On the identity crisis in OBM.

Abstract

Some confusion exists at present in the OBM community regarding the subject matter of the discipline and how concepts from outside the tradition of behavior analysis should be handled. Some of the confusion is traced to differences in historic definitions of the field, as well as issues concerning the compatibility of systems analytic concepts. Systems models used in performanceoriented analyses of organizational functioning are reviewed and compared to behavior analytic approaches. A strategy of analyzing the behavior of managers in large corporate systems is suggested as a way to better integrate systems analytic and behavior analytic approaches to understanding and improving performance. ********** Recent articles in the organizational behavior management (OBM) literature have raised questions regarding the content and direction of the area (e.g., Ghezzi, 2001; Hayes, 1999; Mawhinney, 2000, 2001). The issues revolve around the integration of concepts and models that are not behavior analytic in origin (e.g., systems models) or that appear to place behavior analysis in a secondary role. Including or excluding nonbehavioral concepts in the common language of the discipline is a practice that will have a major impact on the definition of OBM. Ghezzi, for example, observed that OBM is moving toward an apart from Behavior Analysis. Hayes wondered whether there is room at the table for nonbehavioral models in OBM. Mawhinney (2000) felt that the culture of the OBM community may be overwhelmed by the larger body of nonbehavioral models if the gates were opened to such concepts. These issues merit further discussion. In this article, I will review some of the historical sources of the identity crisis and address some ways to deal with it in a constructive manner. SOURCES OF THE IDENTITY CRISIS Although the beginnings of OBM reach back into the 1960s, OBM began to establish a formal in the 1970s with the publication of numerous books as well as the founding of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management in 1977 (see Dickinson, 2000, for a review of the early history of OBM). It is clear that many key people involved in this period of the field's development saw OBM as an extension of applied behavior analysis. In other words, OBM would involve the application of behavior analytic principles to produce changes in behavior in the workplace. As Mawhinney (2000) pointed out, the editorial that defined the mission of JOBM (Daniels, 1977) explicitly modeled the mission statement of Baer, Wolf and Risley (1968) in defining applied behavior analysis. It appeared that OBM would be simply behavior analysis in business and industry. At nearly the same time, Gilbert (1978) published Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance (republished with a new foreword in 1996). Tom Gilbert had roots in behavior analysis, going back to a brief stint studying at Harvard with B.F. Skinner. Gilbert had gone on to become a pioneer in the behavioral instruction movement in the 1960s. But in Human Competence, Gilbert put forth a conception of a field that appeared similar to OBM in some aspects, but different in other critical aspects. He argued that the focus should be improving performance, where performance encompassed both behavior and worthy accomplishments. Behavior was seen as a cost to be minimized, and accomplishments as the valuable results that would enable organizations to succeed in their endeavors to bring products and services to customers. Although a field dedicated to organizational performance improvement would necessarily involve behavior and behavior change, it would not be about behavior or behavior change. For example, Gilbert pointed out that accomplishments could be improved if defective tools or equipment were replaced; some behavior change might occur with the new tools, but performance improvement was not brought about by focusing on the behavior and its associated contingencies. …