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Publication date: 18 December 2007

Bernard J. Mohr, Michael J. Feinson and Nancy Shendell-Falik

The high-risk/high-stress nature of hospital emergency departments has made handoffs (i.e. patient transfers across organizational units) an area of significant safety…

Abstract

The high-risk/high-stress nature of hospital emergency departments has made handoffs (i.e. patient transfers across organizational units) an area of significant safety consequence, as evidenced by numerous studies and 2006 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals: The Official Handbook (CAMH). Joint Commission Resources, Inc.: Author; 2005. This same high-risk/high-stress environment is known for generating resistance to traditional deficit-based, external expert driven approaches to improvement. The authors describe how one hospital overcame this resistance by using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to the redesign of the information flow and organizational roles within a mission-critical area of the hospital. Rather than designing to ameliorate the root causes of ineffective handoffs, this positive lens approach (Appreciative Inquiry) was used to engage staff in identifying and expanding upon their most effective handoff experiences. Implications for shifting from problem-based design to a positive lens approach in the creation of micro-information systems and new organizational processes are discussed.

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Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-398-3

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Publication date: 18 December 2007

Malcolm J. Odell and Bernard J. Mohr

Drawing on recent, successful experience in Nepal, this paper traces the use of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in designing roles, structures, and processes to support the engagement…

Abstract

Drawing on recent, successful experience in Nepal, this paper traces the use of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in designing roles, structures, and processes to support the engagement of private-sector businesses and non-profit civic organizations in a peace-building response to the collapse of governance and the Maoist insurgency. Specific case illustrations are offered including: the design of grassroots peace building and development organizations; the need for continual redesign; the power of populist design; the positive design lens for micro-business and post-conflict development in Africa; and the positive design lens in global business. The paper concludes by asking what might be learned from this experience that might bring new hope to Africa, the Middle East, and other troubled corners of the globe. Some of the most important lessons identified include: (1) focusing information-gathering and decision-making conversations on the positive, on the successful, and on what works in resolving conflicts and promoting collaborative understanding, (2) designing conversations which identify windows of opportunity to build success on success, (3) creating dialogical structures which illuminate positive deviation and highlight exceptional experiences that have contributed to building trust, enhancing communications, resolving conflicts, and bridging cultures and viewpoints, and (4) streamlining social design processes such as AI, so that people at all levels can embrace them quickly, easily, and enthusiastically to bring about rapid and positive change.

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Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-398-3

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Publication date: 8 July 2010

Svetlana Shmulyian, Barry Bateman, Ruth G. Philpott and Neelu K. Gulri

This chapter analyzes the success factors, outcomes, and future viability of large-group methods. We have used an exploratory action research approach focusing on eight variously…

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This chapter analyzes the success factors, outcomes, and future viability of large-group methods. We have used an exploratory action research approach focusing on eight variously purposed large-group methods (AmericaSpeaks, Appreciative Inquiry, Conference Model®, Decision Accelerator, Future Search, Participative Design, Strategic Change Accelerator/ACT (IBM), and Whole-Scale™ Change). We interviewed nine leading practitioners and creators for each method, as well as six clients who had played key roles in most of these methods' execution at their organizations, asking them to reflect on the current practices and outcomes and the future of each respective large-group method, as well as the methods as a group of interventions. Based on our findings derived through theme and content analysis of interviews, we purport that both the Art (excellence in method execution) and the Artist (the right facilitator) are necessary for achieving desired outcomes of the large-group methods. We stipulate that critical elements of the Art include these five common elements (or five “I”s): having the right Individuals in the room; aiming the method at resolving the right Issue; having Intentional process (including pre-work, intra-method process, and follow-up); having the right Information in the meeting; and using the right Infrastructure (such as appropriate physical space, technology, etc.). We suggest that while these elements of Art are important, the simultaneous requisite role of the Artist is to manage the tension between the rigidity of the Art (the 5 “I”s) and the emerging human dynamics occurring between the large-group method process and the associated evolving client objectives. That is, to achieve desired outcomes, the execution of large-group method needs to be both highly premeditated and ingenious. We supplement our findings with client case descriptions and quotes from the practitioners and conclude that these large-group methods are particularly appropriate for resolving a variety of issues facing today's organizations operating under the conditions of high technology saturation, interdependence, globalization, economic downturn, and others – and that this, with some exceptions, will likely remain the case in the future. However, the future use of these methods will be challenged by the availability of Artists who can execute the methods so they lead to desired outcomes. We close with discussion of open questions and directions for future research.

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Research in Organizational Change and Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-191-7

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Article
Publication date: 1 July 1956

Bernard Mohr

This article deals with corrosion‐resisting floor surfaces, provided over suitable load‐bearing bases, to withstand the corrosive action of chemicals to which they will be…

118

Abstract

This article deals with corrosion‐resisting floor surfaces, provided over suitable load‐bearing bases, to withstand the corrosive action of chemicals to which they will be subjected. When considering suitable acid‐ and chemical‐resistant floors, apart from corrosion, the type of traffic, maintenance, ease of renewal, amount of solution present on the floor and personnel reactions should be taken into account also. When designing new floors, attention must be paid to possible vibrations resulting from traffic or nearby machinery, possible settling of the floor, and the live and dead loads it will be subject to.

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Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, vol. 3 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0003-5599

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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. As the passage of time has enabled me to look more closely at what was written, I feel both a deep satisfaction with the seed vision and scholarly logic offered for Appreciative Inquiry (AI), as well as well as the enormous impact and reverberation. Following the tradition of authors such as Carl Rogers who have re-issued their favorite works but have also added brief reflections on key points of emphasis, clarification, or editorial commentary we have decided to issue a reprint the early article by David L. Cooperrider and the late Suresh Srivastva in its entirety, but also with contemporary comments embedded. To be sure the comments offered are brief and serve principally to add points of emphasis to ideas we may have too hurriedly introduced. My comments – placed in indented format along the way – are focused on the content and themes of furthermost relevance to this volume on organizational generativity. In many ways I’ve begun to question today whether there can even be inquiry where there is no appreciation, valuing, or amazement – what the Greeks called thaumazein – the borderline between wonderment and admiration. One learning is that AI’s generativity is not about its methods or tools, but about our cooperative capacity to reunite seeming opposites such as theory as practice, the secular as sacred, and generativity as something beyond positivity or negativity. Appreciation is about valuing the life-giving in ways that serve to inspire our co-constructed future. Inquiry is the experience of mystery, moving beyond the edge of the known to the unknown, which then changes our lives. Taken together, where appreciation and inquiry are wonderfully entangled, we experience knowledge alive and an ever-expansive inauguration of our world to new possibilities.

This article 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 the best means human beings have for affecting change in a postindustrial world; that the discipline's steadfast commitment to a problem solving view of the world acts as a primary constraint on its imagination and contribution to knowledge; that appreciative inquiry represents a viable complement to conventional forms of action-research; and finally, that through our assumptions and choice of method we largely create the world we later discover.

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Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-330-8

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Publication date: 28 June 2017

David Cooperrider, David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva

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…

Abstract

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 academic excitement, and more innovation than anything we had ever written. As the passage of time has enabled me to look more closely at what was written, I feel both a deep satisfaction with the seed vision and scholarly logic offered for Appreciative Inquiry, as well as well as the enormous impact and continuing reverberation. Following the tradition of authors such as Carl Rogers who have re-issued their favorite works but have also added brief reflections on key points of emphasis, clarification, or editorial commentary I am presenting the article by David Cooperrider (myself) and the late Suresh Srivastva in its entirety, but also with new horizon insights. In particular I write with excitement and anticipation of a new OD – what my colleagues and I are calling the next “IPOD” that is, innovation-inspired positive OD that brings AI’s gift of new eyes together in common cause with several other movements in the human sciences: the strengths revolution in management; the positive pscyhology and positive organizational scholarship movements; the design thinking explosion; and the biomimicry field which is all about an appreciative eye toward billions of years of nature’s wisdom and innovation inspired by life.

This article presents a conceptual refigurationy 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 the best means human beings have for affecting change in a postindustrial world; that the discipline’s steadfast commitment to a problem solving view of the world acts as a primary constraint on its imagination and contribution to knowledge; that appreciative inquiry represents a viable complement to conventional forms of action-research; and finally, that through our assumptions and choice of method we largely create the world we later discover.

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Research in Organizational Change and Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-436-1

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Publication date: 8 April 2005

Therese F. Yaeger, Peter F. Sorensen and Ulf Bengtsson

Appreciative Inquiry has clearly made a significant impact on the field of organization development and change. This article presents an assessment of 50 studies based on a review…

Abstract

Appreciative Inquiry has clearly made a significant impact on the field of organization development and change. This article presents an assessment of 50 studies based on a review of more than 400 publications and papers. The article covers four sections: first, an overview of the growing significance of AI since the initial Cooperrider and Srivastva article in 1987, with a brief summary of the history, definition, awards, and chronological presentation of the growing body of AI literature. The second section presents a description of the data search process and descriptions of data categories. The third section describes the nature and extent of AI activities and results based on the review of the 50 studies. The final section includes a summary and discussion of the current state of Appreciative Inquiry.

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Research in Organizational Change and Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-167-5

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Publication date: 18 December 2007

In this volume of Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, leading scholars from the fields of art, management, design, information technology, organization development, and education…

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In this volume of Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, leading scholars from the fields of art, management, design, information technology, organization development, 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 topic and discipline, each of the following original chapters treats the reader to a view of Appreciative Inquiry's revolutionary way of approaching familiar questions of information and organization design and vice versa.

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Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-398-3

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Book part
Publication date: 18 December 2007

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Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-398-3

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Article
Publication date: 1 July 1956

A. Keynes

This short article is in the nature of thinking aloud. The zoriter is in the very preliminary stages of a research project into the above mentioned subject, and has formed certain…

46

Abstract

This short article is in the nature of thinking aloud. The zoriter is in the very preliminary stages of a research project into the above mentioned subject, and has formed certain ideas as to the line of research which seem to him to be worth pursuing. It should be explained that the writer is by profession an economist, and has some engineering background, but has no special knowledge of corrosion apart from that which has been gained as a result of reading, and particularly conversations with corrosion experts. He would be particularly grateful, and this is indeed the main purpose of the article, to receive any ideas and comments from readers.

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Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, vol. 3 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0003-5599

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