Appreciative Inquiry

AI Theory

AI was originally developed in the mid-1980s by David Cooperrider, Frank Barrett, Ron Fry, and Suresh Srivastva of the Organizational Behavior Department at Case Western Reserve University, in response to the dominant use of problem-solving in action research, a method of improving social systems by involving system members in self-study. They noted the lack of new theory generated by action research and argued that it engendered an unhelpful bias toward seeing organizations as problems to be solved. They argued that using positivistic, scientific assumptions and methods to improve groups and organizations made the mistake of treating people like simple stimulus–response mechanisms, ignoring how so much of collective life is based on sensemaking, narratives, and beliefs about the future.

Cooperrider, Barrett, Fry, and Srivastva described how assessing groups and organizations against predetermined models of health or dysfunction tended to create the very issues they were supposed to uncover and argued, instead, that there were no inherently correct ways to organize; our methods of organizing are limited only by human imagination and our collective agreements. A method of study that was interested in improving organizations, they argued, would have to lead stakeholders to produce new ideas grounded in their collective hopes and desires and that would most likely emerge if they first inquired, appreciatively, into what gave life and vitality to their organization.

After about 15 years of experimentation and study, a set of five principles of AI were developed that are now widely accepted: