Organizational literature and practices increasingly recognize the importance of employee wellbeing and organizational culture for organizational performance and health. However, current approaches do not embed a holistic understanding of the biological determinants that enable human functioning, which results in fragmented initiatives and models.

To address this conceptual gap, the paper introduces the Biological Foundation for Organizational Flourishing Framework, a theory-building model that integrates insights from biology, longevity research, and organizational literature. The framework conceptualizes workplaces as environments that influence biological determinants such as nutrition, movement, community and connection, and purpose through the organizational determinants of biological functioning such as nutrition environment, movement architecture, and organizational culture. These determinants provide input for biological regulatory systems that shape human flourishing, which in turn enables employee flourishing and enhances organizational capabilities, ultimately leading to organizational flourishing.

By positioning biological functioning as the foundational layer of organizational flourishing, the framework highlights the importance of organizational design, culture, and environmental conditions in shaping employees’ physiological and psychological states. The model advances an integrated bio-psycho-social perspective on organizations and offers a conceptual foundation for future empirical research and practical organizational design approaches.