IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buetqu/v30y2020i4p447-485_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Antoni, Anne
  • Reinecke, Juliane
  • Fotaki, Marianna

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Antoni, Anne & Reinecke, Juliane & Fotaki, Marianna, 2020. "Caring or Not Caring for Coworkers? An Empirical Exploration of the Dilemma of Care Allocation in the Workplace," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 447-485, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:30:y:2020:i:4:p:447-485_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1052150X20000019/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anne Antoni & Juliane Reinecke & Marianna Fotaki, 2023. "Making Time to Care, and Caring for Time: ‘Tricking Time’ to Cope with Conflicting Temporalities in a Child Protection Agency," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(4), pages 645-663, December.
    2. Anica Zeyen & Oana Branzei, 2023. "Disabled at Work: Body-Centric Cycles of Meaning-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(4), pages 767-810, July.
    3. Wee Chan Au & Siân Stephens, 2023. "I Am Not Just a Nurse: The Need for a Boundaried Ethic of Care in the Context of Prolific Relationality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 493-510, September.
    4. Lucas Amaral Lauriano & Juliane Reinecke & Michael Etter, 2022. "When Aspirational Talk Backfires: The Role of Moral Judgements in Employees’ Hypocrisy Interpretation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 827-845, December.
    5. Eline Jammaers, 2023. "Theorizing Discursive Resistance to Organizational Ethics of Care Through a Multi-stakeholder Perspective on Disability Inclusion Practices," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(2), pages 333-345, March.
    6. Yiyu Yi & Qianbao Tan & Jiahui Liu & Fuqun Liang & Chao Liu & Zhenbiao Yin, 2022. "The Mechanism of Cumulative Ecological Risk Affecting College Students’ Sense of Social Responsibility: The Double Fugue Effect of Belief in a Just World and Empathy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Heidi Reed, 2024. "“When money is more valuable than people…”: The pandemic as a call for business to care," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 435-455, March.
    8. Melanie Richards, 2023. "When do Non-financial Goals Benefit Stakeholders? Theorizing on Care and Power in Family Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(2), pages 333-351, May.
    9. Kate Kenny & Marianna Fotaki, 2023. "The Costs and Labour of Whistleblowing: Bodily Vulnerability and Post-disclosure Survival," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(2), pages 341-364, January.
    10. Anne Antoni & Haley Beer, 2024. "Ethical Sensibilities for Practicing Care in Management and Organization Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 279-294, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:30:y:2020:i:4:p:447-485_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/beq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.