| dc.description.abstract | Evidence Based Management (EBM) is a method of management that uses the best available evidence to decide the best fitting management. The two most important sources of information for EBM are intern data of the organisation and scientific literature (Rousseau, 2012). Even though the use of EBM is effective, managers rarely use it.
In this research the focus will be on two questions concerning the use of EBM. First, through the disruption of institutional self-reinforcing mechanisms (Mahoney, 2000) a window of opportunity will emerge in which managers have the opportunity to establish room for change (H1). This perceived room for change can lead to the implementation of EBM. Unfortunately, room for change is no guarantee that managers will choose EBM.
This leads to the secondary focus of this research paper: a possible moderator to strengthen the relationship between disrupted institutional mechanisms and the preference of managers to use EBM. The suggested moderator is scientific identity (H2). The definition in the research for this concept is the following: “(.) ‘attitudes towards science’, which are the feelings, beliefs and values held about an object that may be the enterprise of science, school science, the impact of science on society or scientists themselves” (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2013, p. 1053).
To test the hypotheses an online survey-experiment was distributed among member of the Network for HR-professionals (NVP) and among the researcher direct network with the use of a snowball effect, which resulted in 190 respondents.
With a multiple regression analysis hypothesis one was tested and confirmed. The results for the second hypothesis were more complicated. Though the results indicate that scientific identity does not function as a moderator, an important finding in the results was the operationalisation of the concept scientific identity. As there is no previous known operationalisation of the concept as used in this research, the confirmation of a working operationalisation is an important finding.
These findings are a great source of information for scientific theory and managers practice. Firstly because these findings show that disrupting institutional mechanisms are important to create room for change in organisations. Though it also leaves room for more research. As scientific identity has been established as concept and has been operationalised, the results in this research do not support the role as a moderator.
Future research should focus on scientific identity as a concept and how it fits in with the use of EBM. But besides this concept other psychologic factors could take on the role of a moderator in this story of creating room for change and the preference of EBM and should therefore be looked in to. | |
