Evidence-Based Management: How to Use Evidence to Make Better Organizational Decisions

- It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so -The book (Evidence-based management by Barends and Rousseau) uses this quotation in one of the chapters and it captures quite well the essence of Evidence-Based Management (EBM).Much of the previous work published on Evidence-Based Management has been more or less of a conceptual nature due to the relative newness of the subject seen from a management perspective.The book by Barends and Rousseau takes the subject a much needed step further and provides a more applicable and practical approach to the subject. What constitutes evidence? And how do we make decisions based upon evidence? Etc.The book takes you on an extensive and comprehensive guided tour of the 6 fundamental tasks (Ask , Acquire, Appreciate, Aggregate, Apply, and Assess) which are the cornerstones of EBM and relates them to the 4 sources of evidence (Practitioners, Scientific research literature, organizational data, and stakeholders). The tour is assisted by multiple examples to clarify the point. Especially chapter 12 on “Weighing and pulling together the evidence” is of great value. It sums up all the work done in the previous chapters to a coherent and usable whole using Bayes rule.The last chapters of the book are dedicated to shedding some light on perhaps the most difficult obstacle in EBM process, namely getting the whole organization to follow and incorporate EBM into the decision-making process. Why? Better decisions, better performance.Overall the outcome of the book is a well written and easy manual for everyone that would like to take a usable approach to EBM and is a must read for everyone, students or managers, who are interested in Evidence-Based Management and thinks of using it to improve their decision-making process and/or implementing it organization-wide.I started with a quote I might as well end with one – Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.Evidence-Based Management is the way to minimize false knowledge and keep you out of trouble :)Happy reading

Highly recommended!I have read this book as a student of business administration and I have to say I learned there more than from my main subjects (management, strategy, entrepreneurship, marketing...) combined.Personally, I found most useful the part about scientific literature. I have learned there how to search for studies on a given topic in a very systematic way and how to then evaluate these studies based on a rigorous methodology. I also really enjoyed learning about aggregating evidence via Bayes rule, which brought the whole book nicely together.Chapters on other sources on evidence were very informative as well. The part on practitioners has made me more aware of our cognitive biases and how to work with them. I have also learned there how to form solid questions that will create the most realistic answers possible. The part on stakeholders has improved my knowledge of this area; I already knew quite a lot about this topic, but the book has equipped me with a lot of useful tools and ways of thinking. Finally, the part about organizational evidence has given me a lot of clarity in thinking about data from organization itself.Full of informative flowcharts, real-life examples and useful checklists, this book is a great read for anyone inclined towards critical thinking and making decisions in a systematic way.

Highly recommend this book!In our world where data is a bounty, how do you acquire the right data and appraise its relevance? This book provides both the knowledge and tools to help make better decisions in organizations.I read this book after reading thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman, and this book fits right in. Being aware that bias and confounders can misguide our decision making, this book then provided the needed framework for improving our decision-making skills. This book is not only a must-read for managers, but will also make a great textbook for teaching.This easy-to-read book covers the six steps of evidence-based management (Ask, acquire, appraise, aggregate, apply and assess) using four sources of evidence: Practitioners, Scientific literature, Organizations, and Stakeholders. Together which represents the Evidence-based management skills framework. How this works is illustrated by many practical examples throughout the book.

Received item on time and in excellent condition

This book is the perfect companion both for those familiar with evidence-based management and those who want to know what it is about. In my case, I've been trying to make more evidence-based people decisions, and one difficulty was that the resources, guides, information that I found useful were all in different places. This book puts everything together, from the beginning to the end of the evidence-based decision process, and gives you the tools and the explanations to guide you step-by-step. Because of this, it is also a great resource to refer to people who wonder what evidence-based management is. They can see both what it means, why they need it, and how to do it - so it all becomes very doable. They also easily see how it falls into place with other hype words like people analytics and how it can improve the practices they already have in place (e.g. how to better use their expertise in making decisions).

Excellent introduction to evidence-based management (and evidence-based practice more generally). This book is certain to be a big help for any evidence-based practitioner's career.Friendly/minor critique: the table of contents is a bit confusing. There are four parts to the book. Part I does not start until chapter 3 and Part IV "Evidence from stakeholders" also encompasses topics that don't have anything to do with "Evidence from stakeholders". Maybe worth changing for next edition?Other than that, this book is both very lucid and concise. Cheers!

I already have a PhD in Organizational Psychology so I am someone that is already quite familiar with Evidence-Based Management (EBM), science, and using evidence and data to make better decisions. But I can honestly say that, even with all my formal academic training in this domain, that I learned a few neat and practical things by reading this textbook.Also, as someone who has taught research methods, statistics, and business courses I can honestly say that there are few texts out there that I'm aware of, that take the care to inform the reader about the importance of evidence and how to use evidence day to day with a language and tone that is down to Earth, non-academic and easily understood. The content doesn't intimidate readers and it all dovetails well with their 15-module certificate program in Evidence-Based management offered online for a very reasonable price. I bought the textbook with the aim of earning the certificate and I'm happy to have this on my bookshelf for easy reference. There's truly something in this book for everyone at every level of education and awareness of Evidence-Based Management. This is truly the way of doing business, here and now, in the 21st Century.I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who operates a business or has aspirations in management as this book provides you with the skills you need to understand the phenomena around you, the specific contexts that you're operating within, and how to determine the best path forward given the information at hand.

Excelente libro

Being a manager, an HR, a consultant in the current world of business is rather confusing: everyone’s an expert, has great experience in everything, or tells a great stories you should really also put into action because “Trust me, it works!”. There are so many trends and fads that push us to deploy the last fashionable intervention because “HR really need this!”. We want success and optimization but we forget about rationality, method, data.This book changes the rules of decision making in business: it is honest, practical, smart and straight forward.It does not sell the last trend, it gives a method to analyse all the trends to come and separate fad and reality, useful intervention from empty pretty words.It focuses the debate on concrete data, and gives the scientific method its rightful place in all business decisions.This manual teaches us how to fish for information instead of serving us the last fresh-but-fishy trend.I really recommend the read to all those who want to approach their decision making in a more structured, scientific and reasoned way.

It is a very good book both as a reference and also to those that want to use Evidence based management in their work.

This book is the antidote to the countless management books that claim to have the perfect solution for this or that managerial issue. In contrast to the vast amount of literature that tries to provide quick solutions based on anectodical knowledge, this book does something more radical and effective in the long term: it teaches how to think about management. Professors Barends and Rousseau did a great job in explaining how to navigate among the 4 main sources of evidence in order to make better-informed decisions, all the while using a language that is easily accessible to people coming from different academic and professional backgrounds. 100% recommended.