People for People English

Humanistic Perspectives in Management

This June, the Humanistic Management Network organized a conference at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, with the topic “Happiness and Profit – Wellbeing as Alternative Objective Function for Business?”. This network has as its objective to promote an economic system which operates in the service of human well-being in the larger context. Out of the many ideas that one could reap at this occasion I would like to highlight the following three:  

1.      Professor Binsweanger, an economist, reminded us that the original economic theory made the comprehensive concept of utility as the goal of our dealings and not the narrow objective of the multiplication of money as has been brought to prominence in both theory and practice these past years. Such a broader understanding of utility is incompatible with both the narrowly conceived shareholder value thinking as also the notion that the gross national product accurately reflects the prosperity, much less happiness, of a society. The financial crisis and the bonus discussion have shown that narrow monetary goal conceptions lead us astray and are nefarious to our common good. This understanding is fully in line with the people for people project espoused here. http://stakeholder-peopleforpeople.blogspot.ch/

2.      Various conference contributions elucidated possibilities as to how the use of multidimensional criteria grids could create indices which reflect the utility of economic as well as ecological and social dimensions. They complement already available approaches in this direction as for example the Global Reporting Initiatives. The utility contribution of a firm or a project is thereby reflected in a more sophisticated manner then a mere monetary measurement. A considerable number of firms already today produce such common-wealth balance sheets and common-wealth reports. Such firms should in the future be privileged by their customers or by the attribution of public commissions, as they serve the common good in a more deliberate fashion. Regrettably, there were no representatives of public institution at the conference; they would, however, have a model function with the promotion of such a common good thinking.

3.      I was especially impressed by an entrepreneur (Mörkisches Landbrot – a bread bakery) who conducts a consequential stakeholder management which is rarely seen in practice. Through a systematic cultivation of the interactions with important stakeholders (for example suppliers or co-workers) he could not just attain a high degree of motivation and loyalty, but also valuable impulses for the increase of innovation and quality. Thereby his operation is also oriented towards a broad segment of the society. This understanding of value creation which he has pragmatically developed reflects to a high degree the theoretical concept which we also elucidated in our book http://tinyurl.com/8ay79k7. He would be a valuable interview partner for our new leadership project http://tinyurl.com/88qqpxy

The most valuable aspect of the conference was the orientation towards practice. The conference also showed me that there is a considerable need to bring these pragmatic approaches onto solid theoretical basis, so that they will not drift off to arbitrariness.

Edwin Rühli