Collective capacity building for emotionally charged work: a grounded theory of strategies for maintaining meaning and well-being in emotionally charged work

PURPOSE: Emotionally charged work-encompassing emotional demands and emotional labour - has been associated with ill health and alienation. While the consequences of such work has been widely theorized, the prevention of negative consequences remains undertheorized. METHODS: In this study, we adopt a classical grounded theory approach to (a) Explore the main concern of employed people regarding emotionally charged work and (b) Generate a grounded theory that could inform sustainable organization of emotionally charged work and the prevention of compassion fatigue. Initial purposeful sampling included eight employees and managers from psychiatric hospitals. As subsequent theoretical sampling required broader diversity, we conducted interviews with 15 additional participants across varied occupations, including ministers of religion, military personnel, social care workers, educators, IT managers, and others. RESULTS: Using open coding and constant comparison, we developed a grounded theory of collective capacity building for emotionally charged work. We found that the main concern of participants was to maintain meaningful working lives and in the context of emotionally charged work, they achieved this by building collective capacity for this work. CONCLUSION: Our findings offer theoretical and practical guidance for sustainably organizing work in occupations marked by high levels of emotionally charged work.