Organisational sicknesses and their treatment

Abstract

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!

Citation

Randell, G. (1998), "Organisational sicknesses and their treatment", Management Decision, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 14-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251749810199194