Bernard Baum

As if People Mattered: Dignity in Organizations Bernard Baum

What is the nature and role of dignity in organizations? Why do managers, professionals, employees, clients, and patients identify with the idea that organizations universally violate their dignity? What can we learn from taking a close look at what participants in organizations feel about their sense of worth? Why should we care? Based on hundreds of interviews, this volume answers such questions. For example, how significant is this screaming of the protagonist in "Network." "I'm mad as hell, and I won't take it anymore." But he does-day in, day out-adapting to the abuse and eroding the emotional well-being of his personality. Dignity is an understudied concept in organizational research, as is fear, a correlate of indignity. This work shows how managers feel free to denigrate dignity by virtue of the authority vested in their position and by the impersonality of the organization. For example, the reference to management persons as "they" or "management." The volume begins with an academic approach to the issue of dignity in organizations. But the best academic work should result in actual practice. That is how this book views it. The book blends fieldwork and theory. It is a theoretically driven study of the nature of dignity in organizations and its role in the life of participants in organizations. Finally, the volume concludes with concrete approaches to promoting dignity and dignifying strategies in the organization.