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.     

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.     

Beyond Positive Reinforcement

Abstract

This article comments on the need to recognize that OBM already is a “positive psychology” for many more reasons than just that it embraces positive reinforce as a cornerstone of workplace improvement. This paper suggests there are at least 10 ways in which OBM constitutes a distinctly “positive” and humanizing approach to management practices. These ways are enumerated and briefly reviewed.     

The Several Meanings of “Positive”

Abstract

Wiegand and Geller propose that the salient role of positive reinforcement in behavior analysis should enable a melding of behavior analysis with developments and concepts that have appeared under the banner of “positive psychology.” However, as is true of many words, the term positive has more than one meaning, and the positive of positive reinforcement is not the same as the positive of “positive psychology.” The latter is parasitic upon the vernacular, as “nice” or “desirable,” whereas the former is analogous to the algebraic “add” as when an action produces the appearance (as contrasted with the removal) of some event. The distinct meanings become clear with recognition that addictive and criminal behavior often are maintained through positive reinforcement, and that negative reinforcement of behavior often is benign and beneficial to the persons involved. In addition, most of the phenomena identified with positive psychology that Wiegand and Geller propose to embrace entail more subtle and complex combinations of behavioral principles than these authors acknowledge. Wiegand and Geller also propose to accommodate vernacular assumptions in ways that separate their approach from its conceptual base; this risks impairing the effectiveness of their work whether or not its marketability would be improved.     

OBM and Quality Improvement Systems

ABSTRACT

A review of the empirical OBM literature on quality improvement systems in organizations serving persons with developmental disabilities (DD) suggests the current literature offers a small but growing number of studies of large-scale, long-term, applications of behavioral supervision to improve targeted areas of staff performance. One conclusion offered is that it may be possible to expand the scope of OBM interventions in DD organizations by integrating OBM into the development of total quality management (TQM) approaches to quality improvement. To illustrate how such an integration might be accomplished, the current paper discusses OBM research in four areas that are important in implementing TQM (organizational systems analysis, team effectiveness, measuring consumer responses, and data analysis). Recommendations for practice and future research in OBM within DD organizations are discussed.     

Cumulatively Large Benefits of Incrementally Small Intervention Effects

Abstract

Metacontingencies are relations among practices within an organizational culture and their molar environmental consequences for the culture. They can be summarized by the ratio of all revenues from operations (or budgets received) to all expenses paid for operations. Rates of attendance/absenteeism have consequences in terms of effects on a culture's ratio of revenues received (budgets funded) to expense payments that appear as profits (losses) or budget surpluses (deficits) over some time interval. For a host of reasons OBM researchers place a premium on identifying and adopting practices that result in large immediate effects on behavior and performance in the short run. However, some practices created by OBM interventions can have small short-term effects and appreciably larger cumulative effects on revenue to expense and budget to budget expenditure ratios in the longer run. The importance of estimating cumulative benefits and/or costs of OBM interventions when intervention effects are small is demonstrated in this article using data from an operant based intervention that produced an immediate small increase in attendance.     

A Review of Procedural Acceptability in Organizational Behavior Management

ABSTRACT

Despite the documented benefits Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) applications can have on service provision for people with developmental disabilities, OBM is not widely practiced in service systems. One variable that may impact the utilization of OBM is how acceptable the associated procedures are to staff. The research on procedural acceptability in OBM is summarized in terms of two primary methods for determining consumer satisfaction with management procedures-rating scales and discrete choices. Results of acceptability assessments utilizing ratings scales have repeatedly indicated high degrees of staff acceptance for virtually all OBM procedures. However, when staff have been asked to choose among management procedures, clear and consistent differences in acceptability have been apparent. Suggested directions for future research focus on improving acceptability assessment methodology, developing guidelines for implementing effective OBM procedures in a manner that is most acceptable to staff, and involving supervisory and professional staff in acceptability evaluations.     

Should Organizational Behavior Management Expand Its Content?

Abstract

The American Psychological Association (APA) has defined the years 2000 to 2010 as the “Decade of Behavior,” and has been promoting this designation in convention materials, newsletters, media briefs, and professional publications. But APA seems to be avoiding the leading discipline in analyzing and changing behaviors in industrial settings-organizational behavior management (OBM). Furthermore, with only a few exceptions, OBM does not receive the attention it deserves in university psychology departments, including graduate programs in industrial/organizational (I/O) Psychology. This paper entertains reasons for the low and decreasing academic attention to OBM, and offers some possible solutions. It is proposed that OBM is generally discussed in overly simplistic terms; and unlike I/O Psychology, OBM does not draw on the wealth of relevant concepts and principles in other areas, especially cognitive and social psychology. Specific examples are given for expanding the typical boundaries of the OBM curriculum in order to improve organization-based interventions and realize greater opportunities to demonstrate the unique qualities of a behavior analysis approach to real-world problem solving.     

The Role of Positive Psychology in Enhancing Satisfaction,Motivation, and Productivity in the Workplace

Abstract

Positive psychology offers scope for enhancing satisfaction, motivation, and productivity in the workplace. Wiegand and Geller (2004, this issue) point to a number of strategies to enhance individuals' success orientation and conclude their discussion with the actively caring model which appears to be a useful means of representing pivotal facets of a positive and supportive workplace climate. The discussion in this article extends some of the concepts presented in their paper, adapts a model of motivation to develop the Occupational Motivation and Engagement Wheel, and also further discusses some particularly key strategies alluded to by Wiegand and Geller. These include a discussion of workplace resilience, authoritarian versus authoritative leadership/management styles, motivating workplace climates, personal bests, staff morale, flow in work, the value individuals attach to tasks and outcomes, and the centrality of relationships in the performance context. The article concludes with a multi-level “broaden and build” framework for enhancing satisfaction, motivation, and productivity in the workplace.     

The Historical Roots of Organizational Behavior Management in the Private Sector

Abstract

Applications of behavior analysis in the private sector became visible in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By the 1980s, the field of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) was a well established discipline. This article chronicles the people, events and publications that contributed to the formation of the field, beginning with the precursors in the 1950s and ending in the early 1980s. The contributions of individuals who have been honored by the OBM Network are detailed and emphasized. Although some historical accounts attribute the development of OBM to influences from traditional management fields, the present account, through documentation of the formative events, argues that the field developed in relative isolation from such influences, emanating primarily from Skinner's development of programmed instruction and the advent of behavioral applications in other settings. While application of psychology to the work place predated behavioral involvement, the primary force for the development and growth of OBM came from within the field of behavior analysis.     

Positive Psychology and the Distinction Between Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Abstract

The authors make a reasonable point, that behavior analysis should be concerned with effective behavior in its own right and not only as a replacement for ineffective behavior. But positive psychology is then described as “a science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions …” based largely on correlations among self-report inventories; a science which has the goal of identifying traits that function as the explanations of the behavior of interest. An effort is made to justify this move in a nonbehavioral direction by reference to the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement and an exhortation that OBM practitioners emphasize the former. But this rationale is seriously flawed by either a clearly erroneous or a drastically oversimplified understanding of this distinction. Furthermore, all of the more specific recommendations can be easily justified in terms of ordinary behavioral advantages without recourse to the achievement motivation literature or such concepts as self-efficacy.     

History and Contribution of Organizational Behavior Management to Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

This article traces the development of the field of organizational behavior management (OBM) from its origins in early behavior modification studies, the development of a technology for modifying staff behavior, to recent developments in the evolution of cultures. An ecological model of staff behavior is outlined using Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model of human development. The technology used to modify staff behavior is briefly reviewed. In the final section recommendations for managers and researchers are made. Managers should be aware that there is an effective technology for modifying a wide range of staff behaviors that can be implemented both in response to crises and during routine management. Future research on OBM should address three major concerns. First, OBM should broaden the scope of its enquiry beyond the immediate staff and consumer dyad to include analysis of and intervention upon the entire ecosystem within which the consumer's behavior occurs. Second, the issue of integrating theory with practice should be pursued more vigorously through fundamental research on supervisor behavior and through basing interventions on an analysis of the variables maintaining current supervisory behavior. Third, greater attention should be paid to developing training for middle managers as general ist users of the principles of OBM.     

OBM Today and Tomorrow

Abstract

In this article I present the speech I gave when accepting the OBM Network's award for outstanding achievement. In that speech I characterized the field as I understood it in 1992 and directions I thought it should take in the future, including the role that JOBM should play in that future. The acceptance speech is followed by my extensive commentary and opinion concerning developments in the field of OBM up to the year 2000 and the paths along which I think it should develop and paths I think it should avoid in the future.     

Using Concurrent Verbal Reports to Examine Data Analyst Verbal Behavior

Abstract

Evidence concerning effects of graphed data on the verbal behavior of data analysts was reviewed and revealed the fact that no verbal protocol analyses of this behavior appears in the OBM literature. A task analysis of data analysts' verbal behavior was conducted, verbal responses of two expert and two novice data analysts were collected as they viewed time-series data one data point at a time from three data sets, and these data were subjected to protocol analyses. Results were the following: (1) experienced data analysts made considerably more frequent references to data points in addition to the most recently presented data point for all three data sets than did novices, (2) experienced data analysts took more time to complete the task than did novice analysts, and (3) experienced data analysts were somewhat more accurate at identifying onset (location in time) of interventions. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for future research concerning analysis and development of visual inspection skills among data analysts. It was concluded that there exists a need to develop data sets or tasks that more reliably discriminate among expert and novice performances if verbal protocol methodology is to be fully exploited by OBM researchers.     

Notes from an Introspective Behaviorist

Abstract

Based on the three-contingency model of performance management, I make the following argument: (1) Often, we fail to behave as we should because the natural contingencies supporting appropriate behavior are ineffective; the natural contingencies involve outcomes for each individual response that are either too small, though of cumulative significance, or outcomes that are too improbable. The delay of the outcome is essentially irrelevant. The psychodynamic model of the cognitive motivational theorists provides a poor explanation for why we fail to behave as we should. (2) The performance-management contingencies in organizational behavior management (OBM) must usually involve deadline-induced aversive control, even when they are based on powerful reinforcers. Furthermore, such performance management succeeds only to the extent that the person's behavioral history, “Jewish mother,” has inculcated an appropriate value system. Wiegand and Geller's critique of the necessity of the use of aversive control fails to take into account the necessity of deadlines and the difference between instrumental and hedonic reinforcers; furthermore, it greatly over values the power of intrinsic reinforcement contingencies in OBM.     

On Reinventing OBM

Abstract

This article comments on an argument in favor of a change in OBM's content and focus to include certain empirical findings and theoretical constructs derived from fields like Cognitive and Social Psychology. Specifically, the argument suggests that personal beliefs such as optimism, self-efficacy, and response-efficacy are influential determinants of behavior that give rise to achievement motivation and a success-seeking typology. By incorporating such constructs into OBM, it is suggested that the field will better align itself with related disciplines sharing the goal of promoting personal success, thereby enhancing its performance-improvement toolkit and fostering greater recognition and acceptance for itself within mainstream Psychology. After summarizing key aspects of this argument, this paper identifies certain of its associated challenges and then presents some specific strategies by which the OBM community can chart a future course for the field.     

The Use and Validation of Preintervention Diagnostic Tools in Organizational Behavior Management

Functional analyses and assessments have become the accepted gold standards in many applied areas of behavior analysis, including Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), in recent years. Despite their acceptance, OBM data on such tools have been largely absent. There are several assessment alternatives in OBM (e.g., ABC, PIC/NIC, Behavior Engineering Model), but two assessment approaches most common in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management are Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) and the Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC). To date there have been no comprehensive reviews of BSA or the PDC from which one might draw ideas for application, research, and the advancement of the field. The goals of this paper are to (a) provide a review of the BSA and PDC literature within the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), (b) discuss the implications of the results of the review, and (c) provide suggestions for future research utilizing BSA and the PDC.     

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.