CHAPTER 40

Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Organizational Scholarship

A Philosophy of Practice for Turbulent Times

David S. Bright and Mary T. Miller

IN THE FALL 2007 edition of the OD Practitioner, Gervase Bushe emphasized that Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is more than a focus on the positive: it is the creation of conditions that tap the generative potential of people and organizations. This article builds on this observation and suggests an approach to understanding AI that is grounded in Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003; Bright & Cameron, 2010). The suggested model may be helpful because it illustrates the limitations and advantages of different approaches to intervention design. A POS framework also ...

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