Reality Proves Possibility: Developing Humanistic Business Models from Paradigmatic Practice

Abstract

Conventional economic, business, and management theory have been blamed for systemic ail-ments of the global economy, from the financial crisis, to global inequality, and human rights abuses. Humanistic management and humanistic business are a growing area of research and of practice application, providing an alternative to the conventional neoclassical theory. We suggest that a crucial next step to create more humane businesses and management practices is the crea-tion of management and business models that integrate both theoretical insights and practical learnings. Thus, in this symposium, we aim to connect paradigmatic humanistic business practic-es, to frameworks for humanistic model and principle development. Through the first contribution of the symposium, we show how the reality of humanistic business practices proves the possibility of implementing humanism in business. Pirson show-cases that humanistic management is a possibility by exploring cases of humanistic business models in the financial ...