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16 - Positive organizational scholarship: embodying a humanistic perspective on business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2011

By
Miguel Pereira Lopes ,
Miguel Pina e Cunha ,
Stephan Kaiser  and
Gordon Müller-Seitz
Edited by
Heiko Spitzeck ,
Michael Pirson ,
Wolfgang Amann ,
Shiban Khan  and
Ernst von Kimakowitz
Heiko Spitzeck
Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Michael Pirson
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Wolfgang Amann
Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Shiban Khan
Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Ernst von Kimakowitz
Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
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Summary

“What a man can be, he must be”

(Maslow 1970: 46)

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is an umbrella label that includes theory and research concerned with the study of positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of both organizations and their members (Cameron, Dutton, and Quinn 2003; Roberts 2006). As such, POS embraces the study of topics such as gratitude, resilience, appreciative inquiry, energizing relationships, happiness, and others that involve the pursuit of human growth and self-development.

POS was initially based on the positive psychology movement. According to the proponents of positive psychology, instead of only accentuating the dysfunctional and negative aspects of human life, with a deficit framework in mind, researchers and practitioners alike should start to look more into identifying and nurturing people's strongest qualities, and focus on understanding those things that make life worth living (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). Those who support POS are likewise committed to understanding how organizations and institutions can help individuals devise their best selves and delineate how they can best accomplish them (Roberts et al. 2005). This resembles the contributions of humanistic scholars such as Maslow, quoted above, in their emphasis on the need for the self-actualization of the human being, and attests to the humanistic roots of POS.

There is a clear continuity of POS with humanism. However, POS constitutes more than just another humanistic approach. It represents an accentuation of the humanistic values, strengthening both the humanistic claims and their impact on the business world.

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Humanism in Business , pp. 278 - 298
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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