AbstractTraditionally, management‘theory’has dealt with prescriptions for improving managerial efficiency but has yet to set up a substantial scientific hypothesis relating to the nature of human organizations.The concept of autopoiesis, self-production, upgrades the idea that large human organizations are living organisms from a metaphor to a homologue, and this is offered as a scientific hypothesis.Should this hypothesis be established as a‘better’theory of human organizations, a number of important implications flowing from it will affect the world view of humans and their relationships with large organizations.