Making Sport Matter: An Appreciative Inquiry Journey in a South African University Sport Office

This article explores Appreciative Inquiry as a strengths-based change management approach within a South African university sport office, addressing a gap in sport organisational research. Using action research with fourteen staff members, an Appreciative Inquiry summit incorporated observations, interviews, and participatory activities. Findings revealed meaningful collaboration and co-created solutions, affirming Appreciative Inquiry’s capacity to generate transformative, people-centred change in sport institutions.

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When “what’s wrong” becomes “what’s possible”

As I said, it was what we needed as a department after a very stormy past few months … a very trying period.

Heads around the room nodded when the speaker (let’s call him John) spoke up at our initial briefing session. The atmosphere in that conference room at Nelson Mandela University’s Madibaz Sport office was intense. Staff members described “seven bad years”, a feeling of working “in isolation”, and a general sense that their department had become irrelevant to the students and university they served. Strategic objectives had not been updated during the last nineteen years. Morale was low. Stress was high.

Three months before that initial briefing session, I sat with the director of Madibaz Sport, presenting my dissertation proposal: could Appreciative Inquiry (AI) transform Madibaz Sport? She was receptive. Madibaz Sport, she said, needed change. She had no idea just how much. Together, we planned the next steps: I would brief her leadership team and interested staff members about Appreciative Inquiry and invite them to participate in a two-day summit. We decided to use only two days for the summit to minimise time away from work schedules for the participating staff, and to use the word “summit” because of the peak experience connotation of the word.

Something remarkable happened after the AI summit commenced: the same people who opened our gathering with stories of struggle ended the summit drawing pictures of their dreams, laughing together, and collaboratively designing five concrete initiatives to transform their workplace. One participant captured the shift: “We had the opportunity to pave how we want our department to look like.”

This is the story of how Madibaz Sport chose to ask a different question, not “what’s wrong with us?” but “how do we become relevant?” and what happened when they did.

The goal of this master’s degree dissertation was to explore and describe an Appreciative Inquiry change management intervention aimed at improving the individual and organisational effectiveness of a South African university sport office. The objectives were:

• To design a change management intervention based on AI principles.
• To implement a change management intervention based on AI principles at a university sport office.
• To explore and describe the impact of the change management intervention on: The thinking, emotions, attitudes, and behaviour of individual team members; and
• The new vision (dream) and strategy of the sport office.

Why this matters: Beyond one sport office

The headlines kept coming: sport organisations in the Eastern Cape, across South Africa, caught in governance crises, leadership battles, resource struggles. Newspaper articles like “Cricket South Africa faces potential ICC suspension after government interference” (CricketTimes.comStaff, 2021), “New Athletics South Africa boss promises to transform athletics” (Baloyi, 2021) were not isolated incidents, they were symptoms of systems under pressure. I’d spent sixteen years in sport development watching this turbulence. Could Appreciative Inquiry offer a different approach? My training in human movement science, business, coaching (ICF), and AI converged in this question.

The practical challenge was immediate: how do you implement Appreciative Inquiry with sport organisations whose stakeholders are scattered across provinces? Provincial sport federations mean club representatives are hours apart with regional structures in different cities. Bringing everyone together for a summit seemed logistically and financially impossible.

The answer was sitting on my doorstep: university sport offices. They mirror the complexity of sport federations, with eighteen different codes, club structures, affiliation to national and international bodies, but with everyone centralised in one location. No travel coordination. No accommodation budgets. Just the organisation and the work.

In 2023, I approached Nelson Mandela University’s Madibaz Sport. Three months later, the director approved the research project.

The research happened in the doing

This qualitative study used an action research design. That meant I was not an outside consultant swooping in with solutions; I took an internal position, actively facilitating the 5D AI process alongside Madibaz Sport staff. The research happened in the doing; I was studying change while helping create it.

To my knowledge, at the time, this was the first study implementing Appreciative Inquiry as a change intervention in sport organisations globally. I searched extensively (EBSCOhost, Emerald Insight, Sabinet Online, Sage Journals, Google Scholar) and found only one remotely similar article (Gordon, 2011) on appreciative facilitation with an Australian cricket association. This research gap matters because there is evidence that sport organisations are in turmoil.

The challenge Madibaz Sport faced

During this study, Madibaz Sport coordinated sport programmes for approximately 28,000 students across 18 different sport codes at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), South Africa. On paper, it is an impressive operation: athletics, rugby, cricket, netball, and more, all affiliated with national sport federations.

But when the core Madibaz Sport leadership team of four (the director and three deputy directors) sat down for the Definition stage of the AI process, they painted a troubling picture. Students were not responding to programmes. An “us versus them” relationship existed between the university’s management and the sport office. Financial burdens on students created barriers to participation. Most painfully, there was a perception that the university only cared about winning, a perception reinforced the day before the AI summit when the Madibaz rugby team lost 10–91 to a rival university during a national university rugby competition.

The Madibaz Sport leadership team identified their central challenge as:

Madibaz Sport is not being perceived and seen as being relevant to the students and the rest of the university.

Using the problem-tree tool, they mapped out the consequences:

• Low staff morale;
• Graduates leaving without positive sport memories;
• Staff feeling inferior to counterparts at other universities;
• A general sense of irrelevance.

Sound familiar? These are the classic symptoms of sport organisations under pressure, challenges that likely resonate whether you work in community sport, national federations, or university sport.

The reasons for choosing Appreciative Inquiry

When the briefing session began with fourteen staff members, participants immediately launched into negative experiences. I observed (as the researcher-facilitator) that the mood was “sombre and gloomy”. No one mentioned a single positive experience.

This deficit-focused default made sense: traditional organisational development tells us to identify problems, analyse causes, and devise solutions. Such deficit-based approaches create cultures of blame, defensive behaviours, and eroded trust (Finegold et al., 2002, p. 236). The implicit assumption held that Madibaz Sport was a problem to be solved.

But I had been studying AI, a different approach that asks: what if organisations are mysteries to be embraced? What if we could transform by discovering and amplifying what works, rather than fixating on what doesn’t? The contrast struck me as particularly important for Madibaz Sport. These were people already drowning in problem talk. More analysis of what was broken seemed likely to deepen the despair, not lift them out of it.

What Madibaz Sport accomplished

In two intensive days, Madibaz Sport staff transformed from a demoralised group focused on problems to collaborative architects of their future. They:

• Low staff morale;
• Graduates leaving without positive sport memories;
• Staff feeling inferior to counterparts at other universities;
• A general sense of irrelevance.

Sound familiar? These are the classic symptoms of sport organisations under pressure, challenges that likely resonate whether you work in community sport, national federations, or university sport.

The reasons for choosing Appreciative Inquiry

When the briefing session began with fourteen staff members, participants immediately launched into negative experiences. I observed (as the researcher-facilitator) that the mood was “sombre and gloomy”. No one mentioned a single positive experience.

This deficit-focused default made sense: traditional organisational development tells us to identify problems, analyse causes, and devise solutions. Such deficit-based approaches create cultures of blame, defensive behaviours, and eroded trust (Finegold et al., 2002, p. 236). The implicit assumption held that Madibaz Sport was a problem to be solved.

But I had been studying AI, a different approach that asks: what if organisations are mysteries to be embraced? What if we could transform by discovering and amplifying what works, rather than fixating on what doesn’t? The contrast struck me as particularly important for Madibaz Sport. These were people already drowning in problem talk. More analysis of what was broken seemed likely to deepen the despair, not lift them out of it.

What Madibaz Sport accomplished

In two intensive days, Madibaz Sport staff transformed from a demoralised group focused on problems to collaborative architects of their future. They:

• Discovered their organisation’s positive core through appreciative storytelling, uncovering strengths they’d forgotten existed;
• Created visual dreams of their ideal future through artwork and provocative propositions;
• Collaboratively designed five concrete initiatives: professional development exchanges, student entrepreneurship through sport, new business opportunities, strategic campus infrastructure, and reviving the first-year athletics tradition;
• Shifted from working in isolation to experiencing genuine team collaboration.

The energy change was palpable, from the sombre and gloomy initial briefing to laughter and engagement. How did this happen? The 5D AI process took them there, step by step.

The journey: The 5D AI summit process

Definition, stage 1: From problem tree to possibility tree

During the pre-summit event, the four core team members of Madibaz Sport office worked through two worksheets: the problem tree and the possibility tree. The problem tree exercise felt familiar, identifying roots (causes) and fruits (consequences) of the relevance problem. But when we moved to the possibility tree, something shifted.

We took the same issue and flipped it:

How does Madibaz Sport become more relevant to students and the university?

Suddenly, the roots were not causes of failure, they were nutrients for success:

• Making Madibaz Sport’s existence visible through student achievement;
• Distributing regular, correct information;
• Playing a prominent role in staff and student wellness;
• Focusing on organisational renewal.

The fruits were not consequences of dysfunction; they were outcomes of thriving:

• Staff and students in a conducive sport environment;
• Well-supported activities;
• Well-informed stakeholders;
• A vibrant, visible Madibaz Sport office.

I observed something crucial during this process: the positivity of discussion of the possibility tree worksheet, especially when the problem was flipped into a generative question.

Instead of asking “why are we not relevant?” they asked:

How do we become a relevant university sport department consisting of passionate people who are supported and resourced by well-informed stakeholders, so that our objectives result in happy, transformed, and performing staff and students?

The shift from problem to possibility was not cosmetic; it was foundational. And it required a leap of faith from a team that had every reason to be sceptical. That leap of faith occurred without any facilitation. The team members’ engagement spoke for itself. They were excited knowing the summit would lead to discussions about success stories and times when Madibaz Sport made meaningful contributions.

Discovery, Stage 2: Finding what gives life

When all fourteen participants gathered for day one of the summit, they began with an appreciatively intelligent icebreaker. Participants shared in pairs: what was the best thing you so far experienced today? What are you thankful for? This simple exercise set a different tone, a practice of positive focus before diving into the summit.

Then came the heart of Discovery: appreciative interviews. Participants paired up with questionnaires designed to surface stories of Madibaz Sport at its best. The interviewer recorded their partner’s responses, then the participants reversed roles.

The questions were simple but powerful:

• Tell me about a special moment at work when you felt most alive.
• What do you value most about yourself, your work, and the Madibaz Sport office?
• What is the core factor that gives life to Madibaz Sport?

After the interviews, each interviewer introduced their partner to the whole group and shared that person’s story. As one participant reflected:

The interesting thing was having to interview my colleague, and hearing others affectionately saying positive things about other colleagues. That showed that people do notice the goodness in others and that gave me a warm feeling.

Something significant had happened; the stories revealed themes, the “positive core” of the organisation:

• Passionate people who impact students’ lives through service;
• Strong feelings of togetherness as a team;
• Deep value placed on people;
• Tangible examples of helping students overcome financial difficulties.

Many stories centred on how Madibaz Sport had helped struggling students participate in sport despite financial barriers. These were not abstract values; they were lived experiences that mattered deeply to staff. The energy in the room shifted. People were discovering Madibaz Sport anew.

Dream, Stage 3: Creating provocative propositions

It was still day one, session two. We moved into Dreaming. I posed questions to activate participants’ imagination:

• What would Madibaz Sport be like in an ideal world?
• Imagine five years from now, Madibaz Sport has been selected as the best-run South African university sport office. The country’s newspapers, radio, and television channels are covering this achievement. What does that look like?

After silent reflection and partner sharing, I distributed art materials: A0-sized paper, markers, highlighters, coloured pens, and crayons. The instruction was simple: Draw your image of how Madibaz Sport will look when it’s most relevant and excellent. The two groups engaged differently. Group 1 connected themselves into the activity, lots of discussion, collaboration, and laughter. Group 2 was more reserved, finishing faster with less engagement. Both produced compelling visions.

Group 1’s provocative proposition: ‘Vibrant Madibaz Sport’

Their artwork showed modernised facilities (an athletic accommodation village, indoor gymnasiums), artificial intelligence programmes, branded transport networks, office coffee stations, various images of happy staff and students, collaborative teamwork, and connection to the broader university community.

Group 2’s provocative proposition: ‘Unity is Strength’

The second group’s image emphasised coming together, shared purpose, and collective capability. Their artwork represented a Madibaz Sport complex building with various facilities such as an athletic track, soccer field, squash courts, aerobic and boxing facilities, office block, shops, fitness and rehabilitation centre, and a swimming pool.

When representatives presented their artwork to the whole group, the response to Group 1 was particularly animated, with laughter, positive remarks, and visible excitement. The whole group then identified four energising themes across both artworks:

1. Modernised, functional, and smart sport facilities;
2. Happy people;
3. New businesses combined with functional support systems;
4. Self-sustainability.

One participant captured the feeling: “Excited about the possibilities to rethink and re-imagine operations at Madibaz Sport to become more relevant.” The Dream stage demonstrated what is possible when you shift from analysing problems to envisioning possibilities. The drawings were not just art; they were shared images that catalysed collective imagination about what Madibaz Sport could become.

Design Stage 4: From vision to action

Day two began with the same high energy that ended day one. There was loud talking and laughter, especially after reviewing the previous day’s work as displayed on the walls. The Design stage asked: “How can we re-design Madibaz Sport to maximise the qualities of the positive core and thus enable the accelerated realisation of our dreams?” Each group generated five ideas, then tested them using the Disney Creative Strategy (examining each idea from dreamer, realist, and critic perspectives; Elmansy, 2015). The collaborative conversations were intense, with everyone engaged actively.

The scheduled two hours proved insufficient. The activity expanded to four hours. But this was not a problem; it was evidence of genuine engagement. As one participant observed: “Being part of the team and being given the opportunity to share specific designed ideas that might improve the effectiveness of the organisation could ultimately explain the level of collaboration.”

The whole group converged around the five best ideas for redesigning Madibaz Sport:

1. Ignite passion through professional development Expose every staff member to cutting-edge practices by facilitating visits to prestigious universities nationally and internationally.
2. Make a meaningful impact on students’ lives through sport Create opportunities centred around sports events and coaching, allowing students and staff to participate in ventures like managing flea markets and running food stalls, fostering both entrepreneurial skills and sport engagement.
3. Ensure long-term sustainability through new business opportunities Develop indoor franchises for multipurpose facilities to position Madibaz Sport as a hub for international events and conferences. Re-imagine existing spaces to maximise potential and value.
4. Strategic campus infrastructure development Place sport facilities strategically throughout campuses – for instance life-size chess boards, team parks, basketball hoops – to encourage physical activity and social interaction.
5. Revive first-year athletics tradition Bring back the popular first-year athletics event during student orientation to welcome new students and foster university spirit from the outset.

These were not pie-in-the-sky fantasies. They were practical, actionable ideas rooted in Madibaz Sport’s actual strengths and resources, designed to address the core relevance challenge. Furthermore, the ideas weren’t designed by the university management (top-down approach), they were designed by everyone involved with the summit, a bottom-up approach.

Delivery Stage 5: The reality check

Due to time constraints, the Delivery stage was scheduled for a week later in a different venue. The energy difference was noticeable. Participants found it difficult to start the activity. The group took time to reinterpret their ideas. Excitement was lower. Participants acted independently more than they did collaboratively.

During Delivery, a fishbone analysis (Hayes, 2021) was used to map out implementation for only one idea: ensuring long-term sustainability through new business opportunities. The group identified seven action areas, everything from implementing a multipurpose outdoor floor plan to developing effective marketing. But time ran short. The participants did not get to the critical work of assigning tasks, allocating resources, or setting timeframes.

This delivery challenge is real and worth naming honestly. The high enthusiasm during the summit did not automatically translate into easy follow-through. Time-lapse, competing priorities, and the return to normal work pressures all took their toll. This mirrors what other researchers have observed, namely that generative energy during AI processes does not guarantee sustained momentum afterward. Implementation requires its own intentional design (Dematteo & Reeves, 2011, p. 203).

This research did not measure long-term implementation; we stopped at mapping the route, not tracking the journey. But that week-long momentum loss raises crucial questions for practitioners: what intentional design choices support sustained implementation?

There is also the ownership question. This was my research project, not Madibaz Sport’s internally initiated change effort. They agreed to participate, but they did not originate the need or design the intervention. How does that affect follow-through? Perhaps significantly. When change is externally facilitated, organisations may experience it as something done to them or for them, rather than by them, even when the process itself is highly participatory.

What actually changed: The six AI principles in action

While the Delivery stage flagged, the summit itself demonstrated profound shifts, as viewed through the lens of the six AI principles:

1. Social constructionism: From ego-centric to process-centric When participants gathered for the initial briefing, their conversations constructed a negative reality: Madibaz Sport was stuck, irrelevant, struggling. Staff worked in isolation, protecting individual territories. The culture was ego-centric, focused on defending positions and assigning blame.

Through the AI process, participants moved from ego-centric to process-centric thinking. One participant noted how “communication improvements directly resulted in changed organisational perceptions.” The problem was not just “out there”, it was in how people talked about and made sense of their situation.

As researcher-facilitator, I watched relationships transform. People became open and vulnerable with each other. They owned responsibility for co-creating their reality rather than being victims of circumstances. Change the conversations, change the organisation.

2. Anticipatory principle: Images that build trust and collaboration We move towards the images we hold of the future, as was demonstrated through this principle. The variations on modern sport facilities drawn indicated that. The Dream stage drawings were not just creative exercises; they were acts of trust. Participants had to become vulnerable, sharing their hopes publicly through artwork and provocative propositions (“Vibrant Madibaz Sport”, “Unity is Strength”).

This collaborative visioning built something new: mutual respect. Staff who’d worked in isolation began to appreciate each other’s dreams. The shared images functioned as generative visions that began shaping present action even before formal implementation. Forward-looking planning increased staff commitment to organisational goals. Participants moved in the direction of the images they created together.

3. Simultaneity: Inquiry as co-creation Change did not wait until the end. It began during the interviews when people practised problem-solving through negotiation rather than blame. New communication channels created opportunities for honest dialogue within Madibaz Sport.

The action research approach mattered here. My role as researcher was not to be the expert with answers, but to facilitate a process of co-creation. Participants took the initiative, based on insights from appreciative conversations held even before the formal implementation stage. One participant said: “We had the opportunity to pave how we want our department to look”; they experienced self-awareness that they were authors of their organisational story, not just characters in it.

4. Positive principle: Opening the dance floor The more positive and generative the questions, the more positive and generative the outcomes. Positive emotions like hope, excitement, inspiration, camaraderie, joy increased throughout the process, creating what felt like opening a dance floor where everyone was invited.

In contrast to the sombre and gloomy initial briefing, the summit was characterised by laughter, engagement, and energised collaboration. This positive effect created openness to new ideas and cognitive flexibility. People stopped protecting territory and started exploring possibility. The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2004) proved true: positive emotions led to broadened thinking and greater receptivity to change.

5. Poetic principle: Stories that build respect During Discovery, the paired interviews created something unexpected: deep respect and appreciation. One participant captured this: “The interesting thing was having to interview my colleague, and hearing others affectionately saying positive things about other colleagues. That showed that people do notice the goodness in others and that gave me a warm feeling.”

These were not just nice tales; they were acts of honesty. Participants shared vulnerable moments of meaning and struggle. The stories revealed values, strengths, and moments when Madibaz Sport had made real differences in students’ lives. When the stories changed from deficit to appreciation, relationships changed. The facts, feelings, and effects participants had experienced in past and present, and anticipated for the future all shifted.

6. Wholeness principle: Collaboration that generates trust Although we could not include all Madibaz Sport stakeholders (students, external partners) in this first summit, even with fourteen participants, the Wholeness principle created impact through collaborative work.

Bringing people together in a large-group forum stimulated creativity and built trust that could not happen in individual conversations or departmental silos. Whole-system dialogue overcame stereotypes, built respect, eliminated misconceptions, and renewed relationships. People who’d worked in isolation discovered they could rely on each other.

Participants’ energy transformed from hesitation to enthusiasm. They connected meaningfully and collaborated cohesively throughout. As the researcher, I watched ego-centric defensiveness dissolve into process-centric cooperation. The dance floor was open, and people stepped onto it together.

Practitioner insights: What worked, what was challenging

The following can be summarised as aspects that worked well during the 5D AI summit:

• The problem-to-possibility flip was transformative. The simple act of reframing, taking the same challenge and asking the positive opposite created immediate energy and engagement. This tool is accessible and powerful.
• Pairing in interviews built trust. Having participants interview each other one-on-one then share their partner’s story with the group created simplicity, dependence on others’ ideas, and genuine appreciation. People felt valued and heard.
• Visual and creative expression unlocked imagination. The drawing activity allowed different kinds of intelligence and communication. Not everyone is comfortable with words alone. Art materials and the process of drawing assisted positively in the Dreaming process.
• Timing and pacing mattered. The two-day intensive format (with overnight break) allowed for reflection while maintaining momentum. Though we needed more time for Design, the compressed format kept energy high.
• Whole-system presence was energising. Even though we could not include all stakeholders, having all fourteen core staff members together created a sense of collective capacity that individual conversations could not replicate.

Contrary to what worked well during the summit, the following aspects were more challenging:

• Time constraints were real. We allocated two hours for the Design stage, but we needed more time. This was not poor planning; it was evidence of genuine engagement. What we learned was to allow for time extensions when engagement is genuine.
• Not including students and external stakeholders limited wholeness. While understandable for a first intervention with core staff, the absence of student voices meant we were designing for, not with, the people Madibaz Sport serves. Future reiterations should include students, coaches, and university partners.
• Voluntary participation created commitment questions. While voluntary participation in this study honours permission, it also meant the Delivery tasks were not seen as priority work. Clear agreements about post-summit responsibilities might help.
• Different group engagement levels required attention. Group 2’s more reserved participation in the Dream stage suggested that group composition, facilitation, or psychological safety affected engagement. Monitoring and adjusting in real-time matters.

Recommendations for future Appreciative Inquiry research in sport organisations

While this study demonstrated Appreciative Inquiry’s effectiveness in a sport organisation context, several areas warrant further investigation:

• Long-term impact. This research captured the summit process and immediate outcomes. But what happens six months later? A year? Five years? Were the five Design ideas actually implemented? Which ones? What barriers emerged? What sustained momentum? We need longitudinal studies tracking AI interventions in sport organisations to understand the complex unfolding of change in real organisational life not just measuring “success” or “failure”, but understanding what happens over time.
• Virtual summits. COVID-19 normalised virtual collaboration globally. Can AI summits in sports organisations work effectively in virtual formats? What is gained (geographic accessibility, reduced costs, diverse participation) versus what is lost (embodied presence, corridor conversations, shared meals, the energy of physical co-location)? For geographically dispersed sport organisations and national federations with provincial structures across regions, virtual summits could enable whole-system engagement that is otherwise logistically impossible. But empirical research evaluating their efficacy is needed.
• Whole-system engagement. Future AI summits in sport organisations should expand beyond core staff to include students (the actual “clients”), external stakeholders (provincial federations, government, municipality, sponsors, media), and other organisational units. The Wholeness principle was not fully honoured in this first intervention. What becomes possible when everyone relevant co-creates together?

Closing reflection: The invitation to practise

Six months before this summit, if you had asked Madibaz Sport staff to describe their workplace, you would have heard about problems, stress, isolation, and irrelevance. The AI process did not make those challenges disappear. Strategic objectives still needed updating. Funding was still tight. The rugby team still lost games. But something fundamental shifted. The same people who opened with despair closed with hope. The same challenges that felt paralysing became energising when reframed as opportunities to discover, dream, and design.

South African sport organisations can join the growing number of global organisations that have benefited from using Appreciative Inquiry when organisational vision aligns with stakeholder engagement. As Cooperrider wrote:

When hearts and minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts and create atmospheres of hope or despair: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new explorations of possibility. Such conversations are literally living systems, living on the edge of chaos and order – like all of life, when it is most alive, busting out all over with pattern and coherence but also alive with novelty and emergence. (Cooperrider, as cited in Stravros & Torres, 2022, p. 6)

For sport organisations facing similar turmoil challenges, the invitation is simple: try asking a different question. Not “what is wrong?” but “what is possible when we are at our best?” The answers might surprise you. This study represented not an endpoint, but a beginning; an invitation for sport organisations to re-imagine their potential and pursue excellence through appreciative methodologies that celebrate strengths while fostering growth and transformation.

Note: I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Prof R van Niekerk, and my co-supervisor, Ms S-A Kock, for the support they gave during the research for and writing of my Masters dissertation study.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Baloyi, C. (2021, 10 May) New ASA boss promises to transform athletics. Sowetan Live. https://www. sowetanlive.co.za/sport/2021-05-10-new-asa-boss-promises-to-transform-athletics/

CricketTimes.com. (2021, 20 April) Cricket South Africa faces risk of ICC suspension after government interference. Cricket Times. https://crickettimes.com/2021/04/ cricket-south-africa-faces-risk-of-icc-suspension-after-government-interference/

Dematteo, D. and Reeves, S. (2011) A Critical Examination of the Role of Appreciative Inquiry Within an Interprofessional Education Initiative. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 25(3), 203–208.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:MoSPbNwVHvYJ:scholar.google. com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&scillfp=3617218651544644824&oi=lle

Elmansy, R. (2015) The Disney’s Creative Strategy: The dreamer, the realist and the critic.

Disney’s Creative Strategy: The Dreamer, The Realist and The Critic

Finegold, M.A., Holland, B.M. and Lingham, T. (2002) Appreciative Inquiry and Public Dialogue: An approach to community change. Public Organization Review, 2(3),235–252. https://idp.springer.com/authorize/casa?redirect_uri=https://link.springer.com/content/ pdf/10.1023/A:1020292413486.pdf&casa_token=DivpqGCHPeoAAAAA:oEtynBxqJl8doU_dT0RkydTJx5 fUBQ62rRlQqkMGXMH7XJ4Ax38xplCI9sbDKL7-NlxeVXsC8htEaWLa

Fredrickson, B. (2004) The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. The Royal Society, 359,1367–1377.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2004.1512

Hayes, A. (2021) Ishikawa Diagram.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ishikawa-diagram.asp

Gordon, S. (2011) Building the Optimal Cricket Operation. AI Practitioner, the International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry,13(2), 60–64.

Stavros, J. and Torres, C. (2022) Conversations Worth Having. Using Appreciative Inquiry to fuel productive and meaningful engagement, 2nd ed. Berrett-Koehler.

On Appreciative Inquiry:

Cooperrider, D.L. and Whitney, D. (2005) Appreciative Inquiry: A positive revolution in change. Berrett-Koehler.

Watkins, J.M., Mohr, B.J. and Kelly, R. (2011) Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the speed of imagination. Pfeiffer.

Whitney, D. and Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010) The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A practical guide to positive change. Berrett-Koehler.

On sport organisation change:

Dixon, M., Lee, S. and Ghaye, T. (2016) Reflective Practices for Better Sports Coaches and Coach Education. In P. Potrac, W. Gilbert and J. Denison (Eds), The Routledge Handbook of Sports Coaching. Routledge.