Flourishing Organizations

In this paper, I seek to answer the following question: What makes organizations flourish? My ontological standpoint is that organizations are living, open systems created and developed by people who are unceasingly and dynamically evolving, learning and developing. Appreciative inquiry (hereafter AI), as a form of action research, changes the focus from problem solving to developing organizations based on their strengths. The life-giving forces of 29 organizations in Finland were ascertained during a four-year period of research. Groups of Master’s students collected and analysed qualitative data from 319 interviews, where they asked “unconditional positive questions”. This paper presents a synthesis of the findings of these students’ inquiries. The findings assert that discovering what provides joy and happiness for people in work serves as a strong basis for them to dream, design and maximize their own and their organization’s destiny in the future