PARADOX AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF HERMENEUTIC APPRECIATION

Tojo Thatchenkery

doi:10.1016/S1475-9152(04)01004-X

Login

Welcome:
Guest

Search for:

Browse:

Product Information:

Resources:

Advances in Appreciative Inquiry

ISSN: 1475-9152
Series editor(s): Professor David Cooperrider, Professor Michel Avital

Subject Area: Organization Studies

Content: Series Volumes | Current Volume RSS

Options: To add Favourites and Table of Contents Alerts please take a Emerald profile

Document request:
PARADOX AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF HERMENEUTIC APPRECIATION

Document Information:
Title:	PARADOX AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF HERMENEUTIC APPRECIATION
Author(s):	Tojo Thatchenkery
Volume:	1 Editor(s): David L. Cooperrider and Michel Avital ISBN: 978-0-76230-892-7 eISBN: 978-1-84950-159-0
Citation:	Tojo Thatchenkery (2004), PARADOX AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF HERMENEUTIC APPRECIATION, in David L. Cooperrider and Michel Avital (ed.) Constructive Discourse and Human Organization (Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Volume 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.77-101
DOI:	10.1016/S1475-9152(04)01004-X (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	Though paradoxes constitute a basic ontological condition of organizational processes, the modernist approach has always been to find ways to resolve them. In this chapter, an alternative approach called hermeneutic appreciation is proposed. By accepting and affirming paradoxes through the process of hermeneutic appreciation, the generative potential inherent in them can be recognized and unfolded. This chapter presents a case study of an organization that demonstrated such a sophisticated understanding of hermeneutic appreciation. By not dismissing the paradoxes but by affirming and reframing them, members of this organization were able to reverse a visible organizational decline and instead infuse it with new energy and vitality leading to an eventual organizational renewal. Lessons learned from this appreciative inquiry project suggest that a hermeneutic appreciation of paradoxes may act as a change intervention and is likely to enable innovation and organizational transformation.