The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Coaching: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

chapter THIRTY

Appreciative Inquiry

Jacqueline Binkert and Ann L. Clancy

The theoretical foundation of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is based on powerful assumptions about human change that are positive and life generating by nature. AI introduced a major shift in the practice of organization development by offering a mode of inquiry that was both generative and philosophical and that would not constrain imagination (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). Developed by David Cooperrider and his adviser Suresh Srivastva, along with other graduate students at Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s, AI offered a generative model of organizational action research and change that challenged the traditional problem-based action research model. It is ...