Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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1.b.2.1) Appreciative Inquiry & Social Constructionism
A central premise of Appreciative Inquiry is that the appreciative process of knowledge creation is socially
constructed (Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008). Put more simply, knowing takes place through interaction
with and within a social system, i.e. via dialogue within the system. Social constructionism is grounded in the idea
that a social system creates its own reality and AI takes this theoretical framework to heart, as can be seen in that
it is implicit in three of the five ‘core principles’ presented originally by Cooperrider & Srivastva in 1987, and places
it in a positive context.
The five principles inspired and moved the foundations of AI from theory to practice, and launching an AI
initiative requires an understanding of these principles in order to fully grasp AI theory and internalise the basis of
the 4-D cycle (see Figure 1 and Figure 2, Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008). As previously detailed, social
constructionism is a fundamental underpinning of AI. It therefore plays an important part in the theory, including
providing the foundation for three of the following five central principles.
1. The Constructionist Principle: assumes that an organisation’s destiny is bound up in people’s
understanding of it. Therefore human (social) knowledge and organisational destiny are intricately
interwoven (Krattenmaker, 2001), and a constructionist would argue that the organisational change process
begins with the questions that are asked (Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008). In order to be effective,
leaders must be good at understanding, reading and analysing organisations as living, human constructions
and it is this understanding which stands at the centre of any change (Fitzgerald, Murrell & Miller, 2003). As
such, any attempt to effect change should begin with an understanding of the individuals within the
organisation (Richer et al., 2010).