The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the development of the Appreciative Inquiry Method (AIM) from its origins as a method for knowledge elicitation to its use as a method of organisational inquiry. In the paper, I describe the contributions that research and practice have made as it evolved into a soft method of inquiry. Although it is clear that Vickers notions of appreciative systems and soft systems methodology are major influences, there are some important practical differences which, in certain circumstances, might be better suited to a situation where access is limited in some way.

中文翻译：

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欣赏式探究法：从知识启发到组织探究

本文的目的是介绍欣赏式探究方法 (AIM) 从其起源作为一种知识获取方法到将其用作组织探究方法的发展历程。在这篇论文中，我描述了研究和实践在演变为一种软探究方法时所做出的贡献。尽管很明显，Vickers 的欣赏系统和软系统方法论的概念是主要影响，但存在一些重要的实际差异，在某些情况下，这些差异可能更适合以某种方式限制访问的情况。