Miguel Olivas Lujan take on evidence based management

Just last week I received a nice email from Miguel Olivas Lujan. He just became aware of this little blog and was kind enough to attach his article on evidence based management, which was not yet in my collection. Miguel is professor of administrative sciences at Clarion University in Pennsylvania. The article is titled Evidence Based Management: A Business Necessity for Hispanices which he published in The Business Journal for Hispanic research. Subscribers to this journal can read the whole article here. Non subscribers can send an email to Miguel for a personal copy. (this prevents any copyrights infringement on my part...). Since he wrote an article on evidence based management, I thought it would only be fair to ask him some fundamental questions on evidence based management.

1. What do you view as the core idea and purpose of EBMgt?
The core idea in my opinion is –first of all—the systematic use of research methods in managerial decision making. But the decision maker’s judgment and the integration of stakeholders’ values are also essential components that have often been overlooked. Managerial problems are often so complex that decision makers have to extrapolate (also known as making “best guesses”) from previous experiences because a solution has not been tried in a particular context. Also, there are many areas (take for example, international management) whereby stakeholders’ values (particularly customers’ and employees’ values) are such that “what has been found” in one context might not work in another (a classic example would be managing by objectives or MBO). The core purpose is making managers and organizations more effective and rational, less wasteful, yet respectful of differences and mindful of personal competencies and weaknesses (yes, I’ll admit this sounds much as a “pie in the sky” but I’m an idealist at heart).

2. What do you think would be the benefit(s) for organizations and society as a whole if management would be based more on evidence?
Greater efficiency, less politics (well, of the “spinning wheels in vain” kind; I agree that the use of evidence per se will have political repercussions), accelerated progress, more competitiveness…

3. What progress has the EBMgt movement currently been making?
At this point, I believe we have been able to start a much needed conversation. I wish I could report a greater impact but (well, speaking from the academic experience) it’s not easy to dedicate the time this movement deserves when teaching our students is what brings bread to the table. Now, the conversation is not “without teeth” either! Denise Rousseau, along with David Denyer and Josh Manning have raised the standard for literary reviews; Sara Rynes has been documenting specific problems and making actionable recommendations within the Human Resource Management profession; Joan Pearce just wrote a new, and already award-winning textbook focusing on research findings; Jean Bartunek, Gary Latham, Sara Rynes, and others have individually been writing on how academicians can better communicate their findings to practitioners, etc. Plus, the fact that you, Tracy Altman, Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer have been bringing this topic to the “blogosphere” (I probably should include my blog here too) also attests to the fact that there is an important need to be satisfied. But, as Denise stated in her response to this question, it may take “a generation before a new evidence-informed practice takes hold.”

4. What future do you envision for EBMgt in (research and practice)?
More focused work! The need is too important to be left unattended! As my article in the Business Journal of Hispanic Research suggests, if other fields such as Medicine and Education have been able to make such significant inroads through the Cochrane and the Campbell collaborations, why not Management? It is evident that the ride will not be smooth as the inertia to do things the old way is quite strong… but, as we say in Spanish, “Roma no se hizo en un día” (Rome was not built in a day) ;-D

Thank you very much Miguel for sharing your insights.

Denise Rousseau's take on Evidence Based Management

A few weeks ago, I got in touch with Denise Rousseau, professor of Organizational Behaviour the Carnegie Mellon University and one of the figureheads of the emerging 'Evidence Based Management' school of thought. She was visiting colleagues in Ireland, but took the time to answer a few of my questions. Jeffrey Pfeffer also replied, but was swamped in his work and preparing to leave the country for an extensive trip abroad. He'll probably give his point of view later. Bob Sutton hasn't been in touch yet. Today I got in touch with another leading thinker in this field. His name is Rob Briner, professor of Organizational Psychology from Birkbeck College, University of London, who already collaborates with Denise on the Evidence Based Management Collaborative. But, back to Denise.

1. What do you view as the core idea and purpose of EBM?
EBMgt in my opinion is family of approaches to improving the quality of managerial decisions and organizational practices by combining in a more systematic fashion
1) relevant findings from mgt/social science research,
2) business facts and metrics with
3) more skillful individual judgments.

2. What do you think would be the benefit(s) for organizations and society as a whole if management would be based more on evidence?
In both public policy and organizational decisions, we possess so much more relevant knowledge and information than is actually ever used. Improving the uptake of scientific evidence with better understanding of how people organize and make decisions  translates into better quality decisions and easier implementation.

3. What progress has the EBM movement currently been making?
I would say that there are three legs in the EBMgt tripod and on 2 of the 3 we see some progress, though much work remains to be done. The two legs were we see developments are;

• education where there is greater attention in teaching managers and other practitioners who can benefit from managerial knowledge (e.g., nurses, social workers, doctors, public policy professionals, etc.) and
• scholarship/research, where somewhat more attention is being paid to identifying what we can confidently know from mgt research, as opposed to always focusing on brand new ideas or new theories at the expense of assessing progress to date.  

You can probably gather that I believe the weakest link (but really all need work!) is managerial USE of quality business facts in making decisions let alone any use of or reliance on social science findings in the decisions being made.

Is there evidence of evidence based management getting a foothold in organizations? I am doubtful. Hit or miss, and it may be that as in medicine, it takes a generation before a new evidence-informed practice takes hold.

4. What future do you envision for EBM in (research and practice)?
This is the project of a community, perhaps several communities, and a generation, I think we are seeing ENERGY in several communities to move EBMgt forward. I am hopeful and patient!

Thank you very much.

Food for thought: Mark Learmonth's view on evidence based management

In my exploratory search for the state of the art of the evidence based management movement, I stumbled on this short paper by dr. Mark Learmonth, Associate Professor in Organization Theory at the University of Nottingham. This is a must read for all the evidence based management enthusiasts. Maybe not always what you want to hear or read, but definitely food for thought on the freedom of conducting research and the politics which are involved in securing research grants and the pursuit of a academic career. Although, criticizing the EBM proponents by challenging their intellectual credibility does not make his case stronger. In the abstract of his contribution which is called Evidence-Based Management: A Backlash Against Pluralism in Organizational Studies?, he states:

The rise of ‘evidence-based management’ (EBM) is read as the latest form of resistance to pluralism—one that might prove particularly hard to refuse given the popularity of many other forms of evidence-based practices. So I explore the prospects for EBM within organization studies and some of its implications for those who value the continuation of pluralistic forms of analysis in organizational research. 

In 1993 Jeffrey Pfeffer bemoaned the proliferation of theoretical perspectives in the field of organizational studies. He advocates the paradigmatic unity which was enforced by a group of scholars who imposed their views in the field of economics. This was a good thing, because it enabled coherent research and more advancements in the field of economics. Organization studies could benefit in the same way. His appeal fell on deaf ears and it seemed that the pluralists of methodology in social sciene had won the battle. Learmonth is still not convinced. He worries that the evidence based management movement is a political project and that the emergence of the evidence based practice will lead to methodological fundamentalism. In social science, he says, evidence is never just there for the researcher to find it, it is always necessary to construct the evidence in some way, a process that is inherently ideological and always contestable.

Update: I reread the short paper and distilled the main arguments made by Mark.

• Evidence based management limits (what counts as) legitimate research methodologies (leads to fundamentalism).
  
• What works tends to assume elite definitions of effectiveness.
• Evidence based management has a top management bias.
• Evidence is not objective or neutral.This leads to philosophical discussions on science.
• Evidence based management is a political project.
• Evidence based management threatens funding for independent research.

I wonder if he still feels so strongly about the points he's made. Maybe he'll respond.

Is the evidence based management movement dead?

When you go to see a doctor, you would like him or her to make medical decisions based on scientific evidence and research. Not stick the first needle or pill in you, because he or she heard rumours that it just might work. However, in management we are still in the middle ages of science, where the alchemists still try to make gold from lead. And by alchemists I mean all types of managers (managers, consultants, coaches, interim-managers, project managers, etc.). One of the reasons why managers still make decisions based on anecdotal evidence, gut feeling or a whim is the fact that management is not a profession. Well, perhaps it is, but we lack a body of knowledge and skills. Everybody with decent qualifications can become a manager in contrast with nurses, judges or engineers. Management is still treated as a 'skill' and if you have a better story than the next guy, you just found yourself a new career.

Around the year 2000, the evidence based management movement emerged. It is a movement to explicitly use the current, best evidence in management decision making. Its roots are in evidence based medicine, a quality movement to apply the scientific method to medical practice.

Evidence-based management (EBMgt) entails managerial decisions and organizational practices informed by the best available scientific evidence. Like its counterparts in medicine (e.g., Sackett, et al., 2000) and education (e.g., Thomas & Pring, 2004), the judgments EBMgt entails also consider the circumstances and ethical concerns managerial decisions involve. In contrast to medicine and education, however, EBMgt today is only hypothetical. Contemporary managers and management educators make limited use of the vast behavioral science evidence base relevant to effective management practice (Walshe & Rundall, 1999; Rousseau, 2005, 2006; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2001). (Source: en.wikipedia.org)

Last month the annual Academy of Management meeting was hosted in Chicago and a couple of my colleagues who work for Universities went to meet people and take in the latest developments on Organisational and Management Science. The Evidence Based Management movement is still there, but progress is really slow. Most developments are exchanged in closed communities and you really have to make an effort to dig up new information and stay in the loop of recent developments. I'm now in the process of preparing an interview (together with my friend Coert Visser) with the four figureheads of the Evidence Based Management movement. These are Denise M. Rousseau, Tracy Altman, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton. Interviews take time, but I'm confident we'll get some answers. Wait and see what they have to say about the future of Evidence Based Management.