What It Means to be Truly Human in Organizations: Martin Buber’s Concept of I-Thou Relations

This chapter invites us to think differently of organizations. The theory of the firm and related theories depict human relations in terms of their objects and instrumentalities. This conception, however, precludes any metaphysical account of human relating. In this chapter, we look to an historical figure, Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, for special insight into the nature of human relations that has largely escaped notice in contemporary organization studies. We begin by unpacking Buber’s distinction between two modes of relating: I-It and I-Thou; first, to recognize that it involves profound distinctions in how we come to relationships, and particularly how we understand their ontology, epistemology, and causality; and second, to recognize that it invites us to think differently about business. Upon this foundation, we draw also from allied ideas of the social teaching of the Catholic Church to point the way toward a new language of business rooted in the being of I-Thou relations.