| dc.description.abstract | Evidence-based HRM (EBHRM), as an implication and a part of the concept evidence-based practice (EBP), leads to much more effective organizational outcomes than ‘regular’ HRM (Rousseau, 2006, Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). Surprisingly, just like in other disciplines, the transition from ‘regular’ practice to evidence-based practice in HRM is moving slow, and there are still many organizations in which managers or HR professionals do not prioritize an evidence-based approach to choices in HR instruments or HR practices.
To find out why an evidence-based approach is still not the basis of organizational decision-making, for this research there has been used a historical-institutional approach to EBHRM. Theory regarding path-dependency, as a part of this approach (Mahoney, 2000), has been used to explain the slow transition from HRM to EBHRM.
On the one hand the degree of the attendance or absence of power, legitimation, utilization and functionality can be factors that influence self-reinforcing institutional patterns or institutional change. On the other hand, I stated that there will be no evidence-based change when the decisive manager or HR-professional does not have or prefer a scientific attitude. Therefore, for this research there has been also used a concept of the ‘scientific attitude’, as a moderator on the relationship between the break-through of self-reinforcing, institutional patterns in organizations and the choice to adopt evidence-based practices in HRM.
To examine the hypotheses, this study has a quantitative, vignette- survey experimental design where two groups of participants (in total 320) joined the experiment. By performing a multiple regression analysis, a significant positive link has been found between the breakthrough of institutional reproduction and change in existing institutions. Functionality has been found as the most important key-element to make institutional change in organizations possible.
The results demonstrate that a historic-institutional perspective on the transition from HRM to EBHRM is an effective way to learn and understand more about the still often experienced ‘gap’ between scientific knowledge and organizational practice and organizational change.
These findings are promising for the theoretical and practical knowledge and implications of decision-making, evidence-based practice and organizational change; however, more research has to be done to understand more about the link between breaking the mechanisms of self-reinforcing institutional patterns and evidence-based change, and the role of the scientific attitude. | |
