10. Innovation in the People Agenda: A Dignity Narrative

The greatest challenge of management theory has been to cope with the new demands of society. Traditional management theories have their roots in classical economy which regards the individuals as “homo economicus” who are only interested in transactional relations to fulfill their own interests. This approach to business has resulted in external negative consequences such as environment degradation, pollution and the increasing of inequalities. Humanistic is the new paradigm proposed for managerial theory putting dignity and well-being in the center. This chapter presents a narrative of an HR director who assumed the aim of moving his company toward a humanistic paradigm. In this narrative, the context is explained as the stages (archetypes) the company has been going through from economism to humanism archetype, showing that the process is not linear, but complex. Hope that this narrative can illuminate other companies to move toward the humanistic management, in spite of the difficulty of the process and the business imperatives.