Pre-work: Positive Organizational Scholarship Conference

Key Research Questions

Some initial questions that I have about the field of positive organizational scholarship are:

• What is the relationship between positive organizing and postmodern organizing?
• Is one a subset of the other or do they share the same cognitive space?
• How is positive organizing different from negative organizing?
• What measures of effectiveness are we using to assess positive organizing?
• Where is the greatest point of leverage for positive organizational scholarship?
• What contribution does studying positive organizing make to scholarship on organizational innovation and cooperation?

Current Positive Organizational Scholarship Research

I am currently involved in two research projects that are in the domain of positive organizational scholarship. One concerns a study of organizational forgiveness and the other a case study of transformative cooperation.

Forgiveness Project Overview

Purpose

This study is interested in examining the dynamics in organizations that lead to the development of human strength, foster resiliency in employees, and produce extraordinary performance. The focus is on strength-building elements in organizations such as compassion, forgiveness, dignity, respectful encounters, positive affect, integrity, and virtue. The context for the study of these factors is organizations that have experienced downsizing.

Funding & Partnership

This project is funded by the Templeton Foundation based on a research proposal to examine forgiveness in downsized organizations submitted by Professor Kim Cameron from the University of Michigan. Doctoral students from Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Organizational Behavior are the co-investigators and include Loren Dyck, David Bright, and Ryan Falcone.

Literature Fit

The research emphasis parallels a new movement in psychology that is shifting from the traditional focus on illness and pathology-e.g. deviancy, abnormality, and therapy-towards "positive psychology," which focuses on human strengths and virtues. Identifying what factors lead to joy and happiness, hope and faith, and "what makes life worth living" represents a shift from reparative psychology to a psychology of positive experience. Similarly, this project investigates the positive side of organizational performance, including how individuals and organizations become exceptional or virtuous.

Current Status

We have collected interview data from firms that appeared to be virtuous based on either having personal knowledge of their operations or through an external indicator such as Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work for.” From this data and the forgiveness literature we developed an electronic survey which has been sent to numerous firms. We are now in the process of analyzing the data and writing our findings.

Transformative Cooperation Case Study

Honokahua is the location of an ancient Hawaiian burial site comprising over 12 acres and situated in the resort of Kapalua on the island of Maui in Hawai`i. In the late 1980s, the Honokahua Burial Site became the subject of intense controversy between supporters wishing to protect native Hawaiian bones buried at the site and various business people wanting to develop a five-diamond Ritz-Carlton resort complex. The controversy gained international attention and served as a lightning rod to galvanize the local native Hawaiian community against the developers. Extreme passion and awakenings of ancestral ties erupted within native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiian sympathetic supporters.

This case study presents a chronological interweaving of stories ranging from native Hawaiian kama` aina (local residents of Hawai`i) to landowners and skeletonizes a broader historical context covering over 1,000 years. It tries to include all voices that the researcher was able to uncover. It is a story of cooperation that recognizes a better way of being with each other on the isolated and idyllic land. The reverberations carry far and wide and go beyond the one tropical landmass. My hope in writing this story is to honor all perspectives and to create a greater sense of awareness and understanding about transformative cooperation through Honokahua.

Brief profiles of the people involved in the case illuminate the human element and permit my reflexivity. The methodology for this study is described and tracks the path of research design and data collection. The qualitative analysis procedure that I used is also explained. Differing ways of discovering Honokahua by the people involved in this inquiry are discussed along with their intended design for the physical area. A careful unfolding of the delicate issues is provided for readers concerning the confluence of voices, cultures, spiritualities, languages, and reverberations.

Participants share many high points that are very personal and in some situations inextricably intertwined with culture, spirituality, and economics. These fragments of the total experience build a foundation to understand the evolutionary moments of transformative cooperation that occurred over the 15 years since the confrontation started. The story may be the precipice for further inquiry into elements of human connectivity that transcend traditional boundaries.