David L. Cooperrider

Case Western Reserve University | CWRU · management

The nature of work is constantly changing. Technological advances, changing preferences and globalization propel transformations in how we live and work (Mayo, 2005; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). A globalized world of work offers many different career opportunities. Unbounded by geography or company affiliation, individuals seek new opportunities w...

It’s been thirty years since the original articulation of “Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life” was written in collaboration with my remarkable mentor Suresh Srivastva (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). That article – first published in Research in Organization Development and Change – generated more experimentation in the field, more academi...

David Cooperrider and Ronald Fry are professors of organizational behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). CWRU’s Department of Organizational Behavior is consistently acknowledged as one of the best in the world by the Financial Times. Together with their mentor, Suresh Srivastva, they created Appre...

A ppreciative Inquiry (AI) is a theory and practice of inquiry-and-change that shifts the perspective of organization development (OD) methods by suggesting that the very act of asking generative questions has profound impact in organizational systems. Inquiry and change are not separate moments. Our questions focus our attention on what is " there...

Generative theory challenges assumptions of the status quo, opens the world to new possibilities, and is frequently associated developmentally with a deep and caring concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. With emphasis on "opening the world to new possibilities" and "intergenerational transmission" might there be a useful explora...

Transformative innovation is a particular manifestation of generativity that emerges when organizations explore the intersection of business and society, embracing social, environmental, ethical, or similar initiatives as an integral part of their strategic missions. The chapter reports findings from the World Inquiry, a search for stories of trans...

The emergence of strengths-based management may be the management innovation of our time. Nearly every organization has been introduced to its precepts - for example, the insight that a person or organization will excel only by amplifying strengths, never by simply fixing weaknesses. But in spite of impressive returns, organizations and managers ha...

This chapter shares the experience of National Grid to orchestrate two Appreciative Inquiry Summits in Massachusetts. One was framed around sustainability for the City of Worcester, Massachusetts, and the other was an industry-wide effort on energy efficiency in Massachusetts. The chapter demonstrates the potential for generative impact and transfo...

It's been nearly 30 years since the original articulation of Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life was written in collaboration with my remarkable mentor Suresh Srivastva (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). That article generated more experimentation in the field, more academic excitement, and more innovation than anything we had ever written. A...

This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of appreciative inquiry (AI) and positive psychology (PP), looks at how they currently contribute to the understanding of positive organizational change, and considers how they can contribute to the future of "innovation-inspired positive organizational development (OD)." First, it considers the v...

A common concern raised in opposition to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that a focus on life-giving images in organizations tends to suppress negative voices. It is supposed that AI sees little value in skeptical, cynical , or negative perspectives. However, when AI is properly understood, all voices À both positive and negative À are seen as essenti...

This Editorial gives an overview of content published in the current issue.

In a world where just about every corporation is going greener and more socially responsible, and where many have found that building a better world and building a stronger business indeed go hand in hand, it is time for scholars and managers alike to explore the impact of sustainability action on the workforce and people, that is, to study exactly...

The Positive Arc of Systemic Strengths explores the important question: when is it that the best in human systems comes out most naturally and easilyespecially in collective action opportunities encompassing regions and cities, extended enterprises, industries, and UN world summits By analyzing the performance and impacts of six case studies of the...

This article presents a framework for Innovation-inspired Positive Organization Development (IPOD). IPOD is presented as both a radical break from the problem solving approaches that have come to dominate the field, as well as a homecoming to OD's original affirmative spirit. The converging fields that inform the theory and practice of IPOD are det...

We provide seven steps to integrating sustainability into strategy and operations. The process is designed to enable business leaders to reframe sustainability as a source of value creation using a life cycle collaborative approach to innovation instead of piecemeal change led by small groups of experts. Furthermore, the approach builds on the stre...

In this volume of Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, leading scholars from the fields of management, organization development, information technology, and education come together to chart new directions in Appreciative Inquiry theory and research as well as new intervention practices and opportunities for design in organizations. While diverse in to...

Commentaries, controversies, new ideas, essays and insights that aim to be provocative and engaging, raise the important issues of the day and provide observations on what is too new yet to be the subject of empirical and theoretical studies.

Despite increased knowledge regarding what constitutes a local sustainable economy, the process of how has been relatively unexplored. We examine the case of Cleveland as one of the first major cities to undergo a large-scale transformation project for building a sustainable economy in order to distill learning that can be applied to not only citie...

IN HER SCHOLARLY ANALYSIS OF THE corporate citizenship movement, Sandra Waddock celebrates and documents the lives of The Difference Makersthe courageous leading-edge innovators who, starting largely in the last decades of the 20th century and early part of the 21st, created the emerging infrastructures aimed at advancing corporate citizenship, acc...

This chapter explores different ways of how forgiveness is manifest in people who experience perceived offense or harm. Forgiveness is rarely considered in management research, yet it has particular relevance to the health and functioning of interpersonal connections which allow organizations to thrive. Interviews conducted in a unionized trucking...

Appreciative Inquiry Handbook explains in-depth what AI is and how it works, and includes stories of AI interventions and classic articles, sample project plans, interview guidelines, participant worksheets, a list of resources, a glossary of terms, and more.

Ap-pre’ci-ate, v., 1. valuing; the act of recognizing the best in people or the world around us; affirming past and present strengths, successes, and potentials; to perceive those things that give life (health, vitality, excellence) to living systems. 2. to increase in value, e.g. the economy has appreciated in value. Synonyms: Valuing, prizing, es...

Sustainability issues such as energy security, air quality, climate change, and poverty are introducing greater levels of complexity into strategic decision-making and often have far-reaching implications for companies in today's competitive environment. Building on Appreciative Inquiry, this paper discusses a new model for sustainable value creati...

This paper highlights the use of appreciative inquiry (AI), a growing practice in organization development, in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) of the Environment Protection Agency. AI is a strength-based approach to change that induces innovation and collaboration through participatory methods. It is distinct from other methods that fo...

Organizational development and change may be initiated from two different starting points. A diagnostic approach begins with an examination of problems to assess and correct dysfunction. In contrast, the Appreciative Inquiry approach begins by identifying an organization’s strengths as resources for change. An experimental study was conducted to co...

This article explores constructions of forgiveness by studying responses to perceived offensive experiences in which one's own negativity toward the event is increased, displaced or dissolved. Forgiveness is rarely considered in management research, yet it has particular relevance to the health and function of interpersonal connections that allow o...

Die Akzentuierung des Positiven ist ein Grundsatz, der im geschäftlichen Alltag von Organisationen oft verloren geht. Wertschätzendes Organisieren liefert hier neben einem innovativen theoretischen Rahmen auch neue Praxisformen, die wachsende Effizienz-, Leistungs- und Qualitätsanforderungen erfüllen. Wertschätzendes Organisieren setzt dabei zwei z...

Appreciative Inquiry is a constructive inquiry process that searches for everything that “gives life” to organizations, communities, and larger human systems when they are most alive, effective, creative and healthy in their interconnected ecology of relationships. To appreciate, quite simply, means to value and to recognize that which has value –...

Appreciative inquiry is built upon recognition of the profound power of questions in shaping our worlds; a power invoked by the phrase, "questions are fateful." The goal of this chapter is to provide conceptual and practical answers to this question. We seek to enrich and contribute to the field of appreciative inquiry through expanded ways of thin...

If we as human beings become or move in the direction of what we study then it becomes apparent that questions are a a crown and jewel treasure, and deserve to be honed, polished and valued more than we commonly appreciate. Could it be that asking questions about "what gives life" elevates life and discloses worlds of new possibility? We think so a...

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has been described in a myriad of ways: a radically affirmative approach to change that completely lets go of problem-based management, 1 the most important advance in action research in the past decade, 2 and organization development's philosopher stone. 3 Summing up AI is difficult—it is a philosophy of knowing, a method...

WHAT IS IT? Appreciative Inquiry, a concept and approach conceived and described in the work of Dr. David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve's school of Organization Behavior, is a worldview, a paradigm of thought and understanding that holds organizations to be affirmative systems created by humankind as solutions to problems....

Many people perceive mountains as powerful symbols of pristine wilderness and natural strength. But these perceptions belie the vulnerabilities of mountain environments: All over the world, expanding economic pressures are degrading mountain ecosystems, while confronting mountain peoples with increasing cultural assimilation, poverty, and political...

The organization dimensions of global change represent afresh arena of organizational scholarship demanded by the global exigencies of our moment in history, a moment where, for the first time, the scale and character of human action has measurable impacts on the natural environment, as well as societal transformations and our collective consciousn...

In this paper we direct the field of management and organization learning toward the betterment of the global human condition. Through the metaphor of the global meeting, we develop the core agenda for scholarship in management and organization learning: learning for positive global change, cooperative advantage and anticipatory learning, learning...

Depressed hay prices in 1987 prompted Wyoming hay pro-ducer organizations to request marketing assistance from the Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (WCES) and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture (WDA). The WCES and the WDA responded by implementing a 2-yr project to analyze and promote quality hay (WYOLIST). Hay quality and mar-keting improv...

A methodology for conducting competitive exhibitions or hay contests was developed to evaluate, teach, and promote hay quality. Exhibits are subjected to a forage analysis and a visual appraisal for economically important variables. The criteria for visual appraisal are particularly appropriate for hay produced and marketed in the Wyoming environme...

That the world is undergoing a major transformation in social consciousness is now widely accepted. Never before has the world been witness to so many thousands of attempts by individuals and transnational organizations to combat age-old social ills such as hunger, poverty, disease, lack of education, human rights abuses, armed conflict, and enviro...

This is our hope: to sketch the conceptual outlines for an expanded field of inquiry into the organization dimension of global change more clearly, coherently, and urgently than has been done before. Today, a vital and pioneering latticework of global social change organizations (GSCO) is spreading across continents, involving people from every nat...

This article proposes that one way to help a group liberate itself from dysfunctional conflict and defensive routine is through the introduction of generative metaphor. By intervening at a tacit, indirect level of awareness, group members are able to generate fresh perceptions of one another, thereby allowing for the revitalization of the social bo...

This paper proposes that the way to help a group liberate itself of dysfunctional defensive routines is through the introduction of "generative metaphor". By working at a tacit / indirect level of awareness / group members are able to generate fresh perception of one another allowing for the re-establishment of the social bond and a heightened coll...

This chapter presents a conceptual refiguration of action-research based on a "sociorationalist" view of science. The position that is developed can be summarized as follows: For action-research to reach its potential as a vehicle for social innovation it needs to begin advancing theoretical knowledge of consequence; that good theory may be one of...

This paper develops an egalitarian theory of organizing, a theory which is premised on the emergence of an interhuman logic that transcends instrumental or techno-economic rationality as a basis for collective action. An interhuman logic, it is proposed, is one that seeks to create and maintain social-organizational arrangements that heighten or ma...

One of today's most popular change methods, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has been used to undertake transformational initiatives in dozens of organizations, ranging from McDonald's to the U.S. Navy to Save the Children. The assumption of AI is simple. Every organization has things that work right— things that give it life when it is vital, effective,...

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help you create the fact. —William James. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. —Plato. Modern management thought was born proclaiming that organizations are the triumph of the human imagina...