ยป Better than Okay
Positive Organizational Scholarship is the (unfortunately-named) use of the positive psychology frame in organizational psychology and management studies. The gist of these positive scholarships is that modernist disciplines concentrate on the difference between bad and normal and ignore the difference between normal and good.
I’ve managed to align my homework with my personal interests by writing a paper on organizational virtousness. The foundational paper of the concept contains an awesome table (that I’ve modified a bit): traditional scholarship studies the left and middle columns, positive scholarship studies the right column.
| Negative deviance | Normalcy | Positive deviance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual: | |||
| Physiological | ill | healthy | fit |
| Psychological | insane | sane | happy |
| Organizational: | |||
| Effectiveness | ineffective | effective | excellent |
| Efficiency | inefficient | efficient | extraordinary |
| Quality | error-prone | reliable | flawless |
| Revenues | losses | profits | charitable |
| Ethics | unethical | ethical | benevolent |
| Environmentalism | destructive | sustainable | * |
| Social responsibility | exploitative | fair | fostering |
| Morals | evil | moral | good |
* Is there a word for better-than-sustainable? When I asked Sara she said we don’t need a word for something imaginary. 
There are lots of words for lots of things that don’t exist. If I was sufficiently motivated, I’d think of a quip about “God”.
Don
24 Sep 09 at 3:29 pm
Agreed, Sara’s answer is bullshit — Unless she believes that English was delivered from On High with words for everything already rolled-in; you gotta respect people whose faith is stronger than their observable reality.
Oh wait, no you don’t. I’d use “regenerative”.
Jack
24 Sep 09 at 4:08 pm
So many things, ideas, concepts (arguably most)and the words we call them begin in the imagination. As humans I think we have an inherent desire to name these “imaginary” things so that we can share them and their meaning and discuss them thoughtfully. Maybe we don’t NEED these words, but an awful lot of people have come up with an awful lot of them to just dismiss it. My suggestion Harmonious.
Michelle
24 Sep 09 at 9:39 pm