The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

Over the next decade, more than 30 Western countries are expected to reach super-aging status, with over 20% of their populations aged 65 and older. This demographic shift will have far-reaching consequences for societies, organizations, markets, and individuals. This essay introduces the Silver Economy as a practical and integrative lens for understanding these changes and for guiding business and policy responses. It outlines a research and action agenda organized around three key arenas of transformation—workplaces, markets, and firms—where organizations can take proactive steps to support healthy longevity and inclusive participation. Within these arenas, nine guideposts are proposed to connect insights across disciplines and levels of analysis. Collectively, this agenda seeks to create value on three fronts: improving individual wellbeing, enabling sustainable business growth, and contributing to a resilient and inclusive society.

Although organization development (OD) is grounded in behavioral science, there remains a persistent gap between abstract behavioral concepts and applied, psychologically precise tools for navigating change at individual, relational, and systemic levels. This paper introduces Behaviorally Informed Organization Development (BIOD), a conceptual framework that integrates three evidence-based counseling models: Motivational Interviewing (MI), Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT), and Family Systems Therapy (FST); each contributes distinct mechanisms: MI deepens readiness for change and values alignment, SFT accelerates strengths-based goal pursuit and forward momentum, and FST reveals insights into group dynamics and legacy patterns that sustain behaviors over time. Together, these approaches enrich core OD processes such as action research, appreciative inquiry, team development, and culture transformation by providing psychologically grounded interventions that foster trust, reduce resistance, and support sustainable human-centered change. The article offers theoretical justification and practical implications for applying BIOD across diverse organizational contexts.

Due to digital connectivity, contemporary employees’ work and related experiences have changed in many ways. While connectivity can improve efficiency and well-being by enhancing workers’ autonomy and flexibility, it can simultaneously increase stress, escalate connectivity expectations, and hamper work-life boundary management. This study focuses on connectivity and its related well-being experiences, adopting and developing the conceptualization of connectivity regulation. Qualitative data were collected through an interview-diary-interview method and iteratively analyzed. The findings suggest that employees proactively and reactively regulate their connectivity depending on their boundary management, task prioritization, and role demands within the organization. Notably, employees who adopt pre-planned, proactive connectivity regulation strategies experience both digital exhaustion or digital balance similarly to those who adopt an adaptable and flexible reactive approach to connectivity regulation. The study furthers the understanding of the complexity of employees’ connectivity-related experiences and contributes to theory and practice of employee well-being and digital connectivity in organizations.

We investigate the effects of two components of agile management—agile practices and agile mindset—across various industries through quantitative research. Previous research on agile management at the organizational level has chiefly involved case studies or conceptual discussions. We address the gap in quantitative empirical research by developing a scale for an agile mindset. This study follows Hinkin's suggestion on the scale-development process. The data were collected in two phases, totaling 371 responses. The first phase used 200 questionnaires for exploratory factor analysis to validate the scale. The second phase gathered 171 questionnaires from 51 teams for confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical linear modeling. We found that a team's agile mindset and agile practices can promote an innovative climate within the team, enhancing individual innovative behavior. We underscore that an agile mindset is an individual attitude and can be a shared action guideline within the team.

The practice of coaching has grown dramatically over the last 30 years, though research on its effectiveness still lags behind. In 2003, a series of discussions led us to explore an approach to coaching grounded in intentional change theory (ICT). We introduced “coaching with compassion” in a 2006 article focused on stress and renewal in leaders, followed by a 2013 theoretical framing in JABS highlighting the benefits of coaching to the positive emotional attractor within ICT. This current article reflects on progress in research on coaching effectiveness—defined as sustained, desired change—and related processes since the 2013 publication. We review findings on the psycho-physiological aspects of effective coaching for both coach and client. As some discoveries challenge prevailing practices, we also explore key implications for future research and coaching approaches.

Bootleg innovation, self-initiated innovation by employees without formal organizational approval, plays an important role in enhancing organizational adaptability, especially in fast-changing digital work environments. While previous research has focused on structural or managerial antecedents, limited attention has been given to the cognitive and psychological foundations that motivate such informal innovation. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we examine how paradox mindset, learning from failure, and strength use jointly influence employees’ engagement in bootleg innovation. Using two-wave survey data from 518 employees in a large information and communications technology company, our findings show that paradox mindset promotes bootleg innovation both directly and indirectly by enhancing learning from failure and use of personal strengths. These results suggest that employees’ internal resources and adaptive cognition are key to driving innovation beyond formal roles. This study contributes by uncovering mechanisms that explain bootleg innovation and offers practical implications for supporting informal innovation in digitally transforming workplaces.

This article illustrates how design thinking can structure the development process of a practical toolkit for schools to address cyber mistreatment from pupils, parents, and other parties as a workplace issue. The process included an exploratory phase to identify gaps in schools’ understanding and handling, followed by iterative generative and evaluative phases. Based on the Psychosocial Safety Climate framework, necessary organizational capacities were defined. Prototypes of toolkit components, including vignette videos for discussions among staff, a text guide for policy and infrastructure development, and an informative video, were refined through stakeholder feedback. A summative evaluation confirmed the usefulness of these resources for engaging staff and fostering discussions on cyber mistreatment. A themed webpage was created for free access to the toolkit. This study contributes to existing debates on how academic research can impact practice by emphasizing the usefulness of design thinking in creating innovative, user-centered solutions for capacity development.

Growth into new market segments drives business success – until it doesn't. As business school professors who also coach, train, and consult for executives, we noticed puzzling patterns in growth-related corporate disasters. The firms grew profitably for years using standard decision-making frameworks. But the same frameworks created ethical blindness when the firms moved from familiar customer segments into unfamiliar ones, causing serious harm to millions of new customers. To help managers, we identified critical red flags that signal when growth strategies risk causing societal harm and developed three practical tools that have proven effective in our workshops. Our experience shows that standard growth frameworks excel at identifying opportunities but fail to account for ethical risks when products safe for one segment become dangerous for another. Ignoring these warnings doesn't just hurt customers – it destroys billions in shareholder value.