Subjective Well-Being within Organizations: A Sociological Explanation

Abstract

Is subjective well-being within organizations a top-down or a bottom-up process? In other words, who is responsible for it? A number of theories exist and many support the principle of well-being driven by good leadership. This work takes a different tack. It develops a model of well-being where well-being is seen as the final result of a process that involves all the individuals who work in an organization at each level of the hierarchical structure. The paper argues that subjective well-being within organizations cannot be reduced to a psychological question, instead, it is, above all, a sociological, logical and epistemological issue. For this reason, it is suggested that it cannot depend on a single manager or even on a group of them. The argument finds its roots in the theory of methodological individualism; dispersed and tacit knowledge (F. Hayek and M. Polanyi); the fallibility of human nature (K. Popper); bounded rationality (H. Simon); the distribution of power within organizations (M. Crozier).