The Emerging Concept of the Human-Centered Organization: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature”
Department
Leadership, Management & Business
Journal
Humanistic Management Journal
Volume
9
Issue
1
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Both practitioners and scholars are increasingly interested in the idea of the humancentered organization. This term frst appeared in the late 1950s and has gained attention in the last ten years. Awareness of the need for human-centeredness grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which many organizational leaders were compelled to focus on employee health, safety, and well-being. In this paper, we review and synthesize the rather fragmented scholarly and practitioner literature on humancentered organization (HCO) to develop an integrated defnition and framework. The 26 sources reviewed in depth indicate that the HCO construct is primarily utilized in two ways. First, human-centered design scholars and practitioners conceive of HCOs as employing human-centered design practices. The second discourse involves the humanistic management and culture literature, which conceives of HCOs as embodying humanistic values and cultures. After reviewing these separate discourses, we synthesize them in an integrated defnition as well as framework of HCO. The framework starts from humanistic values such as dignity, well-being, and justice, which are pivotal in creating organizational practices characterized by a common good purpose, positive human experiences on the job, team structures to coordinate work, and participatory tools and approaches
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-024-00168-w
Recommended Citation
Townsend, M. (2024). The Emerging Concept of the Human-Centered Organization: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature”. Humanistic Management Journal., 9 (1) https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-024-00168-w