Degree

Master of Science in Management

School

School of Business Studies (SBS)

Department

Department of Management

Date of Submission

Summer 2026-7-12

Supervisor

Dr. Ashar Saleem, Assistant Professor and Director Graduate Programs SBS

Committee Member 1

Dr. Amer Awan Iqbal

Submission Type

MS Management Research Project

Document Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Transhumanism, Cyborgism, Technological Singularity, Humanhood

Abstract

The boundary between man and machine, which once seemed glaringly obvious is now slowly dissolving with the advent of the transhumanist movement, thus, rattling the ontological foundations of humanhood. The impact of this is felt across all areas that keep the human subject as their central focus such as that of business management. In such a scenario, it becomes imperative to reconsider how humanhood is defined considering traditional management theories take a very human-centric approach. This approach carries certain assumptions about human capital, agency, identity, productivity, leadership etc., that will all be affected once the definition of humanhood is revisited. This study uses a qualitative netnographic strategy to investigate how individuals engaged with the transhumanist movement define what it means to be human, drawing on publicly available Reddit discussions from transhumanism-related communities. The data was analyzed using inductive thematic analysis guided by the Gioia grounded theory logic. Our findings indicate that humanhood is defined through three ontological anchors: consciousness, human suffering, and the physicality of the human body. Our findings demonstrate that humanhood is not a stable concept but rather context dependent. When translated onto the management domain, the definition of humanhood varies across organizations depending upon the institutional, industrial and cultural contexts. From a management standpoint, this research is of vital importance because future organizations have to be proactively prepared to effectively manage the divide between enhanced and non-enhanced workers in a manner that maintains equity, dignity, equality and consent.

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