Photo of David Cooperrider

Distinguished University Professor awarded Organization Development Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award

David CooperriderDavid L. Cooperrider, the Fairmount Santrol-David L. Cooperrider Professor in Appreciative Inquiry at the Weatherhead School of Management and a Distinguished University Professor, will receive the Organization Development Network’s (OD Network) highest honor—The Lifetime Achievement Award—at its international conference Oct. 16 in Chicago.

In past years, the award has gone to such scholars as Harvard University’s Chris Agyris and Edgar Schien of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cooperrider, who is also the faculty founder of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, is known for his original theoretical articulation of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in 1981 during his PhD research with his mentor Suresh Srivastva, professor emeritus of organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve, who passed away in 2010.

Today, AI is practiced in diverse settings all over the world: in for-profit and nonprofit organizations, as well as in economics, education, faith communities and philanthropy organizations.

Cooperrider has published 25 books and authored over 100 articles on organizational development and has advised national and international leaders in politics, business and nonprofits, working with such outfits as Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Green Mountain, Verizon, the U.S. Navy and the United Nations.