Appreciative inquiry as a mode of action research for community psychology

Abstract

Participatory action research~PAR! has long been an important area of interest in community psychology as a mechanism for intervening in and developing community social systems. The key concerns in such efforts are many: how to get buy-in from community members, how to involve multiple stakeholders, how to take into account potential consequences to a whole community system, how to develop a sense of empowerment among participants, etc. These concerns are studied and relevant, not

A 10‐year Retrospective of Organization Studies in Community Psychology: Content, Theory, and Impact

“…Further, an organization studies interest group was created in the Society for Community Action and Research, and a series of single article publications have appeared in community psychology journals focusing on organization studies topics such as appreciative inquiry and organization development (Boyd & Bright, ; Boyd, ; Bess, Prilleltensky, Perkins, & Collins, ; Perkins et al., ), transorganizational networks (Nowell, ), and administrative evil (Griffith, Childs, Eng, & Jeffries, 2007).…”

Integrating Organization Studies and Community Psychology: A Process Model of an Organizing Sense of Place in Working Lives

“…Many lenses and options are possible. Community psychology continues to emphasize action research, systems analysis, change‐based intervention, organization development techniques like appreciative inquiry (Boyd & Bright, ), and the constituent validity provided by broad stakeholder participation (Keys & Frank, ). Organization scholarship is also sympathetic to forms of action research (Cassell & Johnson, ), as well as useful social scientific notions of structuration, discourse, and reflexivity to guide methods and analysis (Alvesson & Kärreman, ; Barley & Tolbert, ; Hardy, Phillips, & Clegg, ).…”

Employee Transition Throughout an Appreciative Inquiry Intervention

“…Similarly, Oreg et al (2011) categorise antecedents to change recipients' reactions to organisational change into pre-change antecedents which are independent of the organisational change and which existed prior to the introduction of the change and change antecedents which involve aspects of the change itself that influence change recipients' explicit reactions. Drawing from these categorisations, the context concept in Boyd and Bright (2007) say that a successful discovery phase "uses questions to generate an atmosphere of energy, focus, and anticipation for alternative possibilities and assumptions" (p. 1029) and that during the dream phase "themes from the previous phase are used to design and expand aspirations for change . .…”