Human Sustainability and Work: A Meta-Synthesis and New Theoretical Framework

Abstract

How can work be accomplished while sustaining the human capital that enables it? To date, research on this question has been piecemeal and indirect with different literatures and paradigms offering important but not integrated insights. In this meta-synthesis, we reviewed 368 meta-analyses and review articles published this millennium, sampled from the vast body of research relevant to employee health and well-being. We organize our review using dynamic energy budget theory (DEB), a life-sciences framework that describes how nonhuman animals achieve biological sustainability by balancing maintenance, growth, and generativity. After identifying the ways this research fits within DEB, we develop restricted employee sustainability theory (REST), which describes the ways in which human sustainability goes beyond the fundamental biological necessities outlined in DEB and encompasses the functions (maintenance, growth, generativity) that enable humans to sustain their physical, psychological, and social health. Organization of this vast literature allows us to identify synergies and dynamic balances among the life functions; understand how humans recover after a dramatic crash in health; and articulate the distinctions among subsisting, surviving, and thriving at work. We conclude this meta-synthesis and theory development by offering a roadmap to advance research on human sustainability at work as a unified area of study, guided by our new framework—restricted employee sustainability theory (REST).