Provides an in-depth summary of all required readings for the class "evidence-based management" at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Written in English.
also includes tutorial notes
Evidence-Based Management Reading Summary
Week 1: 1
Chapter 9: Evidence-based management, the basic principles 1
Tutorial notes: 4
Week 2: 6
Wenzel et al.: “The Double Edged Sword of Big Data in Organizational and Management Research:
A Review of Opportunities and Risks” 6
Gill et al.: “A Brief Overview of AI governance for responsible Machine Learning Systems” 16
Mitchell: “The Pillars of a Rights-Based Approach to AI Development” 19
Tutorial notes: 22
WEEK 3: 23
Rousseau: “Making evidence-based organizational decisions in an uncertain world” 23
Tingling & Brydon: “Is Decision-based evidence making necessarily bad?” 29
Week 4: 31
Merendino et al. “Big data, big decisions: the impact of big data on board level decision-making” 31
Tabesh et al. “Implementing big data strategies: A managerial perspective” 34
,Week 1:
Chapter 9: Evidence-based management, the basic principles
- Disregarding sound evidence and relying on personal experience or popular ideas is daily practice
● Evidence-based practice
= about making decisions through the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best
available evidence from multiple sources by__ to increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome:
➔ Asking: translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
➔ Acquiring: systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence
➔ Appraising: critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence
➔ Aggregating: weighing and pulling together the evidence
➔ Applying: incorporating the evidence into the decision-making process
➔ Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
- Good-quality decisions should be based on a combination of critical thinking and the best
available evidence
- The quality of the evidence needs to be taken into account
- Seeks to improve the way decisions are made
- An approach to decision-making and day-to-day work practice that helps practitioners
critically evaluate the extent to which they can trust the evidence they have at hand
- Helps practitioners identify, find and evaluate additional evidence relevant to their
decisions
★ Why are they needed?
- Most management decisions are not based on the best available evidence, but
rather on personal experience even though personal judgment is not a reliable
source of evidence because it is susceptible to systematic errors
- Benchmarking can demonstrate alternative way of doing things but is also not a
good indicator in itself of what would work in a different setting
★ Barriers:
- Few practitioners have been trained in the skills required to critically evaluate the
trustworthiness and relevance of information they use
- Important organizational information may be difficult to access
- The information that is available can be of poor quality
- Practitioners are often not aware of the current scientific evidence available on
key issues in the field
- Most practitioners pay little or no attention to scientific or organizational
evidence
● Evidence
- Information
- Based on numbers or can also be qualitative/ descriptive
, - Can come from scientific research (suggests generally applicable facts)
- Can come from local organizational or business indicators
- Professional experience can be an important source of evidence
- Presented in a variety of forms
- All evidence can be included if it is judged to be trustworthy and relevant
4 types of evidence:
1. Scientific evidence
- Published in academic journals
- Relevant research can also be found outside the management discipline
- It helps confirm judgments about associations, causal relationships and consequences
2. Organizational evidence
- Can be financial data, business measures, come from customers (customer satisfaction),
through employees (job satisfaction), hard numbers, but also soft elements
- Essential in identifying problems that require management’s attention
- Essential tod determine likely causes, plausible solutions and what is needed to
implement these solutions
3. Experiential evidence
- The professional experience and of judgment of managers, consultants, business leaders
and other practitioners
- Different from opinion/ belief because it is accumulated over time through reflection on
the outcomes of similar actions taken in similar situations
- Tacit knowledge
- Reflects the specialized knowledge acquired by repeated experience and practice of
specialized activities
- Can be vital for determining whether a management issue really requires attention, if
particular organizational data are trustworthy, whether research findings apply in a
particular situation
4. Stakeholder evidence
- Stakeholder value and concerns
- Reflect what stakeholders believe to be important which affects how they tend to react to
the possible consequences of the organization’s decisions
- Gathering this evidence is not just important for ethical reasons but also provides a frame
of reference from which to analyze evidence from other sources
- Provides important information about the way in which decisions will be received and
whether the outcomes of those decisions are likely to be successful
★ Sources of evidence that should be considered
- Start by asking: what is the available evidence? ⇒ what is known?
- Evidence from four sources should be taken into account:
1. Scientific research outcomes
, 2. Professional experience and judgment
3. Organizational data, facts and figures
4. Shareholders’ values and concerns
● Critically appraising evidence:
- Evidence is never perfect and can be misleading because the evidence can be
overstated or biased
- Evidence appraisal includes:
1. Finding the source of where the evidence is gathered
2. Checking if it is the best available evidence
3. Checking if the evidence provided is sufficient to come to a conclusion
4. Evaluating whether the evidence is biased
5. Assessing whether there is a reason for the evidence being biased
6. Assessing how the figures from evidence were calculated: Accuracy,
reliability; assessing how the questions and the study for gathering the
evidence were designed, what the process for data gathering was
● Focusing on best available evidence:
- The quality of our decisions is likely to improve the more use we make of
trustworthy evidence
- The best available evidence will help us make the best decisions for our current
situation
● Common misconceptions of evidence-based practice:
1. Evidence-based practice ignores the practitioner’s professional experience
- The decisions should be made through conscientious, explicit and
judicious use of evidence from the four aforementioned sources
- Evidence-based practice does not mean that any one source of evidence
is more valid than any other
2. Evidence-based practice is all about numbers and statistics
- Evidence-based practice actually seeks to use the best available evidence
from multiple sources
- Statistical thinking is an important element, but it is not what it is all
about
3. Managers need to make decisions quickly and don’t have time for
evidence-based practice
- Evidence-based practice is more often about preparing yourself and your
organization to make decisions well
- Even split-second decisions require trustworthy evidence
4. Each organization is unique, so the usefulness of scientific evidence is limited
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper minaglusac. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €10,99. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.
