Measuring and predicting the use of evidence-based management

Abstract

Evidence-based management (EBM) is an increasingly essential framework to bolster informed decision-making. Amid a complex and uncertain environment, combined with an ever-increasing volume of relevant yet contradictory evidence, EBM aids managers to use the best available evidence from multiple sources to make decisions. Despite the potential benefits of EBM, and the general lack of EBM use among practitioners, little is known about the factors and mechanisms that enable its practice. This thesis presents three papers that aim to shed light on the factors that facilitate EBM. I first explore the literature and use meta-analyses to identify multi-level factors that are likely to facilitate EBM use. The findings highlight organisational-level and individual-level enablers of EBM that should be prioritised in future research. Following this, I draw on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity framework to conduct two experimental laboratory studies which examine the effect of these three predictors. I rely on a novel measure of EBM use, which I develop and validate as objective measures of evidence collection and evidence-based decision-making. The results support rational thinking ability and social norms as significant predictors of EBM. The final study focuses on the influence of rational thinking ability in predicting the adaptive use of EBM, and specifically evidence collection. One online experiment and two additional laboratory experiments investigate whether individuals high on rational thinking ability adapt evidence collection under cognitive load and emotional load. The findings provide support that under cognitive load, individuals high on rational thinking ability refrain from collecting more evidence. However, under emotional load, rational thinking ability helps mitigate these effects and predicts more evidence collection. The findings advance empirical knowledge and theoretical insights on EBM. I highlight enablers of EBM at multiple levels of analysis and shed light on the mechanisms through which rational thinking ability influences EBM use and decision-making.