Advances in appreciative inquiry as an organization development intervention

Author: G R Bushe

Organization Development Journal
Date: 01/01/1995

Volume: 13
Pages: 14-22

Annotation: Since Cooperrider & Srivastva’s (1987) original article on appreciative inquiry there has been a lot of excitement and experimentation with this new form of action research. The technology of appreciative inquiry as a social research method and as an organization development (OD) intervention are evolving differently. Here I will mainly focus on it as an OD intervention. Currently there is no universally accepted method for doing an appreciative inquiry and it is premature to offer a “recipe” for how to do it. There is, however, a fairly well accepted set of parameters for distinguishing between what is and is not a legitimate appreciative inquiry. In this paper I will describe the basics of this technique and report on some innovations I and colleagues have experimented with to extend the appreciative approach. First, however, an introduction to the theory behind the technique.

Online Resources:
Gervase Bushe: Website can be found at http://www.gervasebushe.ca/