Organizational Success and Worker Dignity: Complementary or Contradictory?1

Heightened competition has resulted in an intensified search for practices that enhance organizational success—success often defined in terms of heightened worker effort. This article suggests that the interplay between organizational and job‐level practices determines the extent to which organizations can be successful and workers’ well‐being can also be protected. These relations are analyzed with a unique data set on organizational practices, managerial behavior, and work‐life experiences from 204 English‐language organizational ethnographies. The analyses reveal configurations of practices associated with both positive and negative outcomes for organizations and workers. Configurations associated with organizational success include both positive organizational‐level and positive job‐level practices, such as employee involvement, competent management, and on‐the‐job training. The findings suggest that although the goals of organizational success and worker dignity are sometimes at odds, they can also be complementary.