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Papers by Triona Tammemagi

Many companies fail to successfully implement behaviour based safety (BBS) programmes within thei... more Many companies fail to successfully implement behaviour based safety (BBS) programmes within their organisation. Often failures are linked to the implementation strategy rather than the programmes themselves. BBS can be introduced without a clear rationale and can create fear of change and lack of trust, leading to low employee buy-in. ESB is Ireland's premier electricity utility and one of Europe's leading engineering and consultancy companies. This paper outlines the structure of a BBS framework at ESB which seeks to (i) facilitate employee involvement and (ii) build trust through leadership alignment. Combining best practice research from behavioural science and crew resource management, ESB's approach seeks to capture the hearts and minds for safety. Details of this approach are provided so as to enable leaders in high reliability industries to introduce BBS in a way that produces employee involvement and develops trust and leadership commitment.

Goal setting research has consistently shown that high specific goals lead to increases in perfor... more Goal setting research has consistently shown that high specific goals lead to increases in performance; however, the effects of unattainable goals on performance have been inconsistent, and the roles of both time and feedback on persistence have been neglected in laboratory studies. Behavioural explanations that have been provided for the processes by which goals and feedback affect behaviour have focused to a large extent on direct contact with contingencies and, as such, have had difficulty in accounting for complex human behaviour. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the effect of unattainable goals on behaviour, and in so doing, contribute to current behaviour analytic accounts of goal setting and feedback. Five studies were conducted in order to investigate the effect of goal level on performance, persistence, and feedback-solicitation. Study 1 replicated prior research demonstrating that high goals lead to higher levels of performance. Study 2 examined the effect of feedback on performance and persistence. Feedback enhanced performance, but did not significantly affect persistence. In order to examine whether or not participants would choose to seek feedback, the task was modified for Study 3 such that participants were presented with the option to choose feedback. Results showed that feedback seeking reduced in the presence of an unattainable goal. For Study 4, goal sessions were lengthened in order to investigate further the effect of an unattainable goal on persistence over time. Individual-level analyses revealed that a greater number of participants who exhibited low levels of performance during baseline demonstrated a decreasing trend in performance during the goal conditions. Study 5 investigated the effect of a series of unattainable goals on performance, persistence, and feedback seeking in the longest work sessions utilised in the series of studies. Persistence reduced in a group who received an initial extremely unattainable goal, while participants persisted in a group who received an initial marginally unattainable goal. The implications of these findings are considered and discussed in terms of current behavioural accounts of goal setting

The workplace is a complex and ever-changing environment. The defining characteristic of all orga... more The workplace is a complex and ever-changing environment. The defining characteristic of all organizations is that individuals work together to achieve a common goal. Organizations depend on interconnected behavior by various people, because work is not produced in isolation (e.g., people work together to produce a product or service and deliver that to its customers). This interdependence is at the heart of the complexity of the influences on human behavior in organizations. Each organization has a unique culture, a set of values and practices that distinguish it from other organizations. These values and practices (e.g., recruitment, incentive schemes, performance appraisal systems, labor relations) contribute to the personal environment of each employee at each level of the organization. The contingencies within this personal environment determine whether an employee is creative, engaged, and productive, or frustrated, cynical and uninterested.Not peer reviewe

Prior research suggests that performance feedback enhances the effect of a goal on performance. T... more Prior research suggests that performance feedback enhances the effect of a goal on performance. The current study examined the effect of goal level on feedbacksolicitation. Participants were exposed to five conditions: baseline, a low, attainable goal, a second baseline, a high, unattainable goal, and a fifth condition in which participants were required to choose between a high or low goal. Presentation of the high and low goal was counterbalanced to avoid order effects. Participants had the option to choose ‘time remaining’ or ‘score’ feedback throughout the testing by clicking a button on the task screen. Results were examined for frequency of feedback solicitation per condition. Feedback-soliciting responses occurred more frequently during the low goal condition than any other condition. The lowest frequency of feedback-soliciting responses occurred during the high goal condition.

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 2013

The study sought to quantify the beneficial effect of goal setting on work performance, and to ch... more The study sought to quantify the beneficial effect of goal setting on work performance, and to characterize the persistence or deterioration of goal-directed behavior over time. Twenty-six participants completed a computer-based data entry task. Performance was measured during an initial baseline, a goal setting intervention that consisted of either a high, unattainable goal (high goal condition) or a low, attainable goal (low goal condition), followed by a return to baseline, and a second goal setting intervention (the alternate goal to the first goal). In the fifth condition, each participant was given the choice to work in either the high or low goal condition. Greater performance increases were reliably observed during the high goal condition than during the low goal condition, but patterns of persistence or deterioration varied across participants. The implications of the findings for the development and understanding of goal setting interventions in the workplace are explored.

Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 2013