Creating positive social change through building positive organizations: Four levels of intervention

Abstract

There is no doubt that in the last decade applications of positive psychology in the workplace have provided organizations with "another way" of doing business and managing people. The term "positive organization" shares its origins with Seligman's (2002) third pillar of authentic happiness as being "positive institutions." While the first pillar of positive emotion, and the second pillar of positive characteristics have been examined in detail, the third pillar of positive institutions has received less attention - which is probably symptomatic of psychology's typically predominant focus on the individual or interpersonal level of interaction, as distinct from the level of the institution, community, or social system (of course with exceptions - please allow us to speak in general terms here). © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.