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.