The shared leadership process in decision-making teams

The present study examined the process of shared leadership in 45 ad hoc decision-making teams. Each team member's leadership behavior (n = 180) was assessed by behaviorally coding videotapes of the teams' discussions. The within-team patterns of leadership behavior were examined using cluster analysis. Results indicated that the likelihood of a team experiencing a full range of leadership behavior increased to the extent that multiple team members shared leadership, and that teams with shared leadership experienced less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intragroup trust and cohesion than teams without shared leadership. This study supports previous findings that shared leadership contributes to overall team functioning, and begins to delineate the extent to which team members may naturally share leadership.     

组织氛围对员工行为有效性的影响机制

该研究采用问卷调查法和专家评估法探讨员工行为有效性的影响机制.结果表明:(1)组织氛围对员工行为有效性有积极的影响.(2)员工的自我效能感在组织氛围与绩效间起完全中介作用,在组织氛围与组织承诺间起部分中介作用,在组织氛围与满意度之间没有中介效应.(3)员工的自我效能感、满意度和组织承诺在组织氛围与员工绩效间起完全中介作用.(4)组织氛围对员工绩效的影响存在双重中介效应.结论:组织氛围对员工绩效的影响机制非常复杂,不仅可以直接影响,而且还可以通过影响员工的自我效能感、满意度和组织承诺等多种中介效应来影响.     

Counselling in the workplace: How time‐limited counselling can effect change in well‐being

Background: Many employers provide counselling support on work and personal issues for their employees, but in times of economic pressure such services can be at risk if their effectiveness is not demonstrated. Aim: To evaluate whether time‐limited counselling in a workplace can effect sustained change in well‐being. Method: The study was carried out by a staff counselling team in a university setting. The Warwick‐Edinburgh Mental Well‐being Scale (WEMWBS) was completed by clients at the beginning and end of counselling, and at three and six months following. A non‐treatment comparison group completed the survey at the same intervals. Results: The results of our investigation show clearly that the effect of time‐limited counselling (average seven sessions) on distressed clients is positive. The evidence of our treatment group suggests that they acquire an increased sense of well‐being as a result of the experience of counselling with a significant statistical difference between pre‐and post‐counselling treatment group scores on the WEMWBS and consistently higher scores found post counselling. The improvement was maintained at the same level for at least six months following the end of counselling. Conclusions: The provision of time‐limited counselling by employers is an effective support for personal difficulties affecting work.     

Comparisons and advertising: the route from comparisons to effective advertising

In this study, we investigate what conditions cause subjects to make comparisons and the comparison patterns that influence effective advertising. People make social or temporal-past or temporal-future comparisons, or may not make any comparisons when facing a choice of purchase situation. Unlike past research, we investigate four comparison patterns, and propose a general comparison model that leads to greater advertising effectiveness.     

A TOKEN REINFORCEMENT PROGRAM IN A PUBLIC JUNIOR-HIGH SCHOOL1

In recent years, the technology of contingency management has been shown to be of increasing value in regular classrooms and public-school systems with both groups and individual pupils (Ayllon and Roberts, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1974, 7 , 71–76; Glynn and Thomas, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1974, 7 , 299–306; Lovitt and Curtiss, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2 , 49–53; Lovitt and Smith, Exceptional Children, 1974, 40 , 357–358; Medland and Stachnik, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1972, 5 , 45–51). In addition, established procedures are being systematically replicated across grade levels and differing subject-matter areas. A series of studies initiated by O'Leary and Becker (Exceptional Children, 1967, 33 , 637–642) form the basis for the present investigation. The token reinforcement program described by O'Leary and Becker (Exceptional Children, 1967, 33 , 637–642) was managed by the teacher of an adjustment class and involved 9-yr-old children described as emotionally disturbed. An elaborate replication of the 1967 O'Leary and Becker study conducted by O'Leary, Becker, Evans, and Saudargas (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2 , 3–31) with a grade-two class introduced several variables to examine their separate effects. The authors specified their treatment levels as baseline, classroom rules, educational structure, teacher praise and ignore, token I, withdrawal, token II, and follow-up. The present research modified the general design of O'Leary et al., (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2 , 3–31) to study how to maintain treatment effects. In the modification, rules were eliminated as a treatment variable because they are frequently associated with aversive practices in the school system, and it was deemed desirable to have mainly a positive orientation. A second difference was that the present subjects were grade-nine pupils functioning in the regular public-school system. The six students were older (average age = 16.2) and well behind their peers in achievement. They were considered behavior problems and as potential dropouts by teachers and counsellors. They were not considered to be emotionally disturbed. Finally, procedures designed to maintain behavior change generated by the token system were added. The operant level of unacceptable classroom behavior was obtained for six students receiving an individualized program of instruction in mathematics and science in a nonacademic grade-nine class in a public junior secondary school. Initially, two conditions (educational structure and praising appropriate behavior while ignoring inappropriate behavior) were introduced successively. Both procedures reduced inappropriate behavior slightly. When a token system, using backup reinforcers readily available in the school, was introduced in conjunction with the initial two conditions, inappropriate responses declined dramatically in all subjects. Withdrawal of the token program for a three-week period, leaving educational structure and praising and ignoring in effect, increased inappropriate behavior in five of the six subjects. The token program was then re-introduced in conjunction with contingency contracts. The result was a decline of inappropriate behavior below the mean of the first token condition for all subjects. Tokens were thinned and finally removed toward the end of this condition, leaving teacher praise and attention and the contract system in effect. Data obtained during a four-week followup indicated that the low level of inappropriate behavior was maintained in all subjects. This extension of the O'Leary et al., (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2 , 3–31) program, designed and implemented by the regular teacher, demonstrates that these procedures may be highly effective within the constraints found in an ordinary classroom in the junior secondary school.     

The effects of a cooperation contingency on behavior in a continuous three-person environment

Five groups of three subjects resided for 10 or 15 days within a continuously programmed environment. Subjects followed a programmatic arrangement of required and optional private and social activities that determined the individual and group baseline behaviors into which experimental operations were introduced and withdrawn. A cooperation condition was in effect when all three subjects were required to select simultaneous access to a group area before it became available for use. A noncooperation condition was in effect when access to a group area could be selected by individual subjects, without regard to the other subjects' selections. For all groups, the effects of these two conditions on individual and group behaviors were investigated in reversal designs where several successive days occurred under each condition. Groups 1, 4, and 5 had the noncooperation condition interposed between cooperation conditions. Groups 2 and 3 had the cooperation condition interposed between noncooperation conditions. Durations of triadic activities, per cent of time in triadic activities, intercom use, and intersubject program synchronization were greater during cooperation conditions than during noncooperation conditions. These data show that a cooperation contingency within the behavioral program affected both social behavior and the collateral individual behavior necessary to execute the cooperation response.     

AN EVALUATION OF TEACHING-FAMILY (ACHIEVEMENT PLACE) GROUP HOMES FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Juvenile crime is a serious problem for which no treatment approach has been found to be reliably effective. This outcome evaluation assessed during and posttreatment effectiveness of Teaching-Family group home treatment programs for juvenile offenders. The evaluation included the original Achievement Place program, which was the prototype for the development of the Teaching-Family treatment approach, 12 replications of Achievement Place, and 9 comparison group home programs. Primary dependent measures were retrieved from court and police files and included number of alleged offenses, percentage of youths involved in those alleged offenses, and percentage of youths institutionalized. Other dependent measures were subjective ratings of effectiveness obtained from the program consumers, including the group home residents. The results showed difference during treatment favoring the Teaching-Family programs on rate of alleged criminal offenses, percentage of youths involved in those offenses, and consumer ratings of the programs. The consumer ratings provided by the youths and their school teachers were found to be inversely and significantly correlated with the reduction of criminal offenses during treatment. There were no significant differences during treatment on measures of noncriminal offenses (e.g., truancy, runaway, and curfew violations). In the posttreatment year, none of the differences between the groups was significant on any of the outcome measures. The results are discussed in terms of measurement and design issues in the evaluation of delinquency treatment programs and in relation to the evaluation of Teaching-Family group homes by Richard Jones and his colleagues.     

On the origin of normative argumentation theory: The paradoxical case of the Rhetoric to Alexander

The Rhetoric to Alexander (second half of the fourth century B.C.) is among the oldest contributions to the study of argumentation. From antiquity on, this treatise, which abounds in opportunistic advice, has come under heavy criticism on normative grounds. And yet, as I shall maintain here, it clearly takes into account the requirements of rational argumentation which are still in use today. Moreover, it contains the seeds of a whole series of doctrines found in modern normative argumentation theory. There are reasonable grounds for maintaining that some of these modern doctrines stem indirectly from the tradition to which the Rhetoric to Alexander belongs.     

Office paper recycling: A function of container proximity

We investigated the effects of proximity of containers on pounds of office paper recycled and not recycled by 25 employees. During a memo and central container condition, one container for recyclable paper was provided; in a memo and local container condition, desktop recycling bins, announced by memo, were successively introduced across administrative, office, and instructional settings using a multiple baseline design. Only 28% of paper was recycled in the central container condition, but when recycling containers were placed in close proximity to participants, 85% to 94% of all recyclable paper was recycled. Follow-up assessments, conducted 1, 2, 3, and 7 months after all settings received local recycling containers, showed that 84% to 98% of paper was recycled. Providing desktop recycling containers was a cost-effective procedure with long-term maintenance and program survival.