Training and Management of the Psychiatric Aide

This paper evaluates the research on training and management of inpatient psychiatric aides conceptualized in an operant conditioning paradigm. The training techniques reviewed include in-service training, modeling, prompting, and role playing. The management techniques reviewed include the use of posted feedback, money, trading stamps, supervisor approval, and days off. Recommendations for future research emphasize the use of direct and indirect approaches, analysis of reinforcers, group and individual data, social validity of training goals, teaching client skills, group contingencies, and the relationship between management and community, institutional and client goals.     

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.     

Increasing Sales by Managing the Interlocking Contingencies Between Sales Representatives and Customers Using Behavioral Self-Monitoring

Interlocking contingencies that exist between a customer and sales representatives (SRs) may contribute to buying decisions. Verbal behaviors related to closing sales were identified by analyzing these contingencies statistically. Self-observation checklists were then implemented. On average, the six targeted verbal behaviors related to sales increased 12 percentage points over baseline, compared to a 2% point increase in the comparison group. These changes were associated with 126% more sales for the experimental group compared with 36% more sales for the comparison group. For each SR, this increase in sales translates into $1,094,444 more in annualized revenue.     

Mission impossible? Effects of crisis,leader and follower strain on health-oriented leadership

Previous studies underline positive effects of health-oriented leadership for follower well-being. However, it is not clear whether and to what extent situational and personal factors influence health-oriented leadership behavior towards employees (i.e., staff care). We examine the effect of crises and the moderating role of strain for the relationship between strain and staff care in two studies. The first study investigated main and interactive effects of crisis and leader strain on staff care in a cross-sectional survey (N = 201). To test for causality, we complemented our findings with an experimental vignette study (N = 169) and extended our findings with regard to the influence of follower strain. As expected, results of both studies showed negative effects of crisis and leader strain on staff care. Furthermore, crisis effects on staff care were contingent on both leader strain (Study 1 and 2) and follower strain (Study 2): While leader strain strengthened the negative relationships between crisis and staff care, follower strain served as a buffer. These findings support the assumption that staff care is at risk in crises particularly when leaders are strained. However, it is a positive finding that staff care is still feasible on a moderate and relevant level and that leaders respond to follower strain with additional efforts regarding staff care even in crises. The study contributes to the clarification and better understanding of situational contingencies of leadership behavior.     

The Interplay of Goals and Promises of Pay-for-Performance on Individual and Group Performance: An Operant Interpretation

ABSTRACT

Building upon the work of Fellner and Sulzer-Azaroff (1984), an operant model of goal setting is presented from which the effects of goals as well as monetary reinforcers can be examined and compared. The model is premised upon the assumption that the effectiveness of individual and group goals and financial reinforcers can be predicted following a detailed examination of an individual's reinforcement history, level of deprivation and satisfaction and the prevailing behavioral contingencies. The effectiveness of the two discriminative stimuli—goals and promises of pay-for-peformance—are discussed in relationship to operant principles.     

The Mapping of Contingencies in Mental Models Found in Organizations

From a cognitive perspective, mental models held by individuals are thought to guide interactions with objects or systems, including interpersonal interactions. Frameworks that categorize types of interactions in organizations suggest that they are guided by cultures and mental models that range from the egoistic to the cosmos-centric. From a behavioral perspective, what the cognitive approach calls mental models are sets of verbal rules. Therefore, we suggest that behavior analysis could be used to reconceptualize the mental model literature, generating new research questions and more rigorous experimentation. Cognitive constructs such as more expansive mental models may simply be a function of an individual’s or group’s increased attention to interlocking contingencies. Applying behavioral interventions such as acceptance and commitment therapy could be a way to examine the utility of a behavior analytic approach.     

A Comparison of Two Data Analysis Training Methods for Paraprofessionals in an Educational Setting

Analyzing and using student educational data to guide instructional programming is a critical staff skill to ensure quality programming based on applied behavior analysis. We compared two training methods to teach staff to use rules to analyze graphed educational data to enact program changes: didactic instruction and behavioral skills training using direct practice. Participants showed improvements in verbally identifying data patterns using simulated data; however, participants in the latter group were also effective using actual student data. The lack of correspondence between rule identification and rule following challenges the assumption that an individual’s ability to identify rules predicts actual performance.     

R&D alliance portfolio and innovation in an emerging market: The role of business group affiliation and institutional reforms

The role of institutional factors in shaping the outcomes of research and development (R&D) alliance portfolios (APs) is underexplored in the extant literature. This study examines how institutional contingencies in an emerging market context affect the relationship between R&D AP composition (i.e., size and diversity) and firm innovation performance. This study draws on institutional perspective to suggest that business group affiliation (BGA) and institutional reforms positively moderate the relationship between R&D AP composition and innovation performance. A longitudinal empirical investigation conducted on a sample of 185 firms from Indian high-tech sectors, for the period 2003–2015, broadly supports our arguments. This study contributes to the AP and emerging markets literature by highlighting the effects of institutional contingencies of emerging markets on the outcomes of R&D APs.     

Improving the Quality of Hotel Banquet Staff Performance

The banquet staff at a north Texas hotel were responsible for setting up 11 different functions for conferences and meetings. The functions were often set up late and items were often omitted. An analysis suggested that performance problems were Ihe result of weak antecedents, inefficient work procedures, inadequate training, and weak performance contingencies. A treatment package consisting of task checklists, feedback, goal setting, monetary bonuses for quality performance, training and job aids was designed to enhance the accuracy and timeliness of function setups. Performance increased from an average of 68.8% on a quality measure (accuracy plus timeliness of setups) in baseline to 99.7% during the treatment phase. Performance decreased to 82.3% during a second baseline phase in which the intervention was discontinued by hotel management. Performance increased to 99.3% with the reintroduction of the treatment package. Customer satisfaction ratings of banquet setups and service were high during the interventions. Treatment effects are discussed with respect to rule-governed behavior.     

Innovation management in context: environment, organization and performance

Several decades of research into innovation management have failed to provide clear and consistent findings or coherent advice to managers. In this paper, I argue that this is because innovation management 'best practice' is contingent on a range of factors, and that we need better characterizations of the technological and market contingencies which affect the opportunity for, and constraints on, innovation. I review research on innovation together with relevant studies from organizational behaviour and strategic management, and develop a model which may help to guide future innovation research on the relationships between environmental contingencies, organization configurations and performance. I identify uncertainty and complexity as the key environmental contingencies that influence organizational structure and management processes for innovation.     

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.     

Representing Preferences with a Unique Subjective State Space

We extend Kreps' (1979) analysis of preference for flexibility, reinterpreted by Kreps (1992) as a model of unforeseen contingencies. We enrich the choice set, consequently obtaining uniqueness results that were not possible in Kreps' model. We consider several representations and allow the agent to prefer commitment in some contingencies. In the representations, the agent acts as if she had coherent beliefs about a set of possible future (ex post) preferences, each of which is an expected‐utility preference. We show that this set of ex post preferences, called the subjective state space, is essentially unique given the restriction that all ex post preferences are expected‐utility preferences and is minimal even without this restriction. Because the subjective state space is identified, the way ex post utilities are aggregated into an ex ante ranking is also essentially unique. Hence when a representation that is additive across states exists, the additivity is meaningful in the sense that all representations are intrinsically additive. Uniqueness enables us to show that the size of the subjective state space provides a measure of the agent's uncertainty about future contingencies and that the way the states are aggregated indicates whether these contingencies lead to a desire for flexibility or commitment.     

Decreasing Chronic Absenteeism Among Institutional Staff

The effects of a behavioral attendance program on the amount of absences of 15 chronic attendance abusers in a state institution were investigated. The program involved three primary components of low monetary cost: systematic supervisory counseling with each staff member, commendation letters for criterion-achieved attendance levels, and a behavioral lottery system. The program was implemented on two workshifts in multiple baseline fashion and was accompanied by absentee reductions for the majority of staff on each shift. In total, 11 of the 15 chronically absent staff reduced their absenteeism during the program, although considerable variability across individual staff was observed. Results are discussed regarding the need for effective, low cost procedures for reducing absenteeism in state institutions and the advantages of focusing on those staff persons exhibiting chronic absenteeism.     

Goal Statements and Goal-Directed Behavior

Summary

Goal setting has consistently been shown to increase performance under specific conditions. These goal setting effects have previously been explored from both a cognitive perspective and in terms of traditional behavioral concepts. We highlight limitations of these approaches and propose a novel account based on Relational Frame Theory. This account focuses on both the content of goal statements and the contingencies that maintain goal-directed behavior. The content of goal statements is analyzed in terms of relational networks established for employees. We then detail how the current account explains the major effects noted in previous empirical studies. Two broad types of rule following contingencies that support goal-directed behavior, pliance and tracking, are then described. We then outline how these different types of contingencies results in the variety of goal-directed behavior observed in organizations. Throughout we relate this two-part approach to goal setting to specific recommendations for practice and future basic research.     

Resolving and avoiding conflict with the professional staff

The professional staff perspective radically diverges from that of management. Whereas the professional staff sees the hospital in terms of its providing quality health care to each individual patient, hospital executives see the hospital in terms of its financial and systemwide performance. Unless these divergent perspectives are effectively integrated to solve problems and formulate hospital policies, chronic conflict between hospital management and the professional staff is inevitable.     

Suggestive Selling by Waitstaff in Family-Style Restaurants

Two studies were carried out in family-style restaurants to increase suggestive selling by waitstaff and to assess some of the natural contingencies that may influence suggestive selling. In the first study a combination of goal setting, feedback, and positive reinforcement was presented to waitstaff for suggestive selling of cocktails, appetizers, and desserts. Increases were not uniform across the three categories with desserts showing the greatest increase. The second study was designed to assess some of the possible controlling variables for selling by observing when waitstaff typically suggested cocktails, appetizers, and desserts in over 50 restaurants. Suggestions were more probable after dinner than after lunch and waitstaff were more likely to suggest dessert when the restaurant was not crowded than when it was full and busy. Suggestive selling appears to differ across individual waitstaff and may be differentially reinforced during non-peak times during the day.     

Contingency analysis for effective administration

Contingency theory has had a strong influence in recent administration analysis and organization theory. Much of the previous work has been limited by the number of contingencies analyzed. This article reports on the findings from 56 Norwegian companies and attempts to analyze the contingencies of effectiveness, efficiency, innovation and satisfaction using the independent variables of environment, structure, technology, communication, motivation, decision making and job design.