Evidence Based Management

Abstract

In their managerial roles, clinicians face the challenge of how to access, assess and deploy the most relevant and current management knowledge. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that the management discipline is a relative latecomer to the evidence-based paradigm. Although the research-based model of business education can be traced back to the 1950’s, the management discipline is still characterized by a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives, the lack of consensus on a hierarchy of evidence, and the lack of point-of-use tools that translate scientific results into protocols. As a result, popular claims based on anecdotal evidence often compete with rigorous empirical studies for the manager’s attention. In the last decade, however, a small but growing evidence-based management (EBMgt) movement has taken shape. EBMgt’s influence can be seen in the increasing numbers of meta-analyses, a greater interest in experimental studies, the newfound acceptance of replication studies, and practical approaches such as fact-based consulting. This chapter provides an overview of EBMgt along with a practical resource list of evidence-based sources in three key areas: managing people, managing process and systems, and managing strategy.

A wasteland of vocationalism that needed to be transformed into science-based professionalism

—Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon, on business education in the 1950s.