Evidence-Based Management What is it? Why do we need it? How does it look like in practice?

1. Evidence-Based ManagementWhat is it?Why do we need it?How does it look like in practice? PhD Consortium of the 7th International Conference of the Dutch HRM network

2. Evidence-Based Management Postgraduate Course • What is it? • Where does it come from? • Why do we need it? • What is stopping us? • How does is look like in practice?

3. Postgraduate Course • Evidence based management: What is it?

4. Four propositions Postgraduate Course • Research produced by management scholars could be useful to organizations • Drawing on available evidence (including research produced by academics) is likely to improve 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

5. What is EBMgt? Postgraduate Course Evidence-based management is about making decisions through the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of four sources of information: practitioner expertise and judgment, evidence from the local context, a critical evaluation of the best available research evidence, and the perspectives of those people who might be affected by the decision. (Briner, Denyer, Rousseau, 2009)

6. What is EBMgt? Postgraduate Course The problem is that management is not as evidence-based as it should be nor as it could be

7. What is EBMgt? Postgraduate Course • It is not a completely new idea – managers and organizations use evidence all the time • EBMgt is different because it’s about: • Increasing the types of evidence we use • Using it more thoughtfully and carefully (conscientious, judicious, explicit) • Its only purpose is to help us make better decisions through more and more systematic use of evidence

8. Who says it’s a problem? Postgraduate Course • People in many other fields (medicine, social work, criminology, politicians) say it’s a problem in their fields • Not everyone in management but some of people think it’s a problem • Some academics and researchers • Some managers and organizations • Some professional associations • Some commentators and journalists

10. Origins of EBMgt Postgraduate Course Management not the only field where there are these concerns. What field is this? • “a research-user gap” • “practitioners do not read academic journals” • “the findings of research into what is an effective intervention are not being translated into actual practice” • “academics not practitioners are driving the research agenda” • “the relevance, quality and applicability of research is questionable” • “practice is being driven more by fads and fashions than research” • “many practices are doing more harm than good” • “the collective wisdom from research is being lost”

11. Evidence-Based Practice Postgraduate Course 1991 Medicine 1998 Education 1998 Probation service 1999 Housing policy 1999 Social care 2000 Nursing 2000 Criminal justice ????Management?

12. Academic interest in EBMgt Postgraduate Course Similar ideas around for a long time 2003 – Systematic reviews of evidence 2006 – Rousseau EBMgt Presidential Address and Pfeffer & Sutton book 2007-2009 – Rousseau EBMgt Collaborative 2008-2011 – Several conferences 2011 – Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa) in Amsterdam 2011 – EBMgt Handbook But many researchers not interested at all in EBMgt

13. Manager & practitioner interest in EBMgt • Some HRM and professional bodies express interest (SHRM, SIOP, VOV Learning Network) • Some Universities running courses for practitioners (e.g., Amsterdam, Ghent) • Some publications for practitioners • But managers are: • Used to working in a different way • Under pressure to adopt fads and fashions • Have high expectations of evidence

14. Managers used to working in a different way: • Need to act quickly: Speed more important than accuracy • Organizational politics • Formal authority and hierarchies • Over-emphasize experience • Rewarded for getting things done not doing what works

15. Sometimes we are evidence-based • Try to gather data and information • Invest time and effort in trying to understand and apply it • Question our and others’ assumptions and logic • Are sceptical about what appear to be fads • Resist the temptation to act quickly

16. Sometimes we are not so evidence-based • Act on gut feeling (though intuition can be important for some decisions) • Copy other people who appear successful (benchmarking) • Think there is one ideal way (best practice) • Let the ‘solution’ frame and define our ‘problem’ and create need (kitchen gadgets) • Want to fit in and be as cool as everyone else (fashion)

17. Postgraduate Course 2. Evidence based management: Where does it come from?

18. Medicine: Founding fathers Postgraduate Course David Sackett Gordon Guyatt McMaster University Medical School, Canada

19. Problem I: too much information Postgraduate Course • More than 1 million articles in 40.000 medical journals per year (= 1995; now probably more than 2 million). For a specialist to keep up this means reading 25 articles every day (for a GP more than 100!) • Most of the new insights and treatment methods don’t reach the target group

20. Problem II: persistent convictions Postgraduate Course if you’re hyperventilating breathe into a bag

21. Problem III: jumping to conclusions Postgraduate Course people who have an irregular heartbeat are much more likely to die of coronary disease give them a drug that reduces the number of irregular beats

22. Oestrogen replacement therapy to reduce cardiac events and stroke in post-menopausal women. Treatment of measles with antibiotics. Rest for recovery. Placing babies on their fronts to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Debriefing after psychological trauma Examples of mechanistic reasoning gone wrong: Postgraduate Course

23. Problem IV Postgraduate Course David Sackett • Half of what you learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out-of-date within 5 years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half. • The most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own. • (Remember that your teachers are as full of bullshit as your parents)

24. Evidence based decision Postgraduate Course David Sackett “Good doctors use both individual clinical expertise and the best available external evidence, and neither alone is enough. Without clinical expertise, practice risks becoming tyrannized by evidence, for even excellent external evidence may be inapplicable to or inappropriate for an individual patient. Without current best evidence, practice risks becoming rapidly out of date, to the detriment of patients.”

25. Management: Founding Mother Postgraduate Course

26. Management: Founding Fathers Postgraduate Course Robert Sutton Jeffrey Pfeffer

27. Postgraduate Course 2. Evidence-based management: Why do we need it?

28. EBMgt: some basic assumptions Postgraduate Course • Research produced by management scholars could be useful to organizations • Drawing on available evidence (including research produced by academics) is likely to improve decisions • Organizations do not appear to be strongly aware of nor use research findings • EBMgt is a potentially useful way of thinking about how we can incorporate research evidence into decision-making

29. Postgraduate Course Reason 1: Errors and Biases of Human Judgment

30. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course • Seeing order in randomness • Mental corner cutting • Misinterpretation of incomplete data • Halo effect • False consensus effect • Reinterpreting evidence • Group think • Self serving bias • Sunk cost fallacy • Cognitive dissonance reduction • Confirmation bias • Authority bias • In-group bias • Recall bias • Anchoring bias • Inaccurate covariation detection • Distortions due to plausibility

31. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course • Seeing order in randomness • Mental corner cutting • Misinterpretation of incomplete data • Halo effect • False consensus effect • Reinterpreting evidence • Group think • Self serving bias • Sunk cost fallacy • Cognitive dissonance reduction • Confirmation bias • Authority bias • In-group bias • Recall bias • Anchoring bias • Inaccurate covariation detection • Distortions due to plausibility

32. Seeing order in randomness Postgraduate Course We are predisposed to see order, pattern and causal relations in the world. Patternicity: The tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless noise.

33. Seeing order in randomness Postgraduate Course We are pattern seeking primates: association learning

43. Points of impact of V-1 bombs in London Postgraduate Course

44. Points of impact of V-1 bombs in London Postgraduate Course

45. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course • A Type I error or a false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it is not (finding a non existent pattern) • A Type II error or a false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is (not recognizing a real pattern) Dr. Michael Shermer (Director of the Skeptics Society)

46. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course • A Type I error or a false positive: believe that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind (low cost)

47. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course • A Type II error or a false negative: believe that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (high cost)

48. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course Pattern detection problem Assessing the difference between a Type I and Type II error is highly problematic (especially in split second ‘life and death’ situations), so the default position is to assume all patterns are real.

49. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course Jennifer Whitson, University of Texas Austin, corporate environments

50. Errors and Biases of Human Judgment Postgraduate Course Erroneous beliefs plaque both experienced professionals and less informed laypeople alike. stress peptic ulcer