Wide Awake Housekeepers on Duty: The Institutional Logic of Compassion in a Faith-based Organization

Abstract

This article examines the institutional logic of compassion as shaped and modified within a faith-based organization. The following research questions are addressed: How does the institutional logic of compassion emerge, and how is it shaped over time? The study involves a content analysis of archival sources, semi-structured interviews with managers and organizational members, and observations of a Norwegian faith-based healthcare organization. The composite nature of the institutional logic of compassion is revealed in the interplay between other logics, of professional care, the bureaucratic state and business-like health care. This article identifies the logic of compassion as constructed and conveyed by three complementary processes: institutional believing, material practicing and moral reasoning. Within this logic of compassion, the dominant process of personal faith has, over time, been modified and reintegrated, providing the organization with a broader and renewed connection with social and religious meaning making.