The Possibility of Healthy Organizations: Toward a New Framework for Organizational Theory and Practice

The fields of organizational sociology and organizational development contain considerable literature dealing with organizational effectiveness, but little that focuses explicitly on organizational health. This paper clarifies the notion of “healthy organizations” and describes how it needs to be fed by practice, so that social scientists do not build theories that are unrelated to the reality that people experience in organizations today. This delineation of “organizational health” as an arena of inquiry is built on the definition of health developed by the World Health Organization, and on the writing of behavioral scientists (Argyris, Bruhn, Cooley, Etzioni, Kilburg, Levinson, Sorokin, and Whyte) and non-traditional thinkers and practitioners (G.I. Gurdjieff, Oscar Ichazo, Charles G. Krone, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Tenzin Gyatso, the 14 th Dalai Lama). Sociological practice can contribute significantly to the creation of “organizations of the future” (Argyris, 1973) in which a state of reciprocal maintenance (Bennett, 1976) exists between individuals and organizations. “Reciprocal maintenance” means that neither partner seeks to take advantage of the other: the organizations are designed to enable the growth and development of their members or workers (in the broadest sense, including managers) and the individuals do their best to enhance the organization's long-term viability. I define as “healthy” those organizations that foster such reciprocal maintenance while creating an organizational culture in which people have more influence and control over the decisions that affect their lives.