Appreciative Inquiry

Catalog description

This course provides a foundation in the theories, principles and techniques of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). WFED 884 Appreciative Inquiry (3) This course provides a foundation in the theories, principles and techniques of Appreciative Inquiry (AI), sometimes called "positive change theory" or "positive organizational scholarship." Students will build practical competencies necessary to carry out various AI interventions based on the theories and techniques of organization development and change management. The course will teach students how to define Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and distinguish it from alternative approaches to organization development (OD) and change management (CM). The course describes how AI relates to training and development and other performance improvement interventions, summarizes the history of AI, explains important theories of organizations and describes how small group and large group change interventions using AI differ from training interventions, describes each step in a common AI model and explain how it is applied. The course also reviews ethical issues affecting AI, identifies and summarizes future organizational trends affecting AI, and describes what they might mean for practitioners who use AI.