Organizational behavior management

Organizational behavior management (OBM) is a form of applied behavior analysis which applies psychological principles of organizational behavior and the experimental analysis of behavior to organizations to improve individual and group performance and worker safety. The areas of application may include: systems analysis, management, training, and performance improvement. OBM resembles human resource management, but places more emphasis on ABA and systems-level focus.

Various OBM interventions have included working with therapists on increasing billable hours

OBM takes principles from many fields, including behavioral systems analysis and performance management, although there is some debate as to whether taking principles from fields outside of behavior analysis meshes within the definition of OBM. Related fields include behavior-based safety and behavioral engineering.

The history of this field is under some debate. Dr. Alyce Dickinson published an article in 2000 detailing the history of the field. The article states that the field emerged from within the field of behavior analysis. The first organized application of behavioral principles in business and industry was programmed instruction, however this application was before OBM emerged as a field. The first university to offer a graduate program in OBM and systems analysis was Western Michigan University. The first teacher to teach the course was Dr. Dick Malott.

Another early program in OBM was initiated at the University of Notre Dame 1n 1975 with the arrival of Martin Wikoff, the first graduate student in the program. Prior to attending Notre Dame, Wikoff, with University of Washington professors, Bob Kohlenberg (Psychology) and Terrance Mitchell (Foster School of Business) conducted one of the first controlled studies of applied behavior analysis in business;in this case, to improve Grocery Clerk performance. That study was presented at the 1976 MABA Convention in Chicago and the application to business was so novel, the research was assigned to the topic category of "Experimental Living Arrangements" confirming its status as one of the pioneering OBM documented applications. The Wikoff-Crowell-Anderson Notre Dame OBM research team was born.

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