Caring or Not Caring for Coworkers? An Empirical Exploration of the Dilemma of Care Allocation in the Workplace

Abstract

Organization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma.

When do Non-financial Goals Benefit Stakeholders? Theorizing on Care and Power in Family Firms

“…As Tronto describes, "in general, caring will always create moral dilemmas because the needs for care are infinite" (1993, p. 137). More recently, scholars have highlighted how individuals struggle with the competition of care in the workplace (Antoni et al, 2020). Building on these insights, we predict that the goal of exerting power and influence will motivate family owners to disproportionately allocate care to family members, disadvantaging other stakeholders, notably nonfamily employees.…”

“…Unlike virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of individuals, the ethics of care perspective centres on caring relations (Held, 2006). Caring relations have primary value and are applicable not only in the private domain of the family but also in the organizational context (Antoni et al, 2020;Liedtka, 1996), especially in family firms where the business domain is strongly influenced by the family domain (Reay et al, 2015;Richards et al, 2019). The need to develop a more fine-grained conceptualization of care in the context of family firms is also reflected in existing studies stressing that caring climates (Duh et al, 2010) and caring relationships are particularly prevalent in this type of organization (Cruz et al, 2010).…”

“…Despite these promising early works, ethics of care initially only played a niche role in business ethics scholarship (Hamington, 2019). However, more recently, the ethics of care perspective has gained momentum, as evidenced by an increasing number of studies drawing on this ethical perception, such as in the field of social entrepreneurship (André & Pache, 2016), small-and medium-sized enterprises (Spence, 2016), design thinking (Hamington, 2019), ethical consumption (Heath et al, 2016;Shaw et al, 2016), sustainability (Carmeli et al, 2017;Paillé et al, 2016), crisis management (Linsley & Slack, 2013), and coworker relationships (Antoni et al, 2020). The growing application of the ethics of care perspective goes hand in hand with management theorists and business ethicists stressing that recent high profile business scandals have pointed out the limits of rule-based ethical approaches and the need for a relational approach provided by the ethics of care (Hamington, 2019;Hawk, 2011;Koehn, 2011).…”

“…This will particularly harm nonfamily employees, who are in many ways dependent on the organization and its owners. Care ethicists have unveiled the dilemma of allocating care and managing competing responsibilities (Antoni et al, 2020). As Tronto describes, "in general, caring will always create moral dilemmas because the needs for care are infinite" (1993, p. 137).…”

“…Instead of focusing on such goal conflicts, we reveal the additive and interactive effects of various non-financial goals that need to be better accounted for (Greve, 2008;Kotlar et al, 2018). Finally, we contribute to the growing literature on the ethics of care (e.g., Antoni et al, 2020;Carmeli et al, 2017;Hamington, 2019) by showing how the features of ethics of care explain Footnote 1 (continued) describes the family's present endowments, whereas nonfinancial goals represent family owners' future-oriented incentives.…”