Research & Practice

Commentary

Commentary by Frank Sortino, Mark Kordonsky and Hal Forsey . Pensions & Investments, Feb. 2007

Davies, Howard. Improving the Relevance of Management Research: Evidence-Based Management: Design Science or Both? Business Leadership Review, July 2006.

evidence-based management - hype or reality? orgtheory.net [blog], September 16, 2006

The Good Doctor. Market Based Management [blog], September 18, 2006

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Boris Groysberg, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School. Email to Pfeffer on August 9, 2006:

Dear Jeff,

I really enjoyed your latest book, "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management.” We just made it a core book for an HR custom program. When I read your book, I found that I have several case studies and exercises that show how companies can improve performance through evidence-based management. One is a case study about committee’s stock picking at Lehman Brothers. In 2003, Steve Hash, research director at Lehman Brothers, prepared to initiate the firm’s “Ten Uncommon Values” stock picking process for the year. An investment committee had to pick ten best stocks from about 100 stock ideas presented by the firm’s analysts. Each analyst presented one investment idea. The performance of the stocks selected for the Ten Uncommon Values had historically been strong - an investment strategy to acquire the recommended stocks and hold them for one year would have outperformed the S&P 500 for 39 of the last 54 years. However, during the latest three years, 2000 to 2002, the recommendations had performed poorly, generating an average return of –22.5% versus –11.7% for the S&P 500. Hash pondered several questions: What was the importance of the Ten Uncommon Values for Lehman Brothers and its clients? How much time and effort should the firm put into the process of selecting stocks for the report? How many members should be on the Investment Policy Committee (IPC), and who should be selected? What should the process for selection be? Should analysts whose stocks were selected be compensated for their picks?  more...

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Jeffrey Pfeffer Testifies to Congress About Evidence-Based Practices. For United States House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on
Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia, Hearing on the Status of Federal Personnel Reform, Washington, D.C., March 8, 2007

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Ari Heller, MD, MBA. Emails to Pfeffer on May 5, 2006:

"Evidence Based Management (EBMgmt) can learn from the history and antecedents of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM).

Historically, Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) (which was developed by David Sackett MD) was a natural progression from Clinical Epidemiology.

You and Dr. Sutton may wish to review/browse thru David Sackett's excellent book entitled "CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY" which includes many of the principles included in his book on Evidence Based Medicine. Hence, the scientific and methodological basis of Evidence-Based Medicine comes from Clinical Epidemiology.

The Clinical Epidemiology book provides a CLINICAL PROCESS for the Clinician as well as provides guidelines on how to critique articles and studies in clinical medicine.

This type of information is currently lacking in the management field.

I am not surprised with the feedback that you received from the MBA students at IESE Business School concerning Evidence Based Management in which they stated that management requires intuition and experience. One of the reasons that students, faculty
and practitioners would respond the way the MBA students from IESE responded is due to the fact that currently there is not a well defined CLINICAL PROCESS for practicing managers as well as definitions and classifications for managerial interventions and methods for evaluating the outcomes of managerial interventions.  more ...

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Ari Heller, MD, MBA. Email to Pfeffer and Sutton on May 13, 2006:

"During the past week I further reflected on Evidence Based Management (EBMgmt) and its implications on the following issues and topics:

1. The Practice of Management
2. A Clinical Process in the Practice of Management
3. Management as a Profession
4. Program Evaluation of Managerial Interventions
5. Business/Management Education
6. Research in Management
7. PhD Training in Management
8. Basic Sciences in the Business School
9. Clinical Sciences in the Business School
10. Barriers to Change
11. Possible Solutions
12. EBMgmt movement needs a Strategic Plan

I'll try to address these issues and topics.  more ...

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Michael Lovaglia, Chair, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa. Email to Pfeffer and Sutton on July 17, 2006:

"'Hard Facts…' is a perfectly timed book. Basing decisions on evidence. What a concept! I've long tried to explain why scientific knowledge faces such resistance. The result is:

Lovaglia's Law: The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it."

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Measure, test, measure, compare. Thinking & Making [blog], July 3, 2006.

Part I: Everything Stanford Business School Knows It Learned From Doug Melvin. Management by Baseball [blog]. May 29, 2006

Sutton, Robert I. Evidence-Based Management and Graphology: Don’t Use Handwriting Analysis to Identify Assholes. Work Matters [blog]. October 12, 2007

Sutton, Robert I. Evidence-Based Management Doesn’t Mean Just Quantitative Evidence. Work Matters [blog]. August 17, 2007

Sutton, Robert I. How should organizations handle failures?  Stanford Engineering - Ask The Expert, October 2006

Swedish suicide rates, WMD & evidence based management. Thinking Managers [blog]. November 22, 2005

"First, the erroneous use of information is the root of many failures: second, that false ideas persist far longer than they should - because the facts are much less important to their misusers than the propositions which the factual truth allegedly supports."