March 23, 2017
10:00-11:00 a.m.
Please note: This event is for invited researchers only.
Title:
Measuring Positive Beliefs at an Organizational Level: The BluePrint™ Cultural Assessment Tool
Talk Description:
The notion of a positive organization begins with leadership, but a fundamental shift occurs in its creation when employees perceive their leaders and organizations as promoters of positive beliefs. Yet there are few instruments currently available that can capture employees’ perceptions of their workplaces as positive promoters. In this presentation, Mike O’Brien and Amy Young share their work in creating and evaluating the psychometric properties of the BluePrint™ assessment tool that is designed to measure employees’ perceptions of positive beliefs at the organizational, leadership, and personal level. The instrument examines both liberating and limiting beliefs in five domains (efficacy, goal setting, approach, relationships, and altruism) that are key facilitators of individual and organizational performance. Drawing on cultural data collected from three companies (South African Insurance Company, Hong Kong based communications company, bank in the US), the researchers discuss the instrument’s factor structure, internal reliability, test-retest reliability, and predictive validity as well as their experiences with using the instrument in the field and its potential application in both applied and academic work.
Biographies:
Mike O’Brien is currently the Director of Research for The Pacific Institute, a global consultancy that leverages positive psychology to enable people, teams, and organizations to develop optimal mindsets and to achieve extraordinary results. With over 30 years as a global leadership and culture expert, he has worked with hundreds of organizations to improve leadership to drive cultural transformations. Mike completed his Masters of Education at The University of Western Ontario in Canada and his undergraduate work in finance and economics.
Amy Young is currently a faculty member at the Ross School of Business where she teaches business communications. She holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of Michigan and enjoys exploring the intersection of interpersonal communications, positive psychology, and business practices. Her research interests include positive communications in the business setting, assessment tools, and the use of digital communication systems to create positive organizations.
Research is the heart of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS), and we want to make sure that we support each other in developing high quality research. To that end, we created the Adderley Positive Research Incubator for sharing and encouraging POS-related research ideas that are at various stages of development.
Learn more about the Adderley Positive Research Incubator here and direct questions about individual sessions to Julia Lee at jooalee@umich.edu.