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People Mattering at Work: A Humanistic Management Perspective

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Abstract

Humanistic management requires an expansion of economistic management to focus on flourishing for all at work through dignity and well-being. A dignity framework engaging the humanistic management perspective is used to explore mattering in organizational contexts. The framework acknowledges moral and spiritual levels of the human experience and incorporates transcendent and religious motivations, representing a more fully humanistic conception. Existential and interpersonal mattering are linked to various levels of the dignity experience at work, providing a practical way of understanding a highly philosophical concept. Implications of mattering at work for humanistic management research, theory, and practice are discussed. Dignity and mattering provide important, human-centered, relationally-oriented concepts to help us understand how people live and experience their lives at work.

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Notes

  1. This is seen in the community called the ‘workplace’, a community of engagement, where one has individuals have the potential to expand and develop their abilities, where respect, esteem and worth can be both given and received. In this co-created field of engagement, the self comes to know itself through relationships with others (Honneth 1995), through the experiences of dignity or indignity (Hicks and Waddock 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Anne Matheson

  2. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Pamala J. Dillon

  3. University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Guillén

  4. Toulouse School of Management, Toulouse, France

    Clark Warner

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  1. Anne Matheson
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  2. Pamala J. Dillon
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Matheson, A., Dillon, P.J., Guillén, M. et al. People Mattering at Work: A Humanistic Management Perspective. Humanist Manag J 6, 405–428 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-021-00113-1

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