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Evidence-based management:

What is stopping us?

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WHAT’S STOPING US?

The quick fix problem

The management fad (fashion) problem

Why don’t academics and researchers like EBMgt?

Why don’t managers and practitioners like EBMgt?

What is stopping us?

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WHAT’S STOPING US?1. The Quick Fix Problem

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QUICK FIXES

A ‘solution’ which

Focuses on style and presentation, not content

Is always slower than we hoped

Usually doesn’t work

Is followed by another quick fix

What is a quick fix?

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QUICK FIXES

Because quick fixes

Can be career-enhancing for managers

Speed is often valued over accuracy

Do we crave quick and easy solutions?

So who needs or wants academic research?

So why do we do quick fixes?

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WHAT’S STOPING US?2. The Management Fad Problem

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Group think: management fads

The nearly-forgotten fads:

Scientific Management/Taylorism

Business Process Reengineering

Management by results

Excellence

Total Quality Management

Learning Organizations

Knowledge Management

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Group think: management fads

The fads that haven’t been forgotten

(yet):

Talent management

Management development

Executive coaching

Emotional intelligence

Employee engagement

Knowledge management

Myers Briggs Type Indicator

Belbin Team Roles

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Promise to deliver a lot and fast

Appear simple

New and shiny

Will make everything alright and help contain anxieties around intractable problems

Help user feel effective and cutting edge

Bits of some fads may work in some contexts

So who needs or wants academic research?

*Evidence-based management not a fad!

So why do we do management fads?

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WHAT’S STOPING US?3. Why don’t academics like EBMgt?

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Ambivalence about the value and applicability of management research

Few incentives to get involved

Primary research (collecting new data) valued more highly than secondary research (reviewing existing data)

EBMgt not academics‘responsibility – this is about practice not research

Some concern that systematic reviews will expose the limited nature of management research

Some academics are like ‘gurus’ and feel that EBMgt might show their claims to be untrue

Why don’t academics like EBMgt?

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WHAT’S STOPING US?4. Why don’t managers like EBMgt?

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Undermines formal authority

They feel it constrains freedom to make managerial decisions

Speed valued and rewarded more than accuracy

Feel they cannot use their own experience and judgment (not true)

Managers not necessarily rewarded for doing what works (organizations rarely evaluate)

Why don’t managers like EBMgt?

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Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads

Why don’t managers like EBMgt?

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“And there we see the power of any big

managerial idea (or fad). It may be smart, like

quality, or stupid, like conglomeration. Either

way, if everybody's doing it, the pressure to do it

too is immense. If it turns out to be smart, great.

If it turns out to be stupid, well, you were in good

company and most likely ended up no worse off

than your competitors. Your company's board

consists mostly of CEOs who were probably

doing it at their companies. How mad can they

get?

Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads

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The true value of conventional management

wisdom is not that it's wise or dumb, but that it's

conventional. It makes one of the hardest jobs in

the world, managing an organization, a little

easier. By following it, managers everywhere see

a way to drag their sorry behinds through

another quarter without getting fired. And isn't

that, really, what it's all about?”

(Colvin, 2004, Fortune)

Huge (peer) pressure to adopt fads

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SO WHAT’S STOPPING US?

We are stopping us!

So, what is stopping us?