Compassionate in Nature? Exploring Hotel Staff Third-Party Interventions in Instances of (in)Justice

Abstract

Prior research suggests that employees aware of their peers’ mistreatment by management and who themselves are target to such mistreatment help their peers more than employees who have been exposed only to peers’ mistreatment. However, reasons why this help is amplified are unclear. In this study we suggest that such help is performed out of compassion and, hence, that personal and peers’ unjust treatment, empathic-concern, and acts of kindness follow Kanov et al. (2004) compassion process: noticing, feeling, and responding. It is hypothesized that interactions between personal and peers’ mistreatment amplify kindness through empathic-concern and, hence, that kindness is compassionately performed. Results supported empathic-concern as a mediator and, hence, kindness as a compassionate behavior. Unexpectedly, however, staff reduced (rather than increased) empathic-concern and kindness. Tragedy-of-the-commons is invoked to explain these unexpected results. Simultaneous mistreatment could lead staff to perceive justice as a scarce common resource that is ultimately a source of dispute and leads to uncooperativeness.