Toward a framework for understanding the distressed organization: Insights from practitioner-based organizational interventions in an emerging economy

Abstract

Organizational distress, sickness, and ill health are important concepts given the consequences of organizational failure on the lives of people. It seems, however, that there is no comprehensive framework within organizational psychology for theorizing about organizational sickness. Most work in this area has focused on individual experience of organizational life to the neglect of the organizational level of analysis. This article presents a framework by drawing on practitioner interventions in 6 organizations in an emerging economy in Africa. The findings suggest 6 main indicants of organizational ill health: executive delusions of grandeur, procedural weakness, employee alienation of the malicious and redundant forms, organizational hemorrhaging or constipation, and corporate directionlessness. These indicants are discussed and a continuum of organizational health-sickness-distress is advanced. Copyright 2005 by the Educational Publishing Foundation and the Society of Consulting Psychology.