Presentation by Sara Rynes on AMLE's special issue on teaching evidence-based management & AOM workshop 2015 AOM Annual Conference 2015, Vancouver

1. PDW: Teaching Evidence-Based
Management
Sara Rynes
2015 AOM Meeting
Vancouver, B.C.

2. What Is EBMgt?
EBMgt is an evolution in the practice of management. It
is a knowledge-intensive, capacity-building way to think,
act, organize, and lead. Its practice incorporates:
1) Use of scientific principles in decisions &
management processes
2) Systematic attention to organizational facts
3) Advances in practitioner judgment through critical
thinking and decision aids that reduce bias & enable
more complete use of information
4) Ethical considerations including effects on multiple
stakeholders
Rousseau, Oxford Handbook of EBMgt., 2012, p. 3

3. Why Teach EBMgt?
• There is a large body of social science & management research
that can help improve individual and organizational functioning &
well being
• Many people are unaware of this research, even if they go to
business school
• The Internet facilitates broad access to scientific knowledge
• However, many people do not have the skills to assess the quality
of knowledge claims, so they adopt claims consistent with their
pre-existing beliefs
• Failure to seek and consider research evidence is arguably a form
of “malpractice”; it undoubtedly has human costs
• Raising awareness of research evidence and the consequences of
evidence- versus non-evidence based decisions increases urgency
to improve research quality
Drawn from Pfeffer (Foreward) & Rousseau (Preface) in
Oxford Handbook of Evidence-Based Management (2012)

4. Special Issue on Teaching EBMgt
in AMLE (Sept. 2014)
• Two “Research & Reviews”
– Goodman, Gary & Wood: Bibliographic Search Training for EBMgt
Education
– Glaub, Frese, Fischer & Hoppe: Using EBMgt to increase Personal
Initiative and Entrepreneurial Success
• Exemplary Contribution:
– Trank: “Reading” EBMgt: The Possibilities of Interpretation
• Two Interviews with Exemplary EB Practice Teachers
– Gary Latham (HR/OB); Amanda Burls & Gordon Guyatt (Medicine)
• Four Reviews of EB-Related Teaching Materials
– Oxford Handbook of EBMgt; Jone Pearce’s OB; Gary Latham’s
Becoming an EB Manager; Online EBMgt Resources

5. Four Essays + Exemplary Contribution
(Most Relevant Today)
• Dietz et al.: Focus on producing local evidence
• Walshe & Briner: Teaching systematic review
skills as foundation for EBM
• Gamble & Jelley: EBM Case competitions
• Kepes, Bennett & McDaniel: Teaching EBM
with focus on assessing research
trustworthiness
• Trank: “Reading” EBMgt: Research as a
Rhetorical Act

6. Some Emerging Trends in Teaching
EBP
• Start class with some sort of exercise that gets
students to question their assumptions and/or
be open to research-based approach
• Use analogies and examples from medicine
• Use cases (but in a “non-typical,” research-
infused way)
• Invite research librarians in to improve search
capabilities
• Encourage dialectic & dialogic pedagogies; less
“telling” than in “push” methods

7. Issues Raised by the Special Issue
(& To Be Discussed Today)
• Relationship between “push” and “pull” approaches:
Push  Pull  Push? (Guyatt & Burls)
• How to deal with (frequently) sub-optimal research
evidence?
• Potential epistemological conflicts over hierarchies of
research quality
• Rising expectations regarding “evidence-based”
claims
• Should we use technical, research-based
terminology?
• How can EBMgt connect with “big data” or “data
analytics” in business school curricula?