Is There Such a Thing as “Evidence-based Management”?

1. Is There Such a Thing as “Evidence-based Management”? Denise M. Rousseau President, Academy of Management Heinz School of Public Policy & Management and Tepper School of Business Carnegie Mellon University

2. A blue collar child’s view: Managers are villains

3. Three Things I Learned in Business School as a Professor • Many MBAs never had a ‘great boss’ but hoped for better (and to become one) • Never worked for a great company (a reason for going to B-School), but wanted to (or to start one) • Looked for ways make a business case for organizations that were good for people too

4. The Great Hope • Through research and education . . . • Managers will make less arbitrary and more reflective decisions • Managers can better fulfill the aspirations they have for themselves (“their better nature”) • The Great Disappointment . . . • Research-based learning doesn’t transfer well to their workplaces • Managers rely on personal experience with no real evidence whatsoever (“shoot from the hip”) or • Managers follow bad advice on weak evidence > 35,000 business books in English (source: Pfeffer and Sutton, in press, “what’s new isn’t necessarily true)

5. The “Evidence-based Movement” Zeitgeist • E-B Policing (Treating criminal suspects politely lowers repeat offenses) • E-B Education (In secondary schools, social promotion’s benefits outweigh its costs) • E-B Medicine (Caregiver hand washing reduces infections. Extensive infrastructures in many nations promote evidence-based healthcare, e.g. in US National Institute of Health, Institute of Medicine, etc.) • E-B Practice is paradigm for making decisions that mobilizes cause-effect knowledge to guide practice toward more desirable results.

6. Why Evidence-based Management Matters • RESULTS--Informed decisions, better outcomes • IMPROVED INFORMATION--Create demand for better quality information—continue trends QWL introduced 30+ years ago • BETTER IMPLEMENTATION—NIH moratorium • COMPETENCE: More systematic and valid managerial learning over time—learning to learn • ORGANIZATIONAL LEGITIMACY--Basis for a “trustworthy” culture where information is systematically gathered, shared and evaluated (e.g., Open-Book Management)

7. What Evidence-based Management Is (Denise’s view) • Learning about cause-effect connections in professional practices (Goal setting & Cognitive Capacity) • Isolate the variations that measurably affect desired outcomes (Number of goals can matter) • Culture of evidence-based decision making (Big “E” & little “e”) • Building decision supports to promote practices that the evidence supports (e.g., checklist: #, specificity, timeframe of goals) • Community information sharing to reduce over-use, under-use and mis-use of organizational & managerial practices

8. Links Between Management Practices and Research? • Unexplained wide variations in managerial practice patterns (e.g., goal setting, feedback) • Poor uptake of management practices of known effectiveness (e.g., developmental goal setting) • Persistent use of practices (e.g., downsizing, punishment) known to be ineffective • The result is a Research-Practice Gap • Little EVIDENCE-BASED Management

9. Research-Practice Gapis Familiar in Medicine • Germ theory of disease is well-accepted and understood (Simmelweiss in 1860s) • Yet observation in hospitals indicates that hand washing occurs <33% of time needed to control infections • Knowledge is not enough (Solution-focus is also needed: feedback, environmental facilitators of hand washing such as sinks in room, hand sanitizers carried in caregiver’s pocket)

10. Why This Gap among Managers? • Manager’s don’t know the evidence • < 1% of HR managers read academic literature regularly-- in contrast to marketing (Rynes et al.) • Fear loss of control (recall Scientific Management’s greatest resistance was from supervisors/managers) • Few organizations do their own managerial research NONETHELESS: Some countries like Singapore and Finland promote management research and its dissemination

11. …Why the gap? • Management is not a “profession” • Instead, managers have diverse disciplinary backgrounds • No formal body of shared knowledge • No shared language or terminology • Personal experience dominates how managers approach their jobs • Managerial decisions often involve others and many require compromise, politics, and responses to contradictory incentives

12. ….Why the gap? • Little appreciation for scientific method • Uniqueness paradox interferes with transfer of research findings between settings • No good access to management research— • We do not have bibliographic services to index and make research available to managers (e.g. in medicine, Medline/Cochran Collaboration)

13. One Other BIG Reason for Lack of Evidence-Based Management… • We typically don’t educate managers (e.g., UG, MBA, Execs) to read the research literature or use evidence. • My biggest surprise as AOM President (and most frequent email topic from members)….. • AOM member/educators say our journals aren’t useful

14. Evidence-based Mgt & Teaching • Weak Research-Education connection (Herzberg lives! But perhaps not Weber.) • Student expectations drive course content (don’t know—yet—that E-B mgt exists and works) • Dearth of models for how real managers use research evidence or systematically gather data. (Check the cases) • The expectations students leave with upon graduation (Do they know the evidence-based is growing? Do they know how to tap into it? )

15. Creating E-B Managers Starts with Educators • WHAT CAN WE DO TO PROMOTE EVIDENCE-MANAGEMENT THROUGH OUR TEACHING?

16. Creating E-B Managers Starts with Educators • Manage student expectations! (Learning Contract with an Ever-Increasing E-B) • Encouraging student awareness, appreciation and active use of evidence: Identifying where to look for research evidence; Understanding underlying principles, Practicing applying them. We give them “Evidence” (lecture/textbook), but they don’t OWN it. Telling them may not be enough. Students must actively acquire evidence, use it where possible, and reflect—and try again.

17. Creating E-B Managers Starts with Educators • Modeling E-B practice in our teaching: Use psychological research on learning to guide course/curriculum practices: • Model expert level of behavior: Identify novice-to-expert pathway • Develop skill and competence through practice (e.g. projects) • Evaluate skills, student learning over time. Redesign course PRN

18. Need to Change Management Attitudes and Behavior • Regarding Business Knowledge • Champions • Networks • Access • Partnerships • Meta-skills: turning evidence to action

19. A member of the rare evidence-based manager species “De Scientia Procurator"

21. Cochran Collaborative:A Healthcare Example Mgt Can Emulate? Worldwide community devoted to promoting access to evidence-based healthcare Members collaborate to summarize state of the art knowledge on specific practices identified as important and under/over/mis-used Face-to-face meetings promote community building, commitment, and learning Free on-line access to information, designed for ease and speed of use (How about a Mgtline?)

22. Encore: Why Evidence-based Management Matters • Better outcomes, improved implementation [Those who use evidence (E & e) and learn to use it well have comparative advantage] • Managers and Educators (and Researchers?) learn more systematically throughout their careers • Researchers/Educators/Practitioners become part of a lively community with many feedback loops where information is systematically gathered, evaluated, disseminated, implemented, evaluated, and shared