Organizational behavior modification goes to Russia: Replicating an experimental analysis across cultures and tasks
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Dianne H.B. Welsh, Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: This study examined whether organizational behavior modification interventions that produced improvements in performance related behaviors among U.S. workers in a retail sales setting could be replicated among ethnic Russian workers in a textile mill. Procedures used by Luthans and his colleagues (Luthans, Paul & Baker, 1981; Luthans, Paul & Taylor, 1985) to identify, categorize, operationalize, measure, and change functional and dysfunctional performance-related behaviors among retail workers in the U.S. served as a model for replicating these dimensions of the U.S. intervention among textile workers in Russia. Supervisors of a sample of workers (N = 33) in the largest textile mill in Russia were trained to contingently administer social rewards (attention and praise) and positive feedback. They administered these rewards when they observed their workers engaged in identified functional performance-related behaviors dealing with specific procedures, repairs, and interpersonal relations that contributed to the production of quality fabric. In addition, corrective feedback was given for dysfunctional behaviors that detracted from producing quality fabric. Among the Russian workers, frequencies of observed functional behaviors rose from baseline to intervention and frequencies of dysfunctional behavior fell from baseline to the intervention within an A-B-A reversal design. No reversal in frequencies of the behaviors occurred following withdrawal of the intervention. Implications of the study are discussed in terms of extending the generality of the intervention across functional and dysfunctional behaviors associated with different task types and across different cultures.
Organizational behavior modification goes to Russia: Replicating an experimental analysis across cultures and tasks
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Created on 1/1/1993
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Additional Information
- Publication
- of Organizational Behavior Management, 13(2), 15-35
- Language: English
- Date: 1993
- Keywords
- performance-related behavior, productivity, dysfunctional behavior, textile mill, organizational behavior, modification interventions