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Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is an emerging movement to explicitly use the

current, best evidence in management and decision-making. It is part of the larger
movement towards evidence-based practices.
Contents
 1Overview
 2Practice
 3Alternatives and objections
 4Supporting research
 5See also
 6References
Overview[edit]
Evidence-based management entails managerial decisions and organizational practices
informed by the best available evidence.[1] As with other evidence-based practice, this is
based on the three following principles:
 1) published peer-reviewed (often in management or social science journals) research

evidence that bears on whether and why a particular management practice works;
 2) judgement and experience from contextual management practice, to understand the
organization and interpersonal dynamics in a situation and determine the risks and benefits
of available actions;
 3) the preferences and values of those affected.[2][3]
While, like its counterparts in medicine,[4] and education[5] EBMgt considers the
circumstances and ethical concerns managerial decisions involve, it tends not to make
extensive use of behavioral science relevant to effective management practice. [6][7][8][9]
Practice[edit]
An important part of EBMgt is educating current and future managers in evidence-based
practices. The EBMgt website maintained at Stanford University provides a repository of
syllabi, cases, and tools that can inform the teaching of evidence-based management.
Efforts to promote EBMgt face greater challenges than have other evidence-based
initiatives. In medicine there is more consensus as to what constitutes best evidence
than in the social sciences more generally, and management in particular. Unlike
medicine, nursing, education, and law enforcement, "Management" is not a profession.
There are no established legal or cultural requirements regarding education or
knowledge for an individual to become a manager. Managers have diverse disciplinary
backgrounds. A college degree may be required for an MBA – but not to be a manager.
No formal body of shared knowledge characterizes managers, making it unlikely that
peer pressure will be exerted to promote use of evidence by any manager who refuses
to do so. Little shared language or terminology exists, making it difficult for managers to
hold discussions of evidence or evidence-based practices. [7][8] For this reason, the
adoption of evidence-based practices is likely to be organization-specific, where leaders
take the initiative to build an evidence-based culture. [1] Organizations successfully
pursuing evidence-based management typically go through cycles of experimentation
and redesign of their practices to create an evidence-based culture consistent with their
values and mission.
Practices indicative of an evidence-based organizational culture include:
 systematic accumulation and analysis of organizational data;

 problem-based reading and discussion of research summaries; and,
 making decisions informed by best available research and organizational information.
Organizations adopting agile approaches in their product development, often find they
need to make changes in other areas to reap the full benefits of the changes (the
growing field of business agility and agile transformation). Evidence-based management
provides a more structured approach to working through such change in short-cycles; to
focus investments in areas that will bring the greatest value soonest; and to provide a
framework for evaluating their success.[10]
Some advocates of EBMgt argue that it is more likely to be adopted in knowledge-
intensive organizations. A study of six leading healthcare organizations found that
managers and clinical leaders used a variety of forms of knowledge including drawing
on academic research, experiential knowledge and respected colleagues. [11] The
researchers concluded that skillful 'knowledge leadership' is crucial in translating EBMgt
and other academic research into practice in ways that are relevant and can be
mobilized in specific organizational contexts. [12]
Alternatives and objections[edit]

The weak form alternatives to evidence-based anything
include hearsay, opinion, rhetoric, discourse, advice (opinion), self
deception, bias, belief, fallacy, or advocacy. The stronger forms include concerns about
what counts as evidence, types of evidence, what evidence is available, sought or
possible, who decides and pays for what evidence to be collected, and that evidence
needs to be interpreted. Also there are the limitations to empiricism as well argued in
the historical debate between empiricism and rationalism which is usually assumed to
be resolved by Immanuel Kant by saying the two are inextricably interwoven. We
reason what evidence is fair and what the evidence means (Critique of Practical
Reason). Critical theorists have raised objections to the claims made by those
promoting evidence-based management. [13][14] From this perspective, what counts as
"evidence" is considered as intrinsically problematic and contested because there are
different ways of looking at social problems. [14][15] Furthermore, in line with perspectives
from critical management studies, "management" is not necessarily an automatic good
thing—it often involves the exercise of power and the exploitation of others. One
response is to include a balanced treatment of such issues in reviewing and interpreting
the research literature for practice.[16] Another response is to reconsider EBMgt in terms
of cybernetic theory, whereby the "requisite variety" of evidence compiled across
decision-makers is critical because "compiling more evidence does not necessarily
imply compiling a wider range of knowledge types" [15] To that end, a promising
alternative to the "evidence-based" approach would be the use of dialectic, argument, or
public debate (argument is not to be confused with advocacy or quarreling). Aristotle, in
works like Rhetoric, reasons that the way to test knowledge claims is to set up an
inquiry method where a sceptical audience is encouraged to question evidence and its
assumptions. To win an argument, convincing evidence is required. Calls for
argumentative inquiry, or the argumentative turn may be fairer, safer and more creative
than calls for evidence-based approaches.[17][18]
Supporting research[edit]
Some of the publications in this area are Evidence-Based Management, Harvard
Business Review, and Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense:
Profiting From Evidence-Based Management.[1] Some of the people conducting research
on the effects of evidence-based management are Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton, and
Tracy Allison Altman. Pfeffer and Sutton also have a website dedicated to EBMgt. [19]
Evidence-based management is also being applied in specific industries and
professions, including software development.[20] Other areas are crime prevention
(Sherman et al. (2002),[21] public management, and manufacturing.[22]
See also[edit]
 Argumentation theory
 Evidence-based policy
 Evidence-based practices
 Test and Learn
References

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Evidence-based management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

Part of a series on

Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is an emerging movement to explicitly use the

 1) published peer-reviewed (often in management or social science journals) research

 systematic accumulation and analysis of organizational data;

Alternatives and objections[edit]

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