Positive Organizational Scholarship

Like many of the social sciences, the field of organizational studies has long had a negative tilt (Cameron/Caza 2004). Topics like absenteeism, alienation, attrition, employee theft, workplace violence and discrimination are investigated frequently by organizational researchers. Indeed, people in general have little trust in big business (Harris Poll 2005), and the erosion of ethical standards in the workplace is the subject of growing societal concern and comment (Gardner et al. 2001). This focus on what goes wrong in an organizational context makes sense because problems demand attention and require remediation (Baumeister et al. 2001). But an exclusive focus on the negative yields an incomplete view of the human condition, and it leads to a focus on mere prevention of problems rather than on the building and nurturing of individuals and organizations that thrive.