Taking a compassionate turn for workers with multiple sclerosis (MS): Towards the facilitation of management learning

Abstract

The case study of a worker with multiple sclerosis (MS) is considered using multiple texts that enable differing viewpoints and a more complete understanding of lived experience to emerge. The texts include: (1) antenarrative; (2) a constructed vignette; (3) a constructed reflective journal; and (4) a constructed reflective and reflexive dialogue. These representational texts offer multiple viewpoints as exemplars and aids to management learning enabling more creative and compassionate responses for those who might suffer in organizational life.

Bullying Targets as Social Performers in the Public Administration Workplace

“…The vignette is offered with the intention of presenting the target's perspective of being bullied, and to illustrate what the target's social performances might be in response to that bullying. 1 While a full analysis of the value of fiction, creative nonfiction, and creative writing techniques to present scholarly research is also beyond the scope of this article, I can confirm that scholars have been doing this successfully for years (see, e.g., Caulley, 2008;Ellis & Bochner, 2003;Furman, Lietz, & Langer, 2006;Glesne, 1997;Gutkind, 2009;Harold, 2003;Ketelle, 2004;Spindler, 2008;Vickers, 2010bVickers, , 2011Whiteman & Phillips, 2006). Fictional and other creative writing contributions have much to offer, especially when the researcher has both lived and researched the phenomenon under review.…”

“…A healthier response for those who are bullied, like Sally, would be to fully acknowledge their authentic emotions of anger, stress, and fury, which are more normal responses to unacceptable violations. I am not suggesting that targets confront the bullies, only that they be able to express their anger and frustration in an authentic and more normal way, with the hope of finding a compassionate and just response from within that organization (see Vickers, 2011).…”

“…noTe 1. Readers interested in learning more about how the construction and interpretation of such a vignette might be undertaken are directed to Vickers (2010bVickers ( , 2011. I thank an anonymous reviewer for sharing how the review of this manu-script evoked memories of having been bullied as a junior faculty member.…”

Workplace Adversity

“…Workers experiencing personal traumas are, for the most part, required to carry on doing their jobs, without any diminishment to productivity, or to take paid or unpaid leaveif that is available to them and is approved by their employer. Research focused on challenging personal circumstances brought to workplaces is less evident in the literature, but such studies do exist, and show workers experiencing significant negative health and well-being outcomes as a result of their personal adversity combining with the challenging rules of work and working (see, e.g., Hunter and Warren 2014;Kemeny et al 2004;Vickers 2011).…”

“…Narratives; short stories; re-storying of the self; portraiture; critical, reflective, and reflexive diaries and journals; fiction, semi-fiction, and creative nonfiction; poetry; and interpretation and interrogation of existing fiction all have been used to illuminate some of the many sensitive, painful, and fraught aspects of social and organizational life. Creative writing has been used by scholars dealing with challenging social and institutional phenomena, for decades (e.g., Cope et al 2015;Gutkind 2009;Harold 2003;Ketelle 2004;Phillips 1995;Rolfe 2002;Vickers 2011), but now forms part of a crucial paradigm shift being made around responses to adversity in organizational life.…”