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This chapter focuses on “healthy-sick” organizations. We define them as those organizations that appear to be healthy to the outside world but are sick at their core. We identify and discuss, in detail, singular attributes of healthy-sick organizations and their path to failure. As senior organizational leaders are responsible for creating and maintaining the set of interactions that creates the healthy-sick phenomenon, our elaboration will necessarily focus on these leader(s). We conclude with a set of recommendations to mitigate the probability of organizations falling into the healthy-sick trap.

The purpose of this paper is to propose, from the way in which an allopathic physician makes a diagnosis of a person's health, an organizational diagnosis metaphor that can contribute in the search for an increasingly more integral way of qualifying an organization as healthy.

The methodological approach is essentially functional and is based on the cybernetics of W.R. Ashby with respect to the concept of a model and especially on “iso‐” and “homomorphisms.” In this way, similarities are found between the behavior of the components observed by the physician in a person, according to his diagnostic guidelines, and the functioning of an organization.

The paper finds that various authors recognize the value and power of the use of metaphors, following the spirit of L.V. Bertalanffy, in the search for a better understanding of the organizational phenomenon, particularly that of human health, including the definition of the World Health Organization, from which a way is proposed here to understand a healthy organization and a general model of organizational diagnosis. It is estimated that one of the most significant finding made so far is the need to formalize structurally dependencies meant to apply “organizational awareness” as a way of permanently reflecting on the organization, helping its members to distinguish what belongs to the person and what belongs to the emergent phenomenon called organization, a task that until now is done partially, considering only some actors and at some points in time. Strategic planning, coaching higher executives, and empowerment of employees have gone in that direction, but still show insufficient efforts.

The work done so far has consisted in the theoretical development of homomorphism and some applications about which it is not yet possible make a report because of their scarcity. However, this method of work has made it possible to refeed the initial model and make some adjustments according to the divergencies seen between the theoretical and the practical. Consequently, this is a proposal that requires discussion – the purpose of this communication – and further experimentation that may lead to its eventual validation.

The proposal of a general model for making organizational diagnoses.

Some degree of originality is considered with respect to known work, because the idea is to articulate a model having an integral character that allows an organization to be qualified as healthy, trying to go beyond partial views that attributed that condition to organizations that were seen from a particular perspective, such as the health of its workers or its economic‐financial performance.

Achieving high performance in an organization is a complex business. Most approaches are too piecemeal, unidimensional or iatrogenic. Healthy working is an approach to managing performance that attempts to overcome these problems by aiming, in a holistic manner, to harmonize those factors which affect, either separately or jointly, individual physical, mental and emotional health and individual and organizational performance. The approach is based on a set of values and a series of steps. The first step has to be establishing an information base‐line – the four key indicators. A survey was undertaken by PBS to establish the availability and usefulness of data in NHS organizations; summarizes some of the issues raised. Although a worryingly small number keep useful data or produce useful information, much can be done in making critical links if available data is fully used.

The paper aims to propose a model and a comprehensive diagnostic method of organizational health status based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

The methodology is qualitative/interpretive and uses of the concept of functional homomorphism of WR Ashby is used, establishing similarities between the way in which this ancient medicine considers the human being and their condition as healthy to transfer it to an organization that produces goods and/or services.

A healthy organization is conceived as one constituted by an association of people regulated by a set of norms based on certain purposes in a state of harmonious balance of their physical and energetic dimensions. In that the physical refers to storage functions, regulation and allocation of resources; transformation of raw materials and inputs into goods and services; waste disposal, distribution and coordination and with information systems for management control, while energy is associated with the ability to act with its management and policies.

The current paper is a first theoretical proposal, which should be enriched with practical applications that feedback its conceptual formulation, thus contributing to its validation.

A comprehensive organizational diagnostic method is made available.

The proposed method allows a comprehensive organizational diagnosis, considering the participation of all the actors that make up this type of social systems.

Although the methodological resource is old, the way it is used here is considered original, and it is also part of an original investigative process by the authors, oriented toward the search for comprehensive organizational diagnostic methods.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive organizational health (OH) framework for business organizations. The framework will present the antecedent-OH relationship with employee well-being (EWB) as a mediator.

The present study conducted a cross-sectional study using case study approach in which concurrent triangulation design was followed, and the collection of qualitative as well as quantitative data was conducted concurrently. A total of 441 structured survey questionnaires and 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews were collected from 10 laboratories of an Indian R&D organization.

The findings showed that EWB acts as a mediator in an antecedent-OH relationship supporting the full mediation model.

The findings are limited to only R&D organizations. This framework can help organizations in establishing a proper communication channel and reducing occupational stress among employees by empowering the employees. Empowerment practices foster conditions which help the employee feel good about their job which shall help in enhancing EWB thereby, promoting culture for OH.

It is an attempt to conceptualize the concept of OH in business sector similarly as in the case of OH in the education sector.

Organisations can become sick, just as people do. A great deal about the nature, diagnosis and treatment of organisational maladies can be learned from a study of how individuals can become mentally ill. The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is much more advanced than the study of organisational ills. Like people, organisations can be structurally sick or behaviourally sick. The various “symptoms” can be studied, hopefully, within a diagnostic framework that would enable an accurate diagnosis to be made and treatments prescribed to bring about a healthy, productive and successful organisation. The implications of these ideas are that HRM directors in the next millennium should take the lead in organisational diagnosis and be the guardians of the organisation’s medicine chest!

The occupational stress and well-being literature often focuses on specific causes of stress as health risk factors to be managed, on attributes of work environments that are stressful and/or risky, or on prevention and intervention strategies for managing these causes of stress as well as individual stress responses at work (Quick & Tetrick, 2003). The occupational stress literature has not focused on how executives and organizations can cause positive stress for people at work. In this chapter, we explore a principle-based framework for executive action to create positive, constructive stress for people at work.

The first major section of the chapter discusses seven contextual factors within which the principle-based framework is nested. The second major section of the chapter develops nine principles for executive action. The third and concluding section of the chapter turns the focus to a set of guidelines for executive action in managing their personal experience of stress.

The service-profit chain model (Heskett, Jones, Loverman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994) highlights the well-documented relationship between employee and customer attitudes suggesting that employees who are satisfied and engaged with their work provide better customer service resulting in higher levels of customer satisfaction and, ultimately, driving firm revenue. The authors propose an expansion of the service-profit margin identifying the leadership behaviors that create positive employee attitudes and engagement. Specifically, the authors suggest that leaders who focus on recognition, involvement, growth and development, health and safety, and teamwork (Kelloway, Nielsen, & Dimoff, 2017) create a psychologically healthy workplace for customer service providers and, ultimately, an enhanced customer experience.

Absenteeism from work may be viewed as a viral infection which adversely affects, and is affected by, the overall health of the organisational system. Thus it is argued that in developing an effective treatment for this bug, it is essential that the underlying causes of the condition are highlighted, and their effects on the health of the organisation be explored. Based on the findings of a study into employee absenteeism within local government organisations in Northern Ireland, it is argued that in order to effectively treat infections which cause and are caused by employee absence, organisations must adopt an approach which is holistic and systemic. The latter is likely to foster the creation of more healthy work organisations which are well placed to deal effectively with the challenges presented by hostile and turbulent operating environments.