Evaluation of Appreciative Inquiry Interventions

139 Pages·2010·0.84 MB·English

by  Martin Stellnberger

Evaluation of Appreciative Inquiry Interventions

By
Martin Stellnberger

A thesis
submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree of
Master of Management Studies

Victoria University of Wellington
2010
Acknowledgements
Completing a thesis needs more than just one person. It is the contribution of many
people that makes such a work possible. Thus, I would like to acknowledge all those
who provided their time and effort throughout this process. I am deeply appreciative
for the guiding and motivating words from my supervisor, Urs Daellenbach. Your
supervision and advice was of great value in making this thesis sound.
Thanks also to the AI consultants, practitioners and contact persons within
organizations for their professional support in arranging the interviews. Especially, I
would like to thank all the interviewees for providing their time and valuable
feedback on using Appreciative Inquiry.
To my parents Anna and Hermann Stellnberger, thank you for giving me the feeling
of being still connected to home while living abroad.
A final thank goes to my university colleagues and friends for the welcome
distractions from working on this thesis. If it was for a short coffee break or
„extended‟ lunch, it was always nice to talk about the important things in life. Markus,
Kathi and Andrew, thank you.

I I
Abstract
As a relatively new tool for organization development, action research, training and
team building, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has gained popularity worldwide
(Messerschmidt, 2008). Whilst much research has addressed the approach and its
philosophy, AI still remains an approach with little self-reflection or critique (Grant &
Humphries, 2006). It has been suggested that evaluation of past AI interventions is
needed to inform managerial action in conducting future interventions and contribute
to the literature on AI (Dunlap, 2008).
In this thesis, three large-scale AI interventions (between 130 and 320 participants in
the summit) were evaluated. Three organizations operating in New Zealand and
Australia agreed to participate in this research. Across these three organizations, data
were collected through 23 semi-structured interviews of employees who were
involved in the AI summit. Evaluation of these interventions was carried out by
comparing the findings of the interviews with the intended goals and outcomes for
each organization in initially performing an AI summit. In addition, the findings were
contrasted with the existing literature on AI and recommendations for future
implementations are made.
This research shows that the interviewees across the three organizations consistently
reflected very positively on the AI summit. They commonly used words like „fun‟,
„great‟, „amazing‟, „exciting‟, „energizing‟, „motivating‟ and „making you feel
special‟ to describe the event. Particularly, the involvement of a diverse group of
people (co-workers from different management levels, customers, suppliers, external
partners, etc.) in the summit was highly appreciated by the interviewees.
While the literature puts a great emphasis on the AI summit and the planning of the
event, the findings indicate that the things that happen post the summit are at least as
important as the actual summit itself. Two out of three organizations appear to have
underestimated the importance of what should happen after the event and ultimately
failed in integrating AI into their organizational processes or capturing significant
benefits following the AI summit. In contrast, the third organization put a strong
emphasis on planning actions that followed the summit and consequently managed to
make AI part of their way of operating.
II I
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................II
Abstract ........................................................................................................................ III
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ IV
List of Figures ............................................................................................................. VII
List of Tables .............................................................................................................. VII
Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Research objectives ............................................................................................. 1
1.2 Thesis organization .............................................................................................. 3
Chapter 2: Literature review .......................................................................................... 4
2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 4
2.2 Short history of AI ............................................................................................... 4
2.3 AI – What it is, how it works and its philosophy ................................................ 5
2.3.1 AI – A brief introduction .............................................................................. 5
2.3.2 The soil of AI................................................................................................ 8
2.3.3 The DNA of AI ........................................................................................... 10
2.3.4 The practice and application of AI ............................................................. 12
2.4 Limitations and criticism of AI ......................................................................... 16
2.5 Evaluation of Appreciative Inquiry interventions ............................................. 17
2.5.1 Objectives of evaluation ............................................................................. 18
2.5.2 A „traditional‟ approach to evaluation ........................................................ 18
2.5.3 Existing approaches in evaluating AI ......................................................... 19
2.6 The research gap ................................................................................................ 23
Chapter 3: Methodology .............................................................................................. 25
3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 25
3.2 Research questions ............................................................................................ 25
3.3 Method for data collection ................................................................................. 26
3.4 Sampling ............................................................................................................ 27
3.5 Data Collection .................................................................................................. 30
3.6 Data Analysis ..................................................................................................... 31
3.7 Ethical considerations and aspects of confidentiality ........................................ 33
3.8 Validity .............................................................................................................. 34
3.9 Limitations ......................................................................................................... 35
IV
Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis ................................................................................ 36
4.1 Organization 1 ................................................................................................... 36
4.1.1 Findings ...................................................................................................... 37
4.1.2 Analysis ...................................................................................................... 49
4.1.3 Discussion and summary ............................................................................ 53
4.2 Organization 2 ................................................................................................... 56
4.2.1 Findings ...................................................................................................... 57
4.2.2 Analysis ...................................................................................................... 70
4.2.3 Discussion and summary ............................................................................ 75
4.3 Organization 3 ................................................................................................... 79
4.3.1 Findings ...................................................................................................... 80
4.3.2 Analysis ...................................................................................................... 90
4.3.3 Discussion and summary ............................................................................ 93
Chapter 5: Discussion .................................................................................................. 98
5.1 The purpose of AI – AI for what? ..................................................................... 98
5.2 The build up to the summit .............................................................................. 100
5.2.1 Timing of the summit ............................................................................... 100
5.2.2 Preparation for the actual event ................................................................ 102
5.2.3 Customization ........................................................................................... 102
5.3 The summit ...................................................................................................... 103
5.3.1 Appreciation of diversity among participants .......................................... 103
5.3.2 Summit results in excitement, hopes and wishes for the future ............... 104
5.4 Post summit ..................................................................................................... 105
5.4.1 Back to work! ........................................................................................... 105
5.4.2 The case of misperceived expectations .................................................... 106
5.4.3 Provocative propositions and the follow up projects ............................... 107
5.5 Sustainability ................................................................................................... 109
5.5.1 Involvement of the whole organization/community ................................. 110
5.5.2 Focus on achieving long-term results vs. focus on projects ..................... 110
5.5.3 An argument for follow-up AI engagement meetings .............................. 111
5.6 Consistency across different stakeholders of the organization ........................ 112
5.7 The „essence‟ of AI.......................................................................................... 112
5.8 Summary .......................................................................................................... 114
Chapter 6: Conclusion ............................................................................................... 115
V
6.1 Results of this study ......................................................................................... 115
6.1.1 Ensure diversity of participants at the summit ......................................... 115
6.1.2 The summit is just the beginning.............................................................. 116
6.1.3 Feed AI into organizational processes rather than projects ...................... 117
6.2 Managerial implications .................................................................................. 118
6.3 Reflection and implications for further research ............................................. 122
6.4 Concluding words ............................................................................................ 124
Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 125
Appendices ................................................................................................................ 130
Appendix A: Information Sheet ........................................................................... 130
Appendix B: Research Agreement ....................................................................... 131
Appendix C: Interview Schedule .......................................................................... 132
V I
List of Figures
Figure 1: Problem solving and AI compared ................................................................ 7
Figure 2: The structure of AI ......................................................................................... 8
Figure 3: The 4-D Cycle .............................................................................................. 13
Figure 4: Structure of interviews ................................................................................. 32
List of Tables
Table 1: Results of Study ............................................................................................ 20
Table 2: Details on the organizations involved in this research .................................. 30
Table 3: Details of Interviewees - Organization 1 ....................................................... 36
Table 4: Details of Interviewees - Organization 2 ....................................................... 56
Table 5: Details of Interviewees - Organization 3 ....................................................... 79
Table 6: Goals and Outcomes from the AI interventions ............................................ 99

V II
Chapter 1: Introduction
My interest in conducting this research has its origin in my previous studies. As part
of my two-year masters program, I had to conduct a research project in the first year
as preparation for the second year master thesis. In searching for interesting topics, a
PhD student introduced me to the topic of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and provided
some reading material on it. This led to me gaining a growing interest in AI, which
resulted in choosing this topic for my first year research project. In this project I
interviewed five AI consultants and practitioners about their views, perceptions and
practical experience in using AI. While these interviewees described the benefits of
using AI, its strengths, its usefulness, etc. they also recognized its shortcomings.
Several interviewees pointed out that the AI methodology, as presented in the
literature, does not present substantial evidence concerning its own performance. One
consultant argued, “demonstrating and making AI‟s value tangible is actually critical
in terms of getting more traction and more buy-in for utilizing the principles and
concepts of AI.”
Informed by the first year research project, and being aware of one of AI‟s perceived
„shortcomings‟ from a New Zealand practitioner‟s perspective, a review of the
literature confirmed the need for more research evaluating AI interventions. Grant &
Humphries state, “despite increased applications and scholarship, appreciative inquiry
remains an action research process with little self-reflection or critique” (2006, p.
402). Considering the claim made by AI practitioners and the existence of only few
published AI evaluation studies (Bushe & Kassam, 2005; Grant & Humphries, 2006;
Messerschmidt, 2008; Neumann, 2009; van der Haar & Hosking, 2004), this research
is motivated to address this gap and contribute to the literature on AI evaluation
studies.
1.1 Research objectives
This thesis aims to contribute to the academic literature on AI as well as providing
practical implications of evaluating AI interventions. This will be done by achieving
the following three research objectives.
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The first objective addresses the claim made by the consultants and practitioners
outlined above. Thus, this research aims to make the value of using AI in
organizational settings visible, in order to get more traction and buy-in. One
consultant made the argument that “until you can actually show what AI is capable of
and what it can do for an organization, decision makers will hesitate in spending
money on this.” At this point it needs to be noted that, the objective is not to „find‟
arguments on how to sell AI to organizations, this research aims to collect and
analyze evidence on the performance and sustainability of AI, on which basis
decision-makers can decide whether AI represents a suitable approach for use in their
organization.
The academic literature on AI appears to be fairly quiet in reflecting on AI‟s
weaknesses and deficiencies (Messerschmidt, 2008) as well as tending to point out
„just‟ the things that work (Bushe, 2007). This is likely due to AI‟s exclusive focus on
positives. Thus, the second objective of this research aims to address this gap by
identifying the shortcomings, difficulties etc. in applying AI in organizational
settings. Building on this critique for „self-reflection‟ and feedback, the research
intends to put forward recommendations on how to enhance future AI interventions.
The third objective of this research is to develop and apply an approach on how AI
interventions can be evaluated. Due to the philosophical assumptions AI is based
upon, discussion on how evaluation needs to take these assumptions into
consideration exists (van der Haar & Hosking, 2004). This research incorporates this
literature and puts forward a possible approach on how the usefulness of AI
interventions can be „measured‟. Further on, this approach will be used to evaluate
three AI interventions.
In this research, evaluation is performed to show what AI is capable of, to illustrate
how useful it can be, and to gain insights into how AI initiatives could be improved.
Considering the significant investments that are needed for applying AI in
organizational settings, evaluation appears to be of critical importance in providing
feedback and further establishing its legitimacy.
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1.2 Thesis organization
In order to achieve the outlined research objectives, this thesis is organized into the
following six chapters.
The next chapter provides a review of the literature on AI. Further, relevant AI
evaluation studies and the difficulties that arise in conducting evaluation are
presented. The literature review concludes in outlining the gap this study intends to
fill.
Chapter three contains the methodology describing the approach that is used in
evaluating AI interventions. In this research, large-scale AI interventions from three
separate organizations are evaluated. For this research a large-scale AI intervention is
considered as involving a company wide summit with more than 100 participants.
Data were collected through 23 semi-structured interviews across the three
organizations (all interviewees participated in their organization‟s summit).
Evaluation is carried out through comparing the interviewee‟s views, perceptions and
opinions of AI, with the organization‟s goals and objectives in performing the
intervention.
Chapter four presents the information on which basis the three AI interventions can be
evaluated. For each intervention, evaluation is structured into three sections. The first
section provides some background information on the organizations and the findings
of the interviews. Section two analyses and condenses the findings further, while
section three compares these findings with the organization‟s goals and objectives of
doing an AI intervention.
Chapter five identifies and highlights several aspects of AI interventions occurring
within and across the three cases. Furthermore, this chapter provides a comprehensive
discussion of AI‟s strengths as well as weaknesses that could be identified across the
cases. On this basis recommendations and suggestions for future AI interventions are
made.
The last chapter summarizes the key findings of this research, puts forwards
recommendations and suggestions for future interventions and provides implications
for future evaluation studies.
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