Designing organizations as if life matters: Principles of appreciative organizing

Abstract

Images and ideals of organization design have changed dramatically in the past decade in response to the need for a redirection in the purpose and strategy as well as leadership styles following the global economy, new brave networked world, emerging new forms of organizing, and social innovations. This chapter is an invitation to explore a new genre of organization design and organizing as if life matters. It is a call to embrace organizations designed to affirm, nurture, and sustain life. The chapter discusses two key questions: “What Gives Life to Human Organizing” and “What Are We Designing.” The first part aims to uncover what gives life to human organizing through an exploration of nine principles of appreciative organizing. The second part aims to expand what we mean when we talk about organization design through an examination of six fundamental structures that seem to be at play in organized action.

Citation

Whitney, D. (2007), "Designing organizations as if life matters: Principles of appreciative organizing", Avital, M., Boland, R.J. and Cooperrider, D.L. (Ed.) Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens (Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 329-363. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1475-9152(07)00216-5