2007 Faculty Pioneers

David Cooperrider, from Case Western Reserve, has been named the winner in the External Impact category. This award is given for positive and visible impact on business or organizational management practices in social impact and/or environmental areas.

David L. Cooperrider is a Professor in the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Professor Cooperrider is past President of the National Academy of Management's OD Division and has lectured and taught at Stanford, University of Chicago, Katholieke University in Belgium, MIT, University of Michigan, Cambridge and others.

David has served as researcher and advisor to a wide variety of organizations including, for example, Yellow Roadway Corp., Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, McCann-Erickson, Nutrimental Foods, World Vision, Cleveland Clinic, American Red Cross, and United Way of America. Most of the projects are inspired by the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodology for which Professor Cooperrider is best known. His founding work in this area is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change; it is helping companies all over the world discover the power of the strength-based approaches to planning and multi-stakeholder cooperation. Admiral Clark, the CNO of the Navy, for example recently met with David to bring AI into the Navy for a multiyear project on "Bold and Enlightened Naval Leadership". And in June 2004 Cooperrider was asked by the United Nations Global Compact to design and facilitate a historic, unprecedented Summit meeting between Kofi Annan and 500 business leaders to "unite the strengths of markets with the authority of universal ideals to make globalization work for everyone". Cooperrider's work is especially important because of its ability to enable positive change in systems of very large and complex scale.