Center for Humanistic Management

The Center for Humanistic Management at the Gabelli School of Business is a research center with active outreach to practice and policy, and a commitment to developing novel pedagogical approaches with a focus on social innovation. The center is part of the Humanistic Management Network, an international, interdisciplinary, independent collective that promotes the development of an economic system with respect for human dignity and well-being.

The center played a primary role in Fordham University’s successful 2013-2014 application for an AshokaU Changemaker Campus designation. It also serves as a resource for students, faculty, and administrators across Fordham’s nine schools and colleges who are dedicated to social innovation.

About the Humanistic Management Network

The Humanistic Management Network, of which the center is a part, holds as its main goal the defense of human dignity in face of its vulnerability. The dignity of the human being lies in its capacity to define autonomously the purpose of its existence. Because human autonomy realizes itself through social cooperation, economic relations and business activities can either foster or obstruct human life and well-being. Against the widespread objectification of human subjects into human resources, against the common instrumentalization of human beings into human capital and a mere means for profit, the Humanistic Management Network upholds humanity as the ultimate end and principle of all economic activity.

In business as well as in society, respect for human dignity demands respect for human freedom. Collective decision-making, in corporations just as in governments, should hence be based on free and equal deliberation, participation or representation of all affected parties. Concerns of legitimacy must, in economics like in politics, precede questions of expediency.

The network’s members believe that market economies hold substantial potential for human development in general. To promote life-conducive market activities, the network wants to complement the quantitative metrics which hitherto define managerial and economic success with qualitative evaluation criteria that focus on the human dignity of every woman and every man.

• As researchers, members of the Humanistic Management Network work toward a humanistic paradigm for business and economics, trying to identify and facilitate corporate and governmental efforts for the common good.
• As a think tank, the network sets out to spread intellectual tools for culturally and ecologically sustainable business practices that have the human being as their focal point.
• As teachers, members strive to educate, emancipate, and enable students to contribute actively to a life-conducive economy in which human dignity is universally respected.
• As practitioners, members act toward the implementation of a humanistic economy on an individual, corporate, and governmental level.
• As citizens, members engage communities in discourse about the benefits of a human-centered economy.

Learn more about the Humanistic Management Network, or directly contact the leadership of Fordham’s research center.