Axe of kindness: introducing appreciative exnovation

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of exnovation that integrates the spirit of appreciative inquiry (AI) yet addresses some of AI’s assumptions.

Draws on the ample AI literature, sparse exnovation literature, and uses conceptual reasoning to develop a new process called appreciative exnovation.

This paper proposes a 4-phase model of appreciative exnovation. Specifically, this paper suggests that appreciative exnovation can produce valuable future knowledge while accomplishing the necessary task of removal of innovations incongruent with current organizational needs.

This paper is the first to link AI and exnovation concepts. It has also critically questioned key assumptions of AI. It is also the first to suggest that exnovation may be initiated on a bottom-up basis.