Where did Appreciative Inquiry originate?
Appreciative Inquiry, (AI) as an organizational development process, was developed by David Cooperrider and his associates at Case Western Reserve University School of Management in the mid 1980s. It grew from Cooperrider’s research into discovering what works and what gives life to an organization rather than looking at the problems an organization may have. AI has since been developed into a systematic process and used extensively in organizational development. However at its heart AI is more than just an organizational development tool it is a way of looking at and interacting with the world. Jane Magruder Watkins an expert in the field describes AI in this way: “Appreciative Inquiry is an articulated theory that rationalizes and reinforces the habit of mind that moves through the world in a generative frame seeking and finding images of the possible rather than scenes of disaster and despair.
