Positive Organizational Scholarship:
Foundations of a New Discipline
The Idea Of Positive Deviance Might Seem Odd At First, But Becomes Quite Powerful
As You Understand It
In helping establish a new field of study in the organizational sciences,
POS, this book examines a variety of positive dynamics in businesses and
organizations that give rise to extraordinary outcomes. Positive
Organizational Scholarship does not adopt one particular theory or
framework, but encompasses any phenomenon that leads to positive,
nurturing results. This collection of essays, written by established senior
scholars, explains why and how these commonsense prescriptions work.
Personal Review: Positive Organizational Scholarship:
Foundations of a New Discipline
Happiness is something different than the absence of misery and health is
something more than the absence of disease and debilitation. These
statements are so obvious as to seem trivial. However, they are still true.
If you have been fortunate to be part of an organization that was in one of
those wonderful upward spirals that also involved a phenomenal team that
was unified and happy, well, you know that working in such a positive
environment is wonderfully different than working in an organization going
through downward spiral with a demoralized team. What can be most
interesting is that when the phenomenal team that experienced the upward
cycle runs into a rough patch, they seem to stick together and avoid letting
the rough patch develop into a crushing storm.
This terrific book is not one of those soft and gooey books calling for
people to just get along or offering what amount to incantations in order to
get people to somehow coalesce into the team they aren't. Instead, it
posits the notion that when an organization is in a state of a certain kind of
success it is as much an exception as a business that is falling towards
extinction. It asks that if there are death spirals there might also be
positive spirals. Yet the bulk of business study is on the mistakes and
failures of organizations and on avoiding mistakes. While it is important to

avoid making mistakes that can kill your organization, does it seem likely
that one can learn success only by avoiding failure? Of course not.
This book and the papers it contains are laying a foundation for scholarly
study of the positive deviance of successful organizations in order to
develop principles for organizations to implement to achieve success in all
aspects of its organizational being. It really isn't just about the money.
Although the organization has to have financial success to exist, it is also
about the people who make up the organization. One of the core
principles of this book is that an organization that is concerned about
virtuousness is going to be more successful and more resilient than one
that ignores these principles.
There are 23 fine papers in here and I am sure that some will resonate
with you more than others. However, I encourage you to read it. I believe
you can begin to view your organization and your participation in it
differently. You can begin to see what Professors Cameron, Quinn, Dutton
and others are pointing us towards. And after you get past the wrong
notion that they are talking about something too squishy to be real
business, you begin to relate the questions they are asking to the times in
your life when you were in that state of positive deviance. You will be able
to relate the principles of virtue to what went well and things will seem
more clear about why things go right.
While the book is really laying out possible areas of study for other
scholars of organizational behavior to pursue, it also is quite useful for
businesspeople and other organizational participants to read and think
through the ideas of positive deviance. And while the upward spirals did
have components of financial success, that alone will not last. It won't last
without the people and people cannot perform well over extended periods
of time without trust, gratitude, and more of the virtues that allow people to
bond and put forward exceptional performance. The goal of this area of
study is to develop theories and measures that will allow organizations to
understand how these kinds of principles are part of their core ability to
succeed.
The notes for the various chapters also provide sources for further reading
and study.
Recommended.
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