Description

Since 2005 a number of global thought and action leaders from academia, practice, policy, and media have gathered to develop, enact, and promote a humanistic perspective of management. The focal point was to develop and support practices that allow an economic system to work for 100% of humanity (Buckminster Fuller) through life-conducive management approaches. Two principles central to such humanistic organizing practice are 1) the protection of dignity (as that which is intrinsically valuable) and 2) the promotion of well-being (common good).

Since then a few thousand people have participated in gatherings and conferences, contributed to books and other publications, and developed teaching material to support the above goals.

In 2016, the International Humanistic Management Association (IHMA) was created to professionalize these efforts and develop partnerships with like-minded organizations.

We are a membership-based organization. Membership is open to individuals and institutions. We have members from academia, practice, public policy, civil society and the media. Our members and partners are based around the globe. We are currently organizing most of our activities in the geographical regions of North and Latin America, Europe, and increasingly Asia.

As these principles are closely aligned with the foundational principles of the United Nations, the Global Compact, and the PRME Initiative, IHMA is honored to be a working group within the UN PRME framework.

Goals

The main goals of the working group are the:

1. Ongoing development of interdisciplinary scholarship
2. Continue development of related pedagogical material
3. Continue the facilitation of communities of practice with practitioners, policymakers and civil society members (including media).

Activities

We facilitate the creation and dissemination of new knowledge and practices to support a new narrative for organizing. A number of our members are actively creating new insights and research which is supported and published by our publication outlets:

1. Humanistic Management Journal
2. Humanistic Management Book series

Current research projects:

• Renewed theory of the firm
• Humanistic governance
• Humanistic Leadership
• Humanistic practices in specific industries (banking, tourism etc.)
• Humanistic policy frameworks
• Humanistic management pedagogy
• Etc.

We do host conferences ourselves and partner with other institutions to facilitate both knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination. We host interactive engagement formats in the virtual space, including but not limited to:

1. Necessary Conversation Format, hosted by Erica Steckler, Ph.D.
2. Ph.D. Network, hosted by John Kyle and Juergen Nagler

We facilitate workshops for our target audiences including communities of practice for research, teaching, practice, policy. We also facilitate collaboration across these audiences to enable a wider mindset shift and change in cultural narrative.

Contacts

Global:

• Michael Pirson

Latin America:

• Consuelo Garcia de la Torre
• Osmar Arandia

North America:

• Erica Steckler
• David Wasieleski
• Jen Hancock
• Sandra Waddock

Europe:

• Ernestina Giudici
• Ricardo Aguado

Asia:

• Benito Teehankee
• Jyoti Bachani

How to join

You can sign up and receive relevant updates from the PRME Working Grop on Humanistic Management and the PRME Secretariat by completing this online registration form.