Life-Affirming Organizations (LAOs): An Integrated Framework of Normative Foundations, Structural Reconfigurations, and Contextualized Enactment

Critical sustainability and organization studies challenge the dominant neoliberal paradigm by advancing alternative forms of organizing that contest anthropocentric assumptions and uphold socio-ecological integrity, thereby supporting life-affirmation. This conceptual paper develops an integrated Life-Affirming Organizations framework that articulates how the normative foundations of life-affirmation can be translated into contextualized structural reconfigurations of organizing. Drawing on life-affirming principles as an overarching interpretive lens and mobilizing an institutional lens to account for organizational transformation, the article adopts a reflexive, multi-perspective approach to review, analyze, and integrate insights from Humanistic Management and Regenerative Development. These two heterodox traditions, rooted in ethical business scholarship and living systems thinking, address complementary yet tension-laden dimensions of life-affirming organizing. Conceptually, the Life-Affirming Organizations framework advances critical organization studies by articulating life-affirming organizing as a coherent structural configuration rather than a set of normative aspirations. Practically, the institutional lens enables understanding the structural barriers, intrinsic challenges, and adaptive strategies involved in transitioning toward life-affirming, context-embedded organizational forms, highlighting how organizations must navigate trade-offs between competing logics.