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Awareness of Multiple Nature Ontologies in Humanistic Management

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  • Nicholas A. Poggioli

    (Appalachian State University)

Abstract

Management scholarship and practice continues to incorporate nature and business dependencies and impacts on ecosystems. The humanistic management approach seeks to shift management practice away from prioritizing economic outcomes and toward prioritizing human dignity and wellbeing. This paper explores humanistic management’s ontological assumption about nature, which tends to be an anthropocentric ontology that prioritizes humans as superior to and separate from nature and justifies destroying nature if doing so benefits human wellbeing. However, there is increasing pressure to conduct business in ways that do not destroy nature but instead conserve or restore nature. I build on research about the diverse values and valuations of nature and identify awareness practices that humanistic management scholars and practitioners might use to become aware of and practice alternative ontologies about nature. Non-anthropocentric ontologies have the potential to lessen the tension between increasing human wellbeing and the destruction of nature and other-than-human beings. Alternative ontologies can be combined with the concept of stewardship to align humanistic management with broader sustainability goals, including notions of nature as sacred and of other-than-human beings as equal to humans in kinship and community. These ideas might provide a way for humanistic management to maintain its focus on human wellbeing while also acknowledging the dignity and wellbeing of other-than-human living beings and nature broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas A. Poggioli, 2025. "Awareness of Multiple Nature Ontologies in Humanistic Management," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 111-124, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:humman:v:10:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s41463-024-00191-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s41463-024-00191-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael Pirson & Jonathan Keir, 2018. "Humanistic Management: a Universalist Perspective Based on a World Ethos," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 141-145, December.
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    3. Michael Pirson, 2016. "Editorial: Welcome to the Humanistic Management Journal," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, September.
    4. Simone Budini, 2024. "The Humanistic Foundation to Sustainability," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 431-439, December.
    5. Clément Vidal, 2023. "Extending Planetary Health: Global Ethics and Global Governance in the Noosphere," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 89-95, April.
    6. Chris Laszlo, 2019. "Strengthening Humanistic Management," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 85-94, July.
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