Welcome!
Welcome to a community dedicated to energizing and transforming organizations. Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is the study of what is positive in organizations and the people who comprise them; hundreds of academics worldwide conduct research in this area. But POS is also a perspective - it is a commitment to reveal and nurture the highest human potential. Those with a POS perspective strive to answer questions like these: What makes workers feel like they are thriving? How can I bring my company through difficult times stronger than before? What creates the positive energy a team needs to succeed?
At the Center for POS, we conduct research, write on POS topics for academic and general books and periodicals, write teaching cases, and create tools to help individuals improve their work life. We share POS principles in BBA, MBA, and Executive Education programs at the Ross School, and in presentations at various academic institutions. Positive Links, our monthly speaker series, brings together scholars and practitioners to learn and discuss new POS research and POS links to practice. We are also passionate about building the community of researchers who study positive organizational scholarship (POS), and our biennial conference attracts scholars from around the world. We are all on a quest to reveal what is possible in organizations and for workers.
Suggestions on Where to Start
Read about Restoring Hope in Trying Times →
This piece by Professor Gretchen Spreitzer is one of our Leading in Trying Times Essays, which were originally written in the wake of September 11th.
Watch a video of a talk by Bob Quinn – An Invitation to Excellence: Positive Organizing and the Generative Practices of Extraordinary People →
In this talk, Professor Quinn talks about generative practices – positive behaviors that reverse the process of decay – in a community of public school teachers, and describes how they can be applied generally. Professor Quinn gave this presentation as part of our Positive Links Speaker Series. Visit the page for a link to the Past Positive Links Sessions page, where videos of many of the sessions can be found.
Read the latest issue of our newsletter, The POSitive Perspective →
We designed our newsletter to provide readers with “tastes” of POS research with impact that expands the imagination and suggests possibilities of how POS-related research can make a difference in the world.
Learn about an exciting summer program for undergraduates designed by Center for POS faculty in 2010 →
Articles include a first-person account by two participants; a feature in the Dividend, the Alumni Magazine of the Ross School of Business; and an article from our Fall 2010 newsletter.
Learn about our Job Crafting Exercise, which was developed after 10 years of research on job crafting by academics including Professor Jane Dutton →
Be sure to click on the Related Research and Media Coverage button for links to online articles about the Job Crafting Exercise.
Books with a POS Perspective
Leading Under Pressure: From Surviving to Thriving Before, During, and After a Crisis
by Erika H. James and Lynn Perry Wooten. (2010)
At a macro level, there is the pressure of worldwide competition and the need to operate across the globe. At the micro level, there is pressure of individuals or departments to produce more with increasingly fewer resources. Pressure is at once the precipitator and the consequence of crisis. Leaders who can flourish under pressure will be the ones to guide us through these and future turbulent times.
Lift: Becoming a Positive Force in Any Situation
By Ryan W. Quinn and Robert E. Quinn. (2009)
Ryan and Robert Quinn combine research and experience to demonstrate how we can elevate ourselves and the situations and people around us to greater heights of integrity, openness, and achievement-the psychological equivalent of aerodynamic lift.
Positive Leadership
By Kim Cameron. (2008)
Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and "positively deviant performance" - performance far above the norm.
