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2025 AOM Annual Meeting

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12912: Reality Proves Possibility- Humanistic Management as Enabler of Dignity and Flourishing for All

Friday, July 25, 2025
10:00 - 11:30 CEST (GMT+2)
Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B2-m1
Session Type: PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Teaching,Practice,International,Research,Diversity
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/5npxLA
The call for management scholarship to address the global challenges has only grown louder. The Academy has aimed to elevate such scholarship with its Annual themes in the past: Innovate for the Future (2024), put the worker front and center (AOM 2023), to broaden its perspective (AOM 2020), improve lives (AOM 2018) and organize more inclusively (AOM 2019). Such calls manifest a broader and deeper crisis of management theory, practice, and pedagogy. Traditional research, practice, and teaching seemingly do not address the current global crises and therefore fail to improve lives and exclude many key stakeholders. On one hand, the challenge for management scholars is to build a better theoretical framework from which to engage with the world at large, in the wake of corporate scandals and recent economic crises. On the other hand, management educators are challenged to fundamentally rethink their fundamental purpose in delivering management education. A focal point of criticism has been the dominant economistic paradigm of business which manifests itself in 1) the assumptions of amoral actors that 2) are only maximizing individual level utility, 3) often in a short term oriented manner. The role of social embeddedness and the importance of the future do play a marginal role and therefore much traditional management research and practice do often NOT contribute to improved lives and organize inclusively. In this PDW we wish to broaden our collective understanding of what kinds of future are possible and how we can innovate collectively. We do so by bringing together global thought leaders that have worked on developing an alternative paradigm for management: humanistic management and leadership. In a first part, we will present the universal foundations of the humanistic paradigm which draws on global, cultural and spiritual insights, and then highlight local and regional permutations of its theorizing and practice. We highlight how such humanistic management is aimed at improving lives, be more inclusive, and put workers and people front and center. In a second part of the workshop we will discuss the consequences of such an alternative paradigm on management scholarship, management education and management practice. Drawing on the work of the International Humanistic Management Association, we will have global representatives from Asia, North and South America, Australia, as well as Europe lead roundtable discussions leading to next steps and potential collaborations.