Functions of Organizational Leaders in Cultural Change: Financial and Social Well-Being

Abstract

Social responsibility looms as a key feature of leadership decision making and citizenship behavior as the world’s resources are depleted, health and education crises increase, and communities, societies, and cultures adapt to a new context shaped by emerging technologies, political upheavals, global warming, and other drivers of behavior change. In this article we call for future work in behavior analysis, emphasizing the importance of organizational leaders’ decision-making behaviors in establishing organizational practices that support prosocial behavior and eliminate aversive conditions within cultural systems. The discussion expands on recent behavior analytic literature on cultural change and leadership behavior by first providing a summary of popular definitions of human well-being and relating this concept to prosocial behavior. By drawing upon these definitions, we then summarize the behavior analytic concepts of metacontingencies and macrocontingencies as a framework from which behavior analysts can continue work to promote prosocial behavior and human well-being writ large.

KEYWORDS:

• socially significant actions
• organizational leaders
• decision making
• well-being
• prosocial behavior
• financial value
• social value
• leadership
• management

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Portions of this article were presented at the Special Seminar on Leadership and Cultural Change, May 23, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois.