The Path to Evidence Based Management: Major Challenges and Some Solutions HR Conference Groningen 2011 Key note speech by Sara Rynes HR Conference 2011

1. Sara L. Rynes
Evidence-Based Management Conference
University of Groningen
November 7-8, 2011

2. What IS Evidence-based
Management (EBM)?
“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

3. Not Everyone Is Impressed…
“Fact-based” figures into a
new suite of verbal tics that I
find especially annoying:
reality-based, evidence-
based, knowledge-based. “As
opposed to what?”, I am
always tempted to ask.
Alex Beam
Boston Globe
July 8, 2011

4. What Stands in the Way of EBM?
 Practitioner side  Academic side
 Lack of awareness of  Insularity, “incestuou
research findings sness”
 Disbelief or dislike of  Publishing norms
research findings and reward
 Non-implementation structures
of research findings  “Evidence wars”

5. Practice Barrier 1:
Lack of Awareness
 Management not a profession
 No required education or certification
 Limits to education (e.g., MBA)
 Limits to post-education
 Academics not on most practitioners’ “radar
screen”

6. Practitioner Barrier 2:
Awareness, but Disbelief
 Some areas where practitioners (and some
academics) disbelieve research findings
 Decision aids for selection (Highhouse, 2008)
& use of evidence by juries
 Validity of intelligence for predicting
performance (Hunter & Schmidt, 1998)
 Average effectiveness of goal setting vs.
“empowerment”

7. Commonalities in Findings
Associated with Disbelief
 Threats to self-image or threatening implications for self
outcomes
 Dislike of findings that imply reduced control (Pinker)
 (Intelligence, goals, actuarial formulae)
 Dislike of findings that describe humans in terms of
discrete traits (vs. holistic, individuated “bundle”)
 Dislike of “being a number; being like everyone else”
 “Uniqueness paradox” (Rousseau)

8. “The Uniqueness Paradox”
 “But that’s a different
industry”
 “But we already hire
smart people”
 “But we already have a
better hiring system than
most”
 “But we have other
objectives than
performance” Would we use the same
logic with our doctor?

9. Other Barriers to Belief:
Distrust of Science/Scientists
 Increasing funding of scientific studies by
corporate interests
 “You can find a scientist who’ll say anything”
 Findings keep changing (medicine, diet)
 In U.S.: Concerted, systematic attacks on science per
se (based on politics and religion)
 Embryonic stem cells
 Sexual abstinence
 Climate
 Evolution

10. This book is a wake-up call to all
Americans who value
intellectual honesty and civility
in our national affairs.
Mooney’s exposure of the
cynical collusion of special
business interests with the anti-
intellectualism of the religious
right is a must-read for all who
care about this nation’s future.
(Russell Train, EPA
Administrator for Nixon & Ford)

11. Practitioner Barrier 3:
Belief but No Implementation
 Johns (Personnel Psychology, 1993): Management
research ideas looked at as administrative rather than
technological innovations.
 Agency theory: Does reader of research act as an agent?
 Pfeffer & Sutton (Knowing-Doing Gap): Company
differences in research receptivity
 Rogers (Diffusion of Innovations, 2003) & Tetlock
(ASQ, 2000): Also individual differences in receptivity
 Ferlie et al. (AMJ, 2005): Role of professionals; need to
elevate to higher levels of analysis

12. Potential Solutions: Warning
I think all the evidence about innovation
in general practice points to the fact that
rarely, very rarely, does a single method
change people’s behaviour.
(Primary care doctor interviewed for
Ferlie et al. )

13. Alternative Metaphors

14. Actions to Increase Awareness
 Build relationships with practitioners
 Bartunek (AMJ, 2007), Burt (AMJ, 2007), Nonaka
& Konno (1998)
 Investigate topics of greater interest to
practitioners
 Content areas: academics tend to “follow”
 Align research/reviews with problem-focus
 Phenomenon focus
 Expand/reward use of appropriate outlets for
translating research findings

15. Actions to Increase Beliefs
Communicate more effectively
Produce more systematic reviews &
points of agreement among “camps”
 More effective teaching of statistics &
methods
 Maybe how to read/interpret studies
more so than conducting them

16. Actions to Increase Implementation
 Co-produce and co-implement research with
practitioners
 Joint sensemaking (Mohrman et al. and Amabile et
al., AMJ, 2001)
 Create “roadmaps” for implementation
(e.g., Kotter)
 Enhance the “implications for practice” sections of academic
journals
 Communicate “principles” accompanied by examples
 Locke’s Handbook of OB Principles; Latham’s Becoming an Evidence-
Based Manager; Pearce’s Real Research for Real Managers
 Need research to find “what works”

17. Questions to Ponder
 Is this just a micro OB/Human Resources
phenomenon?
 What structures are needed to support EBM?
 What additional evidence do WE (academics)
need to support EBM?
 Is EBM the right “marketing” for the movement?

18. For further Details….
 Rynes, S.L. (in press). “The research-practice gap in I/O
psychology and related fields: Challenges and potential
solutions.” In S. Kozlowski (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, OUP.
 Giluk, T. & Rynes, S.L. (in press). “Research findings
practitioners resist: Lessons for management academics
from evidence-based medicine.” Forthcoming in D.
Rousseau, (Ed.), Handbook of Evidence-Based
Management: Companies, Classrooms and Research.
OUP.