Meaning and suffering in organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of suffering for meaning making and spirituality in organizational contexts. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores how organizational spaces may be created for meaning making and how this is linked to the idea of compassion. Findings – The paper suggests that while suffering has been explored in organizations, it has not been studied relative to existential meaning making. This is identified as a significant gap in research on organizational spirituality. The paper attempts to fill this gap and suggests that the study of suffering has to separate suffering as an objective phenomenon, which should be eliminated in organizations, from suffering as a subjective experience in which meaning may be found. It is also proposed that, for existential meaning to be uncovered in the face of suffering, organizational spaces have to be created in which such meaning making can take place. Originality/value – The paper suggests that suffering can be a pathway to the discovery of spiritual meaning.