The last few days, I have had pleasant email exchanges with Dennis Tourish (University of Kent) and Mark Learmonth (University of Nottingham). Dennis will join in the EBM debate later and Mark still defends his arguments against the emerging evidence based management movement. He also sent me a few articles. Since he published his short paper in ORGANIZATION, he has become a little milder. I've invited him to respond on the blog and share his current views with the rest of the readers.
After reading several publications, there are actually three questions which fascinate me about the evidence based management movement. Please share your thoughts in the comments or write your own posting.
- What is the core idea and purpose of EBM? What would be the benefit for organizations and society as a whole if management would be based more on evidence?
- What progress has the EBM movement currently been making? Is there evidence of evidence based management getting a foothold in organizations?
- What is future for EBM in (research and practice)?
Hello Richard;
ReplyDeleteFirst an answer to your questions
#1 Many current practices rely more on tacit knowledge when there is explicit inquiry based knowledge available or that could be developed through an inquiry process. The benefit for organizations would be in improved functionality and decision-making.
#2 I have yet to see evidence that EBMgmt is making inroads inorganizations.
#3 I believe that the future is still being written. One idea I would suggest is that additional infrastructures are need to support the inquiry and dissemination processes. Current academic processes are too fragmented to be used by practitioners. I believe that the development of such an infrastructure starts with an in-depth understanding of the nature of the inquiry process to be supported. That is where an article I reviewed by Kenneth Howe's comes into play. Please take a look if you have time ( http://howardjohnson.edublogs.org/ ). I believe it may clarify some of the concerns of Dr Learmonth.
PS I would love to hear of your previously mentioned correspondence with him
Have a great day
Hi Howard,
ReplyDeleteI have to read the article by Kenneth Howe first, before I can react to your points. But, to satisfy some of your curiosity about the reply by Mark Learmonth. He wrote a nice email, where he was delighted that I took an interest in his work. He agreed with the summary of the main points he made in his article and was now milder about the EBM movement. Mainly because he thinks that the EBM 'bandwagon', as he calls it, still doesn't have a foothold in the Academic world. I've invited him to write a response himself. Who knows?
Cheers!,
Richard