Organizational Behaviour and the Physical Environment


Book Description

This book looks at how the physical environment of work shapes organizational behaviour, demonstrating that our physical surroundings at work can have a big influence on employee productivity, performance and wellbeing. Drawing upon the latest research, Organizational Behaviour and the Physical Environment provides comprehensive coverage of the different aspects of the physical environment at work – the buildings, furnishings, equipment, lighting, air quality and their configurations. From theories of psychological ownership and work design, to cultural issues and technology in the workplace, its international range of contributors provide voices from Australasia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. This book will be invaluable supplementary reading for advanced students, researchers and practitioners across the fields of organizational behaviour, HRM, organizational and environmental psychology, and workspace design.




Experiencing the Environment


Book Description

The purpose of this volume is to explore theory, problem formulation, and methodology in "experiencing the environment. " In this embryonic field, the writings of a number of individuals already stand out as representative of dis tinctive viewpoints. In order to facilitate further development of the field, a conference! was proposed to gather in one place representatives of a number of major viewpoints with regard to the embryonic field of "environmental psychology. " It was hoped that a colloquy among such representatives would facilitate a clarification of the similarities and differences between the various perspectives, and might enable proponents of any given point of view to benefit from the insights of others with different orientations. Hopefully, it might also promote a greater articulation for this emerging field of inquiry. With these ends in mind, the sponsors of the conference asked the various prospective participants to present their theoretical positions and representative research illustrative of those positions. Some of the perspectives represented at the conference emphasized the point that the construal of phenomena depends heavily on the values and needs of perceivers. Implicit in this kind of position is the thesis that anyone who seeks to describe a complex happening is likely to shape it in terms of presup positions, biases, etc. , that may not be shared by others.




U.S. Health in International Perspective


Book Description

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.




Work Places


Book Description

Discusses the research and theory concerning the physical surroundings that affect people in offices and factories.




Behavior and the Natural Environment


Book Description

The theme of the present volume concerns people' s response to the natural environment, considered at scales varying from that of a house hold plant to that of vast wilderness areas. Our decision to focus on this particular segment of the physical environment was prompted in part by the intrinsic interest in this subject on the part of a diverse group of sodal scientists and professionals-and of laypersons, for that matter and in part by the relative neglect of this topic in standard treatments of the environment-behavior field. It also serves to bring out once again the interdisdplinary nature of that field, and we are pleased to have been able to inc1ude representatives from geography, sodology, soda! ecology, and natural recreation among our contributors. We believe that this volume will serve a useful purpose in helping to integrate the find ings and concepts in this presently somewhat fragmented field, scat tered as they are over a very diverse array of publications representing a similarly varied group of spedalties. It is hoped that the result will be to stimulate future development of this area and to add a measure of in creased coherence to it. Volume 7 of our series will be devoted to the theme of elderly people and the environment, with M. Powell Lawton joining us as guest co-editor. The titles of the papers comprising Volume 7 are shown on page v. Irwin Altman J oachim F. Wohlwill ix Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




Human Behavior and Environment


Book Description

The papers comprising this second volume of Human Behavior and the Environment represent, as do their predecessors, a cross section of current work in the broad area of problems dealing with interrelation ships between the physical environment and human behavior, at both the individual and the aggregate levels. Considering the two volumes as a unit, we have included papers covering a broad spectrum of problems ranging from the theoretical to the applied, and from the disciplinary-based to the interdisciplinary and professional. Approxi mately half of the papers are written by psychologists, with the remainder coming, in part, from such other disciplines as sociology, geography, and from such diverse applied and professional fields as natural recreation, landscape architecture, urban planning, and opera tions research. The volumes thus provide an overview of work on current topical problems. Yet, as the field is developing, specialization is inevitably increasing apace, and the editors as well as the publisher have become convinced of the desirability for futu're volumes in this series to be organized along topical lines, with successive volumes devoted to different aspects of this rather sprawling field. Thus, Volume 3, currently in the planning stage, will be devoted exclusively to the interaction of children with the physical environment, considered from diverse viewpoints, again including authors from diverse fields of specialization.




The Physical Environment and Behavior


Book Description

The field of "Environment-and-Behavior" This bibliography is aimed at the researcher and advanced student working in the field of environmental psychology, as it has come to be designated over the past decade. A more appropriate term might be "environment-behavior studies," to suggest the important characteristic of this field as one that transcends the province of the psychologist, and brings together workers, as well as problems, methods, and concepts from a great diversity of disciplines and professional fields. Among these we may include geography and sociology, architecture, landscape architecture and planning, forestry, natural resource management and leisure and recreation research -- to name only the most important of the diverse fields from which material for this bibliography has been drawn. This is in fact one of the primary reasons for our belief in the value of such a volume. The literature in the environment-behavior field is scattered through the most diverse sources, including not only the major periodical and monographic literature in each of the above-mentioned disciplines and professions (and others as well), but also a variety of more specialized publications of varying degrees of accessibility. Thus it seemed to us helpful to the researcher, teacher and student in this area to bring this far-flung literature together in a single volume, that might be used as a guide to the field. We aimed at a comprehensive treatment, including both basic and applied aspects, and relations of behavior both to the man-made or artificial and to the natural environment.




Behavior and Environment


Book Description

Active researchers in the areas of geography and psychology have contributed to this book. Both fields are capable of increasing our scientific knowledge of how human behavior is interfaced with the molar physical environment. Such knowledge is essential for the solution of many of today's most urgent environmental problems. Failure to constrain use of scarce resources, pollution due to human activities, creation of technological hazards and deteriorating urban quality due to vandalism and crime are all well known examples. The influence of psychology in geographical research has long been appreciated but it is only recently that psychologists have recognized they have something to learn from geography. In identifying the importance of two-way interdisciplinary communication, a psychologist and a geographer have been invited to each write a chapter in this book on a designated topic so that close comparisons can be drawn as to how the two disciplines approach the same difficulties. Since the disciplines are to some extent complementary, it is hoped that this close collaboration will have synergistic effects on the attempts of both to find solutions to environmental problems through an increased understanding of the many behavior-environment interfaces.




Culture and Environment


Book Description

The inspiration for this book arose out of a large international conference: the ninth World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC) organized under the theme of Culture/Environment. Similarly, the theme for this book focuses on the Culture/Environment nexus. The book is divided into two parts: Part 1 consists of a series of research studies from an eclectic selection of researchers from all corners of the globe. Part 2 consists of a series of case studies of practice selected from a wide diversity of K-Postsecondary educators. The intent behind these selections is to augment and highlight the diversity of both cultural method and cultural voice in our descriptions of environmental education practice. The chapters focus on a multi-disciplinary view of Environmental Education with a developing view that Culture and Environment may be inseparable and arise from and within each other. Cultural change is also a necessary condition, and a requirement, to rebuild and reinvent our relationship with nature and to live more sustainably. The chapters address the spirit of supporting our praxis, and are therefore directed towards both an educator and researcher audience. Each chapter describes original research or curriculum development work.




The Handbook of Behavior Change


Book Description

Social problems in many domains, including health, education, social relationships, and the workplace, have their origins in human behavior. The documented links between behavior and social problems have compelled governments and organizations to prioritize and mobilize efforts to develop effective, evidence-based means to promote adaptive behavior change. In recognition of this impetus, The Handbook of Behavior Change provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory, research, and practice on behavior change. It summarizes current evidence-based approaches to behavior change in chapters authored by leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, behavioral science, economics, philosophy, and implementation science. It is the go-to resource for researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers looking for current knowledge on behavior change and guidance on how to develop effective interventions to change behavior.