelings and response that result from people interacting and being interconnected with each other. The process begins when someone first notices another’s suffering. That person proceeds to empathise with the other’s feelings, and finally seeks to help the other lessen his or her suffering (Kanov et al. 2004, Dutton et al. 2006). Each of these factors is both necessary and sufficient, and what is important is that compassion goes beyond empathetic behaviour. Compassionate responses are also unconcerned with whether the other person’s negative feelings can be successfully alleviated (Kanov et al. 2004, see Lilius et al. 2008). They may take such forms as offering material support, or making gestures of emotional support (Lilius et al. 2008). Compassion plays a considerably important role within organisations, enabling people to feel that they are recognised and understood. It may also help them to feel less lonely (Frost et al. 2000). Compassion at work can come both from supervisors, who can help their employees transfer their suffering, and fellow employees, who can listen to distressed colleagues and share in their suffering (Frost 2003). This study addresses the role of compassion at work in regard to receiving the compassion of both superiors and coworkers.
Experiencing compassion at work, positive moods and job performance According to earlier studies, compassion in organisations may shape an employee’s commitment to their workplace (Grant et al. 2008, Lilius et al. 2008), while also facilitating a recovery from painful circumstances (Frost et al. 2000, Dutton et al. 2006). It is quite clear that compassion has implications in terms of performance for both individuals and organisations (see Lilius et al. 2011). This study is particularly interested in whether the inner process of the relationship between experiencing compassion and job performance, which involves positive moods, serves as an effective mediating agent between them. The receiving of compassion in the workplace can be interpreted theoretically as an important emotional event that generates more positive emotions (Weiss & Cropanzano 1996). Receiving another person’s compassion ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
The impact of experiencing compassion at work
is thought to increase the feeling in people, who encounter suffering, that their emotional relationship with the other person has been enhanced, and find positive meaning in such encounters, thereby producing a positive feeling (Miller & Stiver 1997, Dutton 2003, see Lilius et al. 2008). Lilius et al. (2008) found that positive emotions appeared more frequently among those who have experienced compassion in their work than among others, and other studies also suggest that compassion at work is positively correlated with positive emotions (Kahn 1993, Dutton 2003, Frost 2003, see Lilius et al. 2008). Such studies as Erez and Isen (2002), Totterdell (1999) and Tsai et al. (2007) have shown that people with high positive mood states have better job performance than others. Performance is a function of both an individual’s ability and motivation (Locke et al. 1978), and positive moods affect the ability part of performance in such ways as tending to facilitate cognitive flexible (Isen et al. 1992), creative thinking and problem solving (Estrada et al. 1997) and decision making (Isen 1993). Positive moods also affect the motivation part of performance. Erez and Isen (2002) found that individuals with positive moods performed better, and were more likely to believe that their effort will lead to good performance, that this performance will result in such secondary outcomes as rewards, and that the evaluation of those rewards will be more positive than for those in neutral moods, which supports the view of Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory. In other words, motivation can play a significant role in the relationship between positive moods and performance. Based on the preceding review of the literature, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Positive moods can mediate the positive relationship between experiencing compassion at work and job performance.
Experiencing compassion at work, positive moods and OCB Effective organisational functioning requires employees to not only perform their prescribed role, but also to engage in behaviours that go beyond these formal obligations. This extra behaviour is referred to as organisational citizenship behaviour (Organ 1988, Tsai & Wu 2010). Organ (1988) first used the term, defining OCB as ‘individual behaviour that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
efficient and effective functioning of the organisation’ (p. 4). Organ (1988) proposed that OCB consists of five dimensions: altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue and sportsmanship. Altruism involves voluntarily helping co-workers to resolve work-related problems. Courtesy refers to deals that involve consulting with others before taking action. Conscientiousness means an employee performing his/her assigned tasks (in-role behaviour) in a manner above what is expected. Sportsmanship means tolerating the inevitable inconveniences of work without complaining. Civic virtue involves the constructive participation in the life of the organisation and keeping up with important matters within the organisation. The omission of organisational citizenship behaviour is not punishable (Organ 1988). Unlike OCB, compassion is not limited to jobrelated help, but is simply a willingness to take relevant action to lessen the impact of other people’s suffering (Lilius et al. 2003). Employees who perceive that they have received help from their colleagues are likely to exhibit more helpful behaviour toward others (Deckop et al. 2003, Vos et al. 2003). Compassion at work could influence OCB through the mediating role of positive moods. Compassionate interpersonal interactions can help those who experience suffering to discover positive meaning. For example, if workers spend time talking with a colleague going through divorce, the worker whose marriage is ending is highly likely to discover an immediate sense of closeness with them, and the resulting positive meaning is likely to enable the divorcing worker to generate positive moods (Folkman 1997). People with positive moods seem to be more inclined to help others than those who have neutral or negative moods (see Isen & Baron 1991). Fisher (2002) found that positive moods can also effectively predict employees’ helpful behaviour toward their colleagues and customers. Tsai et al. (2007) proposed that three factors are likely to affect the development of positive moods leading to increasingly altruistic behaviour. These are that (1) employees who have positive moods increase the recall of positive memories of interactions with colleagues and therefore they engage in more helpful behaviours (Isen et al. 1978), (2) employees with positive moods find it easier to attract their colleagues and therefore have more opportunities to help them (Bell 1978) and (3) employees with positive moods make an effort to maintain them and therefore are likely to help others maintain positive emotions, in particular when this makes others feel happy (Carlson et al. 1988). 61
L.-C. Chu
In addition to helpful behaviours, positive moods can also lead to an increase in extra-role behaviours such as spreading goodwill, offering constructive suggestions, protecting the organisation and engaging in selfdevelopment (George & Brief 1992). Lee and Allen (2002) showed that positive mood was correlated with OCB directed at individuals and OCB directed at the organisation. In other words, those who experience compassion can therefore exhibit OCB due to the positive mood that it generates. Based on the preceding review of the literature, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Positive moods can mediate the positive relationship between experiencing compassion at work and OCB.
Methods Research design Following the recommendations of Podsakoff et al. (2003) to reduce common method bias problems in questionnaire surveys, this study used a two-stage survey to examine the relationships among all the variables. According to previous studies, positive moods can enhance performance several weeks later (George 1991, Tsai et al. 2007, Peterson et al. 2012). A positive mood as a state can produce a lasting effect on employee task performance (Tsai et al. 2007). Thus, in this study, we took care to place a 2-month gap between the measurements of positive moods and both job performance and OCB. The first-stage survey aimed to estimate the participants’ perceptions of compassion at work, positive moods and demographics. Two months later, the second-stage survey was administered and measured the participants’ job performance and OCB.
Sample and data collection We used convenience sampling and distributed 500 survey questionnaires to registered nurses in two medical centres, five regional hospitals and four district hospitals in Taiwan in two questionnaire distribution stages. In order to fit in with the Ethical Considerations, before distributing the first batch of questionnaires, we sought the permission and support of the target hospitals’ personnel in order to collect the data. We asked graduates from our department who were working at the target hospitals to distribute the questionnaires to their nursing colleagues, while at the 62
same time explaining the study’s purpose and the sampling process. Participants were required to answer the surveys within a week of receiving the questionnaires. Anonymous questionnaires were used to reduce the pressure that the respondents might have felt. The respondents were only asked to use the same identity code in the upper right corner of both questionnaires to facilitate the compilation of the data. When we distributed questionnaire A at time 1, the participants were asked to evaluate their experiences of compassion at work, positive moods and demographics. A total of 356 valid questionnaires were returned. The second questionnaire was distributed to the same respondents 2 months after the first survey. This questionnaire asked the respondents to complete the evaluation questions with regard to dependent variables such as job performance and OCB. A total of 281 valid questionnaires were returned. Cases without complete matched data across the two time points were removed from the study. The final sample consisted of 269 nurses, representing a valid response rate of 54%. We collected the data in June 2010 and August 2010. Demographic characteristics for respondents are presented in Table 1. All the participants were registered nurses; the majority were between 26–30 years of age (31.6%), 56.1% were unmarried, 49.1% had received a college-level education, 56.1% had an organisational tenure of between 1–5 years, 89.2% were basic nurses and 40.1% worked in a medical centre.
Instruments Experiencing compassion at work Experiencing compassion at work was measured using the experiencing compassion in the workplace scale (Lilius et al. 2003). The respondents indicated the level of the compassion experienced (1) on the job, (2) from their supervisor (3) and from their co-workers. The scale has five items, each measured on a 6-point Likert scale ranked from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). It included an item: ‘The people I work with are compassionate toward me’. High scores indicate more experienced compassion at work. This measure has an adequate internal consistency at a = 0.88. Positive moods Positive moods were measured using ten positive affect terms such as enthusiastic and excited from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson et al. 1988). We asked our respondents to estimate on a ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
The impact of experiencing compassion at work
Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the participants Participant characteristics Age ≤25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 ≥46 Marital status Married Unmarried Educational level Junior high school Senior high school Junior college College or University Postgraduate Organisational tenure
Mediating positive moods: the impact of experiencing compassion at work LI-CHUAN CHU1,2 1
Associate Professor, School of Health Policy and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung and Consultant, Department of Medical Education, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC
2
Correspondence Li-Chuan Chu School of Health Policy and Management Chung Shan Medical University 11F-2, No. 1219. Jhongming S. RD. Taichung 402 Taiwan ROC E-mail: [email protected]
CHU L.-C. (2016) Journal of Nursing Management 24, 59–69 Mediating positive moods: the impact of experiencing compassion at work
Aim The aim of this study was to examine the mediating effects of positive moods underlying the relationship between experiencing compassion at work and both job performance and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Background Employees who have experienced compassion might have more positive moods while at work; such moods have been connected to a host of important organisational outcomes such as better job performance and OCB. Methods This study adopted a two-stage survey whose participants consisted of 269 registered nurses employed by hospitals in Taiwan. All hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analyses. Results The results showed that positive moods mediate completely the relationship between experiencing compassion at work and both job performance and OCB. Conclusion When nurses frequently feel that their hospital, supervisors or co-workers are willing to listen to them, the strength that arises from this compassion can effectively increase job performance and OCB though the positive moods process. Implications for nursing management It is importance to cultivate a compassionate and caring culture throughout hospitals’ hierarchies, especially from the top down. Nurses will have more opportunities to experience it, witness it, or participate in it when they work within a compassionate and caring organisational culture. Keywords: experiencing compassion at work, job performance, organisational citizenship behaviour, positive moods Accepted for publication: 5 September 2014
Introduction Suffering is an unavoidable part of life in today’s organisations, it refers to unpleasant subjective feelings including physical and emotional pain, psychological distress and existential anguish (Lilius et al. 2011). Events in employees’ personal lives such as the disease or even death of a loved one can cause pain that spills over into the workplace (Harvey 2001, see Lilius et al. DOI: 10.1111/jonm.12272 ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
2008). Suffering can also be triggered by events within the workplace, such as inappropriate organisational policies and practises, inappropriate treatment by superiors, difficulty in getting along with colleagues or workplace bullying (Frost 2003, Hogh et al. 2011). These psychologically painful experiences inevitably affect both employees and organisations (Lilius et al. 2008). Organisations need effective means of controlling the generation of such painful negative emotions.
59
L.-C. Chu
Firms have largely sought to resolve such issues by designing formal programmes and policies such as employee assistance programmes (Pollack et al. 2010) or family-friendly policies (Cortese et al. 2010). Adopting a different approach, Lilius et al. (2008) proposed that compassion at work, an informal, selfinitiated assistance mechanism, can help employees to recover from negative emotions resulting from both work and non-work setbacks. This constructive approach may also buffer the generation and dissemination of negative emotions. Existing studies have shown that compassion at work impacts members’ attitudes, emotions, relational perceptions and alleviates suffering (Lindholm & Eriksson 1993, Lilius et al. 2008, Powley 2009). Lilius et al. (2008) found that employees who report experiencing compassion at work are more likely to report being affectively committed to their organisation, and describe their co-workers and organisations in positive terms. Lilius et al. (2008) also found that employees who experienced compassion are more likely to report positive emotions while at work. Powley (2009) found that work colleagues emerge from a shared trauma and subsequent compassionate treatment with a strengthened quality of relationship with their colleagues and a heightened sense of community and belonging. Lindholm and Eriksson (1993) showed that compassion has an impact in terms of alleviating a patient’s suffering. There are, however, few studies examining whether experiencing compassion at work can boost an employee’s performance. To narrow this gap in the literature on compassion at work, the aim of this study is to examine the effects of compassion at work on a registered nurse’s in-role and extra-role performance (i.e. job performance and organisational citizenship behaviour; OCB) in hospital settings. This study also investigates the mediating role of positive moods in the link between compassion at work and two forms of performance (i.e. job performance and OCB). It takes into consideration the results found in the existing literature: that employees who have experienced compassion might have more positive moods while at work (Lilius et al. 2008); such moods have been connected to a host of important organisational outcomes such as better job performance and OCB (Lee & Allen 2002, Tsai et al. 2007).
Compassion at work Some consider compassion to be an individual characteristic, with people being either compassionate or uncompassionate by nature. Compassion can also be 60
defined as a painful feeling state that one person experiences for another induced by another person’s misfortune or suffering (Nussbaum 1996, see Kanov et al. 2004). Davis (1983), Clark (1997) and Kanov et al. (2004) have explained, however, that compassion is a dynamic process encompassing the three interrelated factors of attention, feelings and response that result from people interacting and being interconnected with each other. The process begins when someone first notices another’s suffering. That person proceeds to empathise with the other’s feelings, and finally seeks to help the other lessen his or her suffering (Kanov et al. 2004, Dutton et al. 2006). Each of these factors is both necessary and sufficient, and what is important is that compassion goes beyond empathetic behaviour. Compassionate responses are also unconcerned with whether the other person’s negative feelings can be successfully alleviated (Kanov et al. 2004, see Lilius et al. 2008). They may take such forms as offering material support, or making gestures of emotional support (Lilius et al. 2008). Compassion plays a considerably important role within organisations, enabling people to feel that they are recognised and understood. It may also help them to feel less lonely (Frost et al. 2000). Compassion at work can come both from supervisors, who can help their employees transfer their suffering, and fellow employees, who can listen to distressed colleagues and share in their suffering (Frost 2003). This study addresses the role of compassion at work in regard to receiving the compassion of both superiors and coworkers.
Experiencing compassion at work, positive moods and job performance According to earlier studies, compassion in organisations may shape an employee’s commitment to their workplace (Grant et al. 2008, Lilius et al. 2008), while also facilitating a recovery from painful circumstances (Frost et al. 2000, Dutton et al. 2006). It is quite clear that compassion has implications in terms of performance for both individuals and organisations (see Lilius et al. 2011). This study is particularly interested in whether the inner process of the relationship between experiencing compassion and job performance, which involves positive moods, serves as an effective mediating agent between them. The receiving of compassion in the workplace can be interpreted theoretically as an important emotional event that generates more positive emotions (Weiss & Cropanzano 1996). Receiving another person’s compassion ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
The impact of experiencing compassion at work
is thought to increase the feeling in people, who encounter suffering, that their emotional relationship with the other person has been enhanced, and find positive meaning in such encounters, thereby producing a positive feeling (Miller & Stiver 1997, Dutton 2003, see Lilius et al. 2008). Lilius et al. (2008) found that positive emotions appeared more frequently among those who have experienced compassion in their work than among others, and other studies also suggest that compassion at work is positively correlated with positive emotions (Kahn 1993, Dutton 2003, Frost 2003, see Lilius et al. 2008). Such studies as Erez and Isen (2002), Totterdell (1999) and Tsai et al. (2007) have shown that people with high positive mood states have better job performance than others. Performance is a function of both an individual’s ability and motivation (Locke et al. 1978), and positive moods affect the ability part of performance in such ways as tending to facilitate cognitive flexible (Isen et al. 1992), creative thinking and problem solving (Estrada et al. 1997) and decision making (Isen 1993). Positive moods also affect the motivation part of performance. Erez and Isen (2002) found that individuals with positive moods performed better, and were more likely to believe that their effort will lead to good performance, that this performance will result in such secondary outcomes as rewards, and that the evaluation of those rewards will be more positive than for those in neutral moods, which supports the view of Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory. In other words, motivation can play a significant role in the relationship between positive moods and performance. Based on the preceding review of the literature, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Positive moods can mediate the positive relationship between experiencing compassion at work and job performance.
Experiencing compassion at work, positive moods and OCB Effective organisational functioning requires employees to not only perform their prescribed role, but also to engage in behaviours that go beyond these formal obligations. This extra behaviour is referred to as organisational citizenship behaviour (Organ 1988, Tsai & Wu 2010). Organ (1988) first used the term, defining OCB as ‘individual behaviour that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
efficient and effective functioning of the organisation’ (p. 4). Organ (1988) proposed that OCB consists of five dimensions: altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue and sportsmanship. Altruism involves voluntarily helping co-workers to resolve work-related problems. Courtesy refers to deals that involve consulting with others before taking action. Conscientiousness means an employee performing his/her assigned tasks (in-role behaviour) in a manner above what is expected. Sportsmanship means tolerating the inevitable inconveniences of work without complaining. Civic virtue involves the constructive participation in the life of the organisation and keeping up with important matters within the organisation. The omission of organisational citizenship behaviour is not punishable (Organ 1988). Unlike OCB, compassion is not limited to jobrelated help, but is simply a willingness to take relevant action to lessen the impact of other people’s suffering (Lilius et al. 2003). Employees who perceive that they have received help from their colleagues are likely to exhibit more helpful behaviour toward others (Deckop et al. 2003, Vos et al. 2003). Compassion at work could influence OCB through the mediating role of positive moods. Compassionate interpersonal interactions can help those who experience suffering to discover positive meaning. For example, if workers spend time talking with a colleague going through divorce, the worker whose marriage is ending is highly likely to discover an immediate sense of closeness with them, and the resulting positive meaning is likely to enable the divorcing worker to generate positive moods (Folkman 1997). People with positive moods seem to be more inclined to help others than those who have neutral or negative moods (see Isen & Baron 1991). Fisher (2002) found that positive moods can also effectively predict employees’ helpful behaviour toward their colleagues and customers. Tsai et al. (2007) proposed that three factors are likely to affect the development of positive moods leading to increasingly altruistic behaviour. These are that (1) employees who have positive moods increase the recall of positive memories of interactions with colleagues and therefore they engage in more helpful behaviours (Isen et al. 1978), (2) employees with positive moods find it easier to attract their colleagues and therefore have more opportunities to help them (Bell 1978) and (3) employees with positive moods make an effort to maintain them and therefore are likely to help others maintain positive emotions, in particular when this makes others feel happy (Carlson et al. 1988). 61
L.-C. Chu
In addition to helpful behaviours, positive moods can also lead to an increase in extra-role behaviours such as spreading goodwill, offering constructive suggestions, protecting the organisation and engaging in selfdevelopment (George & Brief 1992). Lee and Allen (2002) showed that positive mood was correlated with OCB directed at individuals and OCB directed at the organisation. In other words, those who experience compassion can therefore exhibit OCB due to the positive mood that it generates. Based on the preceding review of the literature, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Positive moods can mediate the positive relationship between experiencing compassion at work and OCB.
Methods Research design Following the recommendations of Podsakoff et al. (2003) to reduce common method bias problems in questionnaire surveys, this study used a two-stage survey to examine the relationships among all the variables. According to previous studies, positive moods can enhance performance several weeks later (George 1991, Tsai et al. 2007, Peterson et al. 2012). A positive mood as a state can produce a lasting effect on employee task performance (Tsai et al. 2007). Thus, in this study, we took care to place a 2-month gap between the measurements of positive moods and both job performance and OCB. The first-stage survey aimed to estimate the participants’ perceptions of compassion at work, positive moods and demographics. Two months later, the second-stage survey was administered and measured the participants’ job performance and OCB.
Sample and data collection We used convenience sampling and distributed 500 survey questionnaires to registered nurses in two medical centres, five regional hospitals and four district hospitals in Taiwan in two questionnaire distribution stages. In order to fit in with the Ethical Considerations, before distributing the first batch of questionnaires, we sought the permission and support of the target hospitals’ personnel in order to collect the data. We asked graduates from our department who were working at the target hospitals to distribute the questionnaires to their nursing colleagues, while at the 62
same time explaining the study’s purpose and the sampling process. Participants were required to answer the surveys within a week of receiving the questionnaires. Anonymous questionnaires were used to reduce the pressure that the respondents might have felt. The respondents were only asked to use the same identity code in the upper right corner of both questionnaires to facilitate the compilation of the data. When we distributed questionnaire A at time 1, the participants were asked to evaluate their experiences of compassion at work, positive moods and demographics. A total of 356 valid questionnaires were returned. The second questionnaire was distributed to the same respondents 2 months after the first survey. This questionnaire asked the respondents to complete the evaluation questions with regard to dependent variables such as job performance and OCB. A total of 281 valid questionnaires were returned. Cases without complete matched data across the two time points were removed from the study. The final sample consisted of 269 nurses, representing a valid response rate of 54%. We collected the data in June 2010 and August 2010. Demographic characteristics for respondents are presented in Table 1. All the participants were registered nurses; the majority were between 26–30 years of age (31.6%), 56.1% were unmarried, 49.1% had received a college-level education, 56.1% had an organisational tenure of between 1–5 years, 89.2% were basic nurses and 40.1% worked in a medical centre.
Instruments Experiencing compassion at work Experiencing compassion at work was measured using the experiencing compassion in the workplace scale (Lilius et al. 2003). The respondents indicated the level of the compassion experienced (1) on the job, (2) from their supervisor (3) and from their co-workers. The scale has five items, each measured on a 6-point Likert scale ranked from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). It included an item: ‘The people I work with are compassionate toward me’. High scores indicate more experienced compassion at work. This measure has an adequate internal consistency at a = 0.88. Positive moods Positive moods were measured using ten positive affect terms such as enthusiastic and excited from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson et al. 1988). We asked our respondents to estimate on a ª 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Journal of Nursing Management, 2016, 24, 59–69
The impact of experiencing compassion at work
Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the participants Participant characteristics Age ≤25 26–30 31–35 36–40 41–45 ≥46 Marital status Married Unmarried Educational level Junior high school Senior high school Junior college College or University Postgraduate Organisational tenure
