To the Rescue!? Brokering a Rapid, Scaled and Customized Compassionate Response to Suffering after Disaster

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12291
• Author: Trenton A. Williams,Dean A. Shepherd
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018

To the Rescue!? Brokering a Rapid, Scaled and

Customized Compassionate Response to Suffering

after Disaster

Trenton A. Williams and Dean A. Shepherd

Indiana University; University of Notre Dame

ABSTRACT Suffering comes in many forms that significantly impact organizations’ operations

and performance. As a result, recent research on compassion organizing seeks to explain how

efforts to notice, feel, and respond to suffering create organizational (and societal) benefits.

Widespread suffering can be generated by natural disasters, which in turn can trigger

compassionate organizational responses. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to

theorize about how compassionate ventures leverage network relationships to identify and

mobilize resources. We also explore how differences in these approaches influence the

magnitude, speed, and customization of the response, all of which are theorized indicators of

the effectiveness of compassion organizing in alleviating suffering. We use structural equation

modelling to test our model and find that compassionate ventures with stronger ties to the local

community are more likely to bundle (i.e., stretch) resources, which facilitates a speedy,

customized, and large magnitude response. In contrast, those with stronger ties outside the local

community are more likely to pursue (i.e., chase) new resources, which results in a large

magnitude response, but one that is not associated with speed or customization. We discuss

the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research.

Keywords: brokerage social capital, compassion organizing, crisis, entrepreneurship, venture

resourcing

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, a growing body of research has explored ‘a new science’ of compassion,

which addresses an essential but largely overlooked aspect of organizational life (Dutton

et al., 2006; Kanov et al., 2017; Worline and Dutton, 2017). Compassion represents a

process of noticing and alleviating others’ suffering (Dutton et al., 2006), which is impor-

tant because an organizational member’s suffering can negatively impact productivity,

Address for reprints: Trenton A. Williams, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 East Tenth

Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA (trenwill@iu.edu)

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Journal of Management Studies 55:6 September 2018

doi: 10.1111/joms.12291

innovation, strategic advantage, adaptability, and resourcing (see for review Worline

and Dutton, 2017). Although research on compassion organizing has largely focused on the

intra-organizational activities involved in noticing and responding to the suffering of an

organization’s members (Dutton et al., 2014; Kanov et al., 2017; Worline and Dutton,

2017), recent research has focused on the role of compassion across firm boundaries,

such as investigating how actors (i.e., individuals and organizations) respond to alleviate

others’ suffering after natural disasters (Shepherd and Williams, 2014; Williams and

Shepherd, 2016a, 2016b).

Despite an impressive body of theoretical work on compassion organizing (see for

review Dutton et al., 2014; Kanov et al., 2017; Worline and Dutton, 2017), this litera-

ture is still ‘in its infancy ... opening wide possibilities for theory-testing studies that

address both the process and the outcomes’ of compassion organizing (Dutton et al., 2014,

p. 293, emphasis added). Indeed, leading scholars have acknowledged a gap in our

understanding of the emergent patterns of compassion organizing (Kanov et al., 2017;

Worline and Dutton, 2017), which requires an explanation of how organizations address

suffering by generating resources to respond effectively (i.e., with scale, scope, speed,

and customization [Dutton et al., 2006]). Filling this research gap is important because

persistent suffering exacts a considerable toll on the focal individuals (Kanov et al.,

2004) and organizations (Dutton et al., 2014; Powley, 2013). One especially promising

pathway for increasing our understanding of the emergent patterns of compassion

organizing involves investigating the role of an organization’s social network structure

(Barsade and O’Neill, 2014; Dutton and Heaphy, 2003; Dutton et al., 2006).

Although networks are relevant for many types of organizing (Scott and Davis, 2007),

they are likely to be especially important for compassion organizing given how networks

are assumed to facilitate the transmission of ‘feelings, interpretations, and calls for

action’ critical in the coordination and calibration of resource gathering and deploy-

ment (Worline and Dutton, 2017, p. 116). Therefore, we ask: how does an actor’s social

structure at the time of a major disaster influence resource-related actions and the allevi-

ation of suffering in the aftermath of that disaster?

To address our research question, we draw on social capital theory (Burt, 2005;

Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998) to develop a brokerage model of compassion venturing,

which we test using structural equation modelling (SEM) on a sample of 143 ventures

that emerged in the aftermath of the Australian Black Saturday bushfire natural disaster.

Brokerage is an important concept in explaining the advantage created by one’s network

social capital (see Spiro et al., 2013 for review); a broker connects two otherwise discon-

nected parties and this brokerage position serves as ‘an asset in its own right’ for access-

ing and mobilizing resources (Burt, 2005, p. 4) that are likely useful in efforts to alleviate

suffering. In building and testing our brokerage model of compassion organizing, we

make three primary contributions.

First, we theorize and find that an actor’s brokerage relationships within and between

communities influence resource mobilization and compassion outcomes but do so

through divergent paths. This finding regarding the different forms and impact of bro-

kerage begins to address calls (e.g., Dutton et al., 2014; Kanov et al., 2017) to better

explain both the relationality of compassion organizing and the ways social networks

‘awaken compassion’ (Worline and Dutton, 2017, p. 115). Second, mobilizing resources

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To the Rescue? Brokering a Compassionate Response

is of critical importance to successful compassion organizing, and yet is often a challeng-

ing task given the uncertainty surrounding both the needs of sufferers and the availabil-

ity of resources that match those needs (Kanov et al., 2017; Simpson et al., 2014). We

theorize and find that compassionate ventures deploy different resourcing strategies –

influenced by their network – and that these strategies shape the outcomes of their

organizing efforts. This finding extends knowledge on the limits and barriers of resource

mobilization efforts accounting for differences in the effectiveness of compassion organ-

izing. Finally, compassion organizing research has largely focused on compassion at

work within an organization (see for review, Dutton et al., 2014; Worline and Dutton,

2017) and only recently, on compassion across organizational boundaries (Shepherd

and Williams, 2014; Williams and Shepherd, 2017). Our study builds on this emerging

stream of interorganizational compassion research by offering insights into the social

network of compassion venturing to extend our understanding of important

compassion-based mechanisms that connect and serve non-organizational members.

This paper proceeds as follows. First, we build on theory on network social capital

and resource management to develop a brokerage model of compassion venturing. Sec-

ond, we detail our methodological approach, including our rationale for selecting a dis-

aster environment as the context of interest. Finally, we explain our results and discuss

implications for theory.

A BROKERAGE MODE OF COMPASSION VENTURING

Social networks play a catalytic role in organizations and, specifically, the creation of

ventures (Burt, 2005) as they provide actors with structural access to actual or potential

resources (Burt, 1992; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). An organization’s network struc-

ture can help explain the way people are connected in the organizational system, which

in turns shapes ‘the ways that work roles are defined, the ways that routine work is

accomplished ...[and organizational member’s] ability to pick up on suffering and cre-

ate patterns to alleviate it’ (Worline and Dutton, 2017, p. 114–5). Brokerage is a struc-

tural role within a social network – namely, a venture acts as a broker if it connects

nodes that are not otherwise connected (Spiro et al., 2013). Brokerage facilitates ‘trans-

actions between other actors lacking access to or trust in one another’ (Marsden, 1982,

p. 202), and brokers facilitate the exchange of valued resources (Burt, 2000; Gould and

Fernandez, 1989; Stovel and Shaw, 2012).

While possessing a brokerage role in a network is important for venturing activities in

general (Burt, 2005), brokers are even more relevant when ‘the network they belong to

is fragmented across different affiliation groups’ (Lissoni, 2010, p. 846). For example,

members of a city or community might be sub-divided into groups such as religious

affiliation, neighbourhood associations, and so forth, all of which can influence broker-

age roles (Gould and Fernandez, 1989; Stovel and Shaw, 2012). Indeed, the meaning of

a brokerage exchange, whereby the broker connects two otherwise unconnected actors,

could be quite different depending on each actor’s sub-group affiliation (community

level, city-level, country-level, etc.) (Kirkels and Duysters, 2010; Lissoni, 2010). In this

study, we identified the sub-group affiliation for ventures by associating them with dis-

tinct and non-overlapping community affiliations as expressed by actors (consistent with

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