An introduction to volume 41 of the journal of organizational behavior management

Abstract

Volume 41, issue 1 of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) provides something for everyone. As part of our ongoing special series of manuscripts which will also be featured as chapters in the upcoming text Handbook of Organizational Performance: Foundations and Advances, Starling describes how organizational behavior management (OBM) can contribute to education. OBM has something to offer all levels of education, from pre-school to graduate school. This paper nicely describes these contributions. This issue also includes a number of empirical studies examining a wide variety of topics. Nastasi et al. highlight a relatively neglected area of research within OBM: the collection of data on social validity. Specifically, Nastasi et al. provide an analysis of procedural acceptability trends in JOBM. This paper reminds us of the importance of taking our participant’s and client’s perspective into account when designing and implementing individual and organizational assessment and intervention procedures. Our society is becoming more and more dependent on technology. Mailey et al. highlight this by describing the use of computer-based instruction to teach staff members to implement behavioral skills training (BST) in a human service setting. Kingsdorf et al. add to our knowledge on teaching others to implement BST, this time in Europe. Finally, Bottini et al. compare various methods of feedback to train participants to perform a straightforward task. Specifically, the authors compared different sequences of positive and constructive comments delivered to performers. One of these sequences consisted of what is commonly referred to as the feedback sandwich (i.e., a positive-constructive-positive sequence). It is nice to see OBMers tackle this commonly used form of feedback. Check out the results of this study – they are interesting! Please send me any suggestions and feedback you may have regarding journal policies and practices. Electronic messages should be sent to dawilder@fit.edu. Happy reading!