Mid Sweden University

Many Quality Management approaches, such as Lean, are deficit-based and focus on problems and how to overcome them and another way to approach this could be to focus on possibilities.  When focusing on problems instead of possibilities, organizations are prevented from using their full potential which leads to decreased organizational capacity. Appreciative Inquiry is, in contrast to a deficit-based approach, a positive approach to change. The problems should not be ignored but, by focusing on strengths, this approach could be more effective when it comes to promoting better workplace health. 

Earlier research has examined if Lean values affect co-workers’ perceived health and found a connection. Even though the relationships between co-workers’ perceived health and Lean leadership and also Lean values were not very strong, they are all positively correlated. What happens however if we introduce Appreciative Inquiry to see in what way it links to Lean values and co-worker perceived health?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore if and how Appreciative Inquiry correlates with Lean values and co-workers’ perceived health.

Methodology/approach – To investigate the relationship between Lean, Appreciative Inquiry and perceived co-worker health, a questionnaire was developed based on two previously tested questionnaires.  The new questionnaire was filled in by 841 co-workers at a Swedish municipality and was then analysed to explore in what way Appreciative Inquiry correlates with a number of Lean values as well as perceived co-worker health.

Findings – All variables were found to be significantly correlated with the variable ‘Appreciative Inquiry’. The variable ‘Continuous improvements’ relates most to ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ followed by ‘Eliminating Waste’ as those variables can be considered to have a large positive relationship. ‘Supportive Leadership’ and ‘System view’ have a medium positive relation to ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ and the variables ‘Health’ and ‘Customer focus’ have a small relation to Appreciative Inquiry in this context.  

Keywords Supportive leadership, Lean values, co-worker health, Appreciative Inquiry

Paper type Case study