Human Flourishing and Sustainable Success: A Human-Centric Approach to Corporate Growth
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/JPM.2025.006Abstract
Purpose: This article explores how human flourishing can be understood as an organizational capability that supports sustainable success, rather than solely as an individual psychological outcome. It aims to integrate insights from positive psychology, leadership, and organizational studies into a coherent human-centric framework.
Design/methodology/approach: The article adopts a conceptual research design grounded in an interdisciplinary review of literature. To enrich and illustrate the proposed framework, it draws on qualitative insights from in-depth interviews with three senior executives operating in highly competitive global industries. These insights are used illustratively rather than for empirical generalization.
Findings: The article develops an integrative framework identifying three interrelated levers that enable flourishing-oriented organizations: values-based leadership, organizational cultures fostering psychological safety, creativity, and belonging, and the strategic embedding of well-being into everyday organizational practices. Together, these levers link human flourishing to long-term organizational resilience, innovation, and meaningful performance.
Implications/limitations: The study offers practical implications for leaders seeking to move beyond short-term performance metrics toward more sustainable, human-centric models of success. As a conceptual article supported by illustrative qualitative insights, its main limitation lies in the absence of large-scale empirical testing, which opens avenues for future research.
Originality/value: The article contributes to positive management scholarship by reframing human flourishing as a collective organizational capability and by clarifying the mechanisms through which leadership and culture connect flourishing to sustainable success.
Keywords: human flourishing, sustainable success, values-based leadership, organizational culture, well-being, positive management
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Federica De Molli
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright
Articles submitted to the journal should not have been published before in their current or substantially similar form, or be under consideration for publication with another journal. Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher against any breach of such warranty. For ease of dissemination and to ensure proper policing of use, papers and contributions become the legal copyright of the publisher unless otherwise agreed.
Plagiarism and ghostwriting
In response to the issue of plagiarism and ghostwriting the editors of the Journal of Positive Management has introduced the following rules to counteract these phenomena:
1. Contributors should be aware of their responsibility for a content of manuscripts.
2. Collective authors are obliged to reveal the contribution and an affiliation of each author (i.e. who is an author of specified part of a paper).
3. Any act of dishonesty will be denounced, the editors will inform appropriate institutions about the situation and give evidence of all cases of misconduct and unethical behaviour.
4. The editors may ask contributors for financial disclosure (i.e. contribution of specified institutions).
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 15
Number of citations: 0
