This article discusses the application of Cognitive-Behavior Modification (CBM) to organizational culture in order to influence organizational behavior. The author sites the work of Karl Weick and constructivist theory which states that individuals create the organizations they are apart of, while in turn they are impacted by those organizations.

The article explores the cognitive-behavioral framework for interventions including constructivist narratives that can be analyzed and reconstructed to assist with behavioral change. The integration of functional analysis into CBM is then introduced whereby a subject’s interaction with the setting is observed in order to produce a complete picture of the subject in the environment.

The author then ties together the commonalities between constructivist theory of organization with CBM: personal reality and organizational reality are constructed by the individual, that organizational culture and personal reality alike do not exist apart from perception and that efforts to modify both personal life and organizational life must build on these basic facts. Finally, the specific CBM methods of co-construction, re-framing, functional assessment, skill development, leveraging key relationships, and reducing complexity are applied to organizational interventions and specific examples are given from the author’s pilot team development program.

Citation

Boan, D. M. (2006). "Cognitive-Behavior Modification and Organizational Culture." Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research 58(1): 51-61.