Evidence-Based Management: A New Approach to Teaching the Practice of Management

1. PDW, Annual AOM 2011, San Antonio Evidence-Based Management: A New Approach to Teaching the Practice of Management Eric Barends Rob Briner Blake Jelley Lori Peterson Denise Rousseau Roye Werner

2. PDW, Annual AOM 2011, San Antonio • Rob Briner EBMgt: What’s stopping us? • Roye WernerWithout a map • Eric Barends 5-step pull approach • Blake Jelley Strategy & Assignments • Lori Peterson Lessons Learned • - Subgroups Experiences, Feedback, Support

3. PDW, Annual AOM 2011, San Antonio Part 1: EBMgt: What’s Stopping Us? Rob Briner

4. THE UNDERLYING ARGUMENT Four propositions: • Research produced in business schools could be useful to organizations • Drawing on the best available evidence (including business school research) is likely to improve management decisions • Managers and organizations do not appear to be strongly aware of nor use research findings • We need to increase awareness of and access to research findings

6. WHAT’S STOPING US? • The quick fix problem • The management fad (fashion) problem • Why don’t some academics and researchers like EBMgt? • Why don’t some managers and practitioners like EBMgt?

7. QUICK FIXES • What is the quick fix? A ‘solution’ which • Focuses on style and presentation not content • Is always slower than we hoped • Usually doesn’t work • Is followed by another quick fix • So why do we do quick fixes? • Can be career-enhancing for managers • Speed is often valued over accuracy • Do we crave quick and easy solutions? • So who needs or wants academic research?

16. MANAGEMENT FADS (1) The nearly-forgotten fads • Scientific Management/Taylorism • Business Process Reengineering • Management by results • Excellence • Total Quality Management • Learning Organizations • Knowledge Management

17. MANAGEMENT FADS (2) The fads that haven’t been forgotten (yet) • Talent management • Management development • Executive coaching • Emotional intelligence • Employee engagement • Myers Briggs Type Indicator • Belbin Team Roles General concern about the destructive impact of fads from both practitioners and researchers

28. FADS* SEEM TO BE ATTRACTIVE, COMPELLING AND IRRESISTIBLE • Promise to deliver a lot and fast • Appear simple • New and shiny • Will make everything alright and help contain anxieties around intractable problems • Help user feel effective and cutting edge • Bits of some fads may work in some contexts • So who needs or wants academic research? *Evidence-based management not a fad!

33. WHY DON’T SOME ACADEMICS LIKE EBMgt? • Ambivalence about the value and applicability of management research • Few incentives to do systematic reviews or CATs • Primary research (collecting new data) valued more highly than secondary research (reviewing existing data) • EBMgt not academics’ responsibility – this is about practice not research • Some concern that systematic reviews will expose the limited nature of management research • Some academics are like ‘gurus’ and feel that EBMgt might show their claims to be untrue • Few incentives to get involved

34. WHY DON’T SOME MANAGERS OR PRACTITIONERS LIKE EBMgt? (1) • Undermines formal authority • They feel it constrains freedom to make managerial decisions • Speed valued and rewarded more than accuracy • Feel they cannot use their own experience and judgment (not true) • Managers not necessarily rewarded for doing what works (organizations rarely evaluate) • Few incentives to get involved

35. WHY DON’T SOME MANAGERS OR PRACTITIONERS LIKE EBMgt? (2) • Huge pressure to adopt fads • Have too high expectations of ‘evidence’ (e.g., that it should give the answer otherwise it’s not worth knowing, media representations of science – focus on ‘breakthrough’ single studies – causes distrust of scientific findings)

36. WHY DON’T SOME MANAGERS OR PRACTITIONERS LIKE EBMgt? (2) • Huge incentives and pressure to adopt fads And there we see the power of any big managerial idea [or fad or fashion]. It may be smart, like quality, or stupid, like conglomeration. Either way, if everybody's doing it, the pressure to do it too is immense. If it turns out to be smart, great. If it turns out to be stupid, well, you were in good company and most likely ended up no worse off than your competitors. Your company's board consists mostly of CEOs who were probably doing it at their companies. How mad can they get?

37. WHY DON’T SOME MANAGERS OR PRACTITIONERS LIKE EBMgt? (2) • Huge incentives and pressure to adopt fads The true value of conventional management wisdom is not that it's wise or dumb, but that it's conventional. It makes one of the hardest jobs in the world, managing an organization, a little easier. By following it, managers everywhere see a way to drag their sorry behinds through another quarter without getting fired. And isn't that, really, what it's all about? (Colvin, 2004, Fortune)

38. SO WHAT’S STOPPING US? • Few incentives for researchers, business school teachers, or practitioners • Not a case of removing barriers • Need to start doing it through our teaching and education to demonstrate the benefits of evidence-based approaches for individuals, professions, and organizations • ‘We’ are stopping us!

39. Part 2: Without a Map Life in the (EBMgt) information universe Roye Werner

40. Finding the evidence: what I’ll cover: • Where does this fit in the teaching of EBMgt? • How is information on how to manage structured? • How is research on how to manage structured? • Tips for teachers • Tips for searchers • Tips for managers • Future visions

41. Where this fits in the 5 Steps • Formulate an answerable question • Search for the best available evidence • Critically appraise the evidence • Integrate the evidence with your managerial expertise and organizational concerns and apply • Evaluate the process

42. Map: Management Advice What they see Peer-reviewed (vague estimate) Found on Google?

43. Map: Management Advice What you want them to see EBSCO (Business Source Premier, etc.) Databases (3 popular ones) ProQuest (ABI Inform, etc.) Google Scholar JSTOR Academic books (soon to be mixed with databases) Library discovery service, (Summon, Worldcat Local, Primo Central, etc.) or federated searching program

44. Tips for Teachers: 1 Find out what databases your university library offers

45. Tips for Teachers: 2 Work with your librarians. They can teach classes, confer with students, create guides. They want to do this!

46. Tips for Teachers: 2 Example of a librarian-created guide

47. Tips for Teachers: 3 Offer hands-on training and practice

48. Tips for Teachers: 4 Put links to resources on your course management system

49. Tips for Teachers: 5 Google Scholar – excellent results, but text not part of the deal • Not so good: • Less control over search • Some non-scholarly items • Duplicates • No citation help • Connection to univ. unclear • Needs subscriptions • Good: • Powerful search • Recognized • Wider range • Easy, intuitive • Some things are free • More languages • Preferred route for many

50. Tips for Searchers Some basic principles • Databases are different from search engines – more structured, can take advantage of human-assigned categories • Boolean AND, OR, NOT, parentheses – combining sets • “Quotation marks define a phrase” usually • Truncation symbols (often *) • Field searching – limiting to title, abstract, subject fields • Give “Advanced Search” a try • Look for a tutorial – 5 minutes there can save you much more in your search