Positive organizational scholarship: implications for practice environments.

Exciting developments in psychological and organizational studies have occurred during the past 15 years. A new focus, called positive scholarship, places emphasis on positive, rather than negative, factors in the research conducted in each discipline. This movement offers tremendous potential for nursing scholarship and practice as it relates to ways to improve the practice environment for nurses and other health care providers. In turn, such potential can improve the quality of care that is delivered. In psychology, the focus on positive emotions and interactions has evolved with research addressing issues related to positive experiences and motivations and how they influence behavior. In this vein, psychologists focusing on positive emotions study concepts such as optimism, joy, contentment, and gratitude rather than negative emotions such as sadness, anger, or anxiety. Several years of research in psychology provide evidence that when people feel well, they think more creatively and are open to more information, which will result in better decisions. These include experiments on clinical decision-making, where physicians who felt professional joy and contentment were faster to integrate relevant clinical information and less likely to come to premature closure when making a diagnosis (Fredrickson, 2003). In the organizational sciences the same types of developments have occurred with a focus on variables that are most important in an organizational context. Positive organizational scholarship focuses on the dynamics that lead to developing strength in organizational members, producing resilience and restoration in stressful environments, and cultivating extraordinary individuals and performance in organization. The goal is to understand human behavior in ways that will enable excellence, unlock potential in all employees, and facilitate a more positive course of human and organizational welfare (Cameron, Dutton, Quinn, & Spreitzer, 2005). Positive organizational scholarship is not a new invention; rather, it is an alteration in focus. Those who are engaged in positive organizational scholarship recognize that positive phenomena have been studied for decades but this has not been the norm. For example, the traditional focus on organizational commitment has centered on intent to leave the organization, rather than on loyalty and intent to stay. The traditional focus on job satisfaction has frequently been on "dissatisfiers" and negative elements in the work environment rather than on the intrinsic positive meaning that work has for individuals and how it can lead to increased creativity and productivity in a work environment where employees are nurtured and valued (Cameron & Caza, 2004). One example of a work environment that has been transformed around positive scholarship concepts is described in Joy at Work (Bakke, 2005). The organizational environment is described as a values-driven enterprise where shared values among all employees are integrity, fairness, social responsibility, and fun. The CEO assumes that all employees are creative, thoughtful, and capable, and the work environment is structured in a way that enables all employees to flourish. …