In-company research

The experience of human dignity is not just universally human, it is also culturally specific and extremely personal. This implies that just protecting human dignity - making sure people don't experience harm - is simply not enough. Human dignity is also an expression of authenticity. Do people feel respected  and free to express their personal and social identities? Do they feel cared for and invited to grow and actualize? Human dignity is not just about avoiding violations to dignity, it is also about freedom of expression and actualization of potential. 

The experience of human dignity is complex, and complexity increases in culturally diverse teams. Our research shows that people at work experience different contributions and violations to their experience of human dignity on different organizational levels. This means we can not only assess if people feel their human dignity is protected, respected and promoted, but we can also pinpoint on what level of the organization people experience violations and contributions to this experience.

Through action research, we can assess how people experience human dignity in your organization, and target specific interventions at the most influential organizational levels. Beside analyzing the current state of experienced human dignity, we explore and invision an ideal future state; where can we avoid harm, and how can we protect, respect and promote human dignity more? Aiming interventions at specific organizational levels, we move on to co-create interventions that can help improve the experience of human dignity. After implementation and evaluation, we decide whether our ideal state has been reached, or what else may be needed to improve further. 

Action research is a cyclical and dynamic approach connecting research and practice. Each research cycle informs the next. Its success depends on the active participation of everyone involved.