Contemplating Mindfulness at Work

TLDR

Mindfulness research is rapidly expanding in organizational science, yet its links to workplace functioning have not been systematically integrated. This review seeks to consolidate the growing mindfulness literature into a framework that directs mainstream management research across diverse constructs. The framework delineates how mindfulness enhances attention, producing downstream effects on cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. These effects shape critical workplace outcomes—performance, relationships, and well-being—while raising new questions and challenging assumptions in management science.

Abstract

Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide mainstream management research investigating a broad range of constructs. The framework identifies how mindfulness influences attention, with downstream effects on functional domains of cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. Ultimately, these domains impact key workplace outcomes, including performance, relationships, and well-being. Consideration of the evidence on mindfulness at work stimulates important questions and challenges key assumptions within management science, generating an agenda for future research.