Money and Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Interventions: A Review

Practitioners and business leaders can use monetary data to quantify the financial outcomes of interventions in organizational behavior management (OBM). The primary purpose of this review was to investigate the occurrence and classification of monetary data in the OBM literature. Other purposes were to demonstrate ways in which such data contribute to the measurement of value and to provide recommendations for its reporting and publication. Accordingly, a review was conducted of publications in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. Cumulative yearly results showed that cost data were reported more often than cost plus benefit data, and cost plus benefit data were reported more often than benefit data alone. More cost than benefit data were reported, most often with social validity, followed by institutionalization, then maintenance measures. However, more cost plus benefit data were reported than either cost or benefit data with a maintenance measure. It is concluded that reporting cost and benefit data would be beneficial to the field of OBM.     

Organizational Behavior Management

ABSTRACT

Organizational behavior management (OBM) is an effective strategy for managing staff in developmental disabilities. Most studies in OBM involve individual or small groups of direct-service staff and their performance with clients in a variety of applied settings. By contrast, few studies focus on the use of OBM with professional staff. This papeT reviews investigations conducted with professional staff, reveals gaps that exist in the current research, and discusses future directions that need further study. The paper concludes with case illustrations of system-wide OBM applications that produced performance improvements by professional staff and meaningful gains for clients.     

An Objective Review of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management

Abstract

This article presents an objective review and analysis of every article published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) between 1987 and 1997. The purpose of this review was to replicate and extend the research conducted by Balcazar, Shup-ert, Daniels, Mawhinney, and Hopkins (1989) by providing an objective review and analysis of the second decade of JOBM publications. In doing so, we analyzed several noteworthy trends and patterns occurring within the second decade of the Journal and compared them with the first decade, where applicable. Additionally, we discussed the extent to which the Journal has continued to meet its objectives, and we offered recommendations for future JOBM publications. In general, we found evidence that the Journal has continued to grow in meaningful ways, and we report data that indicate it continues, to some extent, to meet its original objectives. Author affiliation remains largely in academe, although there is evidence that more collaboration is occurring with non-academic authors. The variety of topics addressed by JOBM researchers continues to grow, and the frequency of work simulation studies has increased as well. We also identified areas where future JOBM research could be improved. In particular, more studies should include information on the reliability and social validity of the independent and dependent variables, cost/benefit analyses, and follow-up data.     

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management

No abstract available for this article.     

A Literature Review of Organizational Behavior Management Interventions in Human Service Settings from 1990 to 2016

We reviewed the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), and Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) from 1990 to 2016, to identify articles that evaluated organizational behavior management interventions in a human service setting. Of those articles, 75 articles met the inclusion criteria for the review, 44 from JABA (1990 to 2016), 22 from JOBM (1990 to 2016), and 7 from BAP (2008 to 2016). We categorized each selected article by setting, employee population, client population, assessment, dependent variable, independent variable, and outcome measures. Results from the review are discussed for all three journals. Recommendations are made to broaden the scope of population and dependent variable targets, include more assessments, and include outcome data when applicable.     

Response-Response Relationships in Organizational Behavior Management

Abstract

The issue of behavioral covariation has been a topic of interest to behavior analysts for many years. Many writers have used the term response generalization interchangeably with behavioral covariation. In this paper, we argue from the extant literature that the term “response generalization” should be used to describe only very specific occasions of behavioral covariation. In fact, we argue, response generalization is merely one of at least six types of behavioral covariation observed in organizational behavior management studies. After describing response generalization, the remaining five types of response-response relations we describe are: (1) physiological relations, (2) when target behaviors occasion related behaviors, (3) when target behaviors reinforce related behaviors, (4) when target and related behaviors are maintained by the same reinforcing stimulus, and (5) covariation through participation in verbal relations. We conclude by discussing the potential for additional research on this topic in the area of verbal relations.     

Current Topics in Organizational Behavior Management

No abstract available for this article.     

Organizational Behavior Management and Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Abstract

Six scholars in applied psychology wrote thoughtful and provocative reactions to a paper written by the author that presented a case for broadening the content and language of organizational behavior management (OBM) in order to enhance appreciation for OBM in organizational settings and among university faculty and students in mainstream psychology programs. This paper summarizes the follow-up commentaries and adds justification for key points made in the target article. Five topics are addressed: (1) critical distinctions between OBM and industrial/organizational psychology, (2) disadvantages of using negative over positive reinforcement to motivate behavior change, (3) the need to after OBM language in order to increase interest and application, (4) the use of unobservable person state vs. personality traits to explain behavior, and (5) the challenge of improving the education and training of students in OBM programs.     

A Review of Organizational Stress Management Research:

Evaluation studies of worksite stress management training (SMT) are reviewed and methodological considerations are offered regarding (1) program orientation, (2) experimental design, (3) worker participants, (4) outcome measures, and (5) duration of training effects and worker compliance. Suggestions for additional research include the need to (1) employ additional comparison groups in order to detect training-specific effects, (2) evaluate SMT in blue-collar settings, (3) expand the scope of outcome measures to include employee behaviors, and (4) assess long term effects of SMT and factors associated with worker maintenance of learned skills. It is concluded that SMT has value as a prevention activity in work settings but its use as a treatment strategy for troubled workers is not supported conceptually or empirically. Companies and practitioners are encouraged to view SMT not as an isolated activity but as one component of occupational health and safety activities. A holistic approach which incorporates stress management into company health and safety philosophies is viewed as the optimal strategy.     

Organizational Behavior Management in Large Residential Organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests larger residential organizations have a unique contribution to offer people with developmental disabilities who require managed environments or research solutions to their living needs. It claims no organization should be managed to be “institutional” regardless of its size, but that size alone is not the sole determinant of self-motivated service delivery. A move toward adoption of short-term goals geared to the immediate benefit of people with developmental disabilities and away from more traditional yearly developmental goals is cited as the key to keeping residential organizations focused on the consumers of their service. However, in order to utilize the unique advantages of larger organizations, these organizations will need to solve the problems created by having large groups of people living in close proximity and managed by multiple managers. A brief review of six general steps to organizational management is offered as the outline for effective management. An emphasis is placed on a need for immediate supervisors to have upper level administrator support to carry out these six managerial steps and to receive continuous feedback from consumers and staff on the acceptability of this service. In addition, because of their large size, history of abuses, and/or lack of consumer self-advocacy, larger residential organizations appear to have a special responsibility to show how they emphasize the concerns of their consumers over the institutional concerns of organizational survival.     

Organizational Behavior Management in Human Service Settings

No abstract available for this article.     

Employee Engagement and Organizational Behavior Management

No abstract available for this article.     

Motivating Operations in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management: Review and Discussion of Relevant Articles

Every article published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management from 1982 through 2012 that contained the term motivating operation (or a related term) was examined. Seventy-six articles used a relevant term. Authors used the term in attempts to categorize and explain the behavioral effects of many aspects of interventions (e.g., rules, feedback, goal-setting), everyday occurrences in organizations (e.g., nicotine deprivation, top management support), and characteristics of behaving individuals (e.g., optimism, personality state), which on the one hand suggests that the motivating operation concept has been of value in organizational behavior management research as published in the journal. On the other hand, none of the articles demonstrated the successful use of a motivating operation as the term was initially defined, which suggests that the MO concept has been substantially expanded or widely misused by authors of the evaluated articles.     

The Impact of Skinner's Verbal Behavior on Organizational Behavior Management

In the book Verbal Behavior, Skinner provided a comprehensive, behavioral account of language. While the impact of Skinner's analysis on empirical research has been examined broadly, this review of the literature focused on studies relevant to organizational behavior management (OBM). Both empirical and nonempirical journal articles in OBM were analyzed, along with several influential books in the field. The results of this review indicate that the conceptual framework provided in Verbal Behavior has had virtually no impact on empirical research in OBM and very limited impact on conceptual work. Potential reasons for this lack of influence are discussed, and further research on verbal behavior in organizations is encouraged.