Dialogic democracy meets command and control: Transformation through the Appreciative Inquiry Summit
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Authors
Powley, Edward H.
Fry, Ronald E.
Barrett, Frank J.
Bright, David S.
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2004
Date
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Abstract
This article describes how managers and executives can use Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
to promote democratic organizing to involve multiple stakeholders and generate strategic
policy. Planned, temporary spaces where democratic organizing can occur may benefit
and enhance the change capacity of command and control cultures without replacing or
discounting basic organizing structures. We describe democratic organizing in the context
of the Appreciative Inquiry Summit, a large-system change initiative that uses dialogic
democratic processes to inspire positive change. A case study of ongoing AI Summits
within the United States Navy offers an example democratic organizing in a command
and control environment. We suggest that within a temporarily organized space like the
AI Summit, normative consciousness, holistic coUegiality, and communal conviction are
key principles of democratic organizing. These design principles not only foster
organizational democracy, but they also promote effective and collaborative relationships
across organizational levels and functional boundaries well after the intervention has
ended.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Graduate School of Business & Public Policy (GSBPP)
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Format
Citation
Academy of Management Executive, 2004, Vol. 18, No. 3
Distribution Statement
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.