Socially sustainable work organizations and systems thinking

This Research Note seeks to add to the body of knowledge concerning social sustainability in work organizations, especially within the context of new challenges and threats in contemporary, post-industrial working life. Moreover, the intention is to explore the added value of the complexity lens in promoting social sustainability at work. Work organizations are conceptualized as Chaordic systems to make accessible some aspects of organizations’ structure and dynamics important for social sustainability. Our earlier paper (Kira and van Eijnatten, 2008) on the theme was critically assessed by Merrelyn Emery (2010). Therefore, we offer clarifications of some aspects in our earlier paper.