In Search of Evidence

Managers’ Attitudes and Perceived Barriers
areas to address in promoting evidence-based practice in management. In
particular, we consider someone’s level of education, their level of experience, the
attention given to scientific research in their formal education, and their experience
in conducting scientific research. In a sense, these variables reflect different levels
of familiarity with research that might result in its increased use in management
practice. Increased management experience might also suggest a competing source
of evidence that managers come to prefer over research findings, therefore
decreasing its perceived value for practice (Villanueva, 2011). For this study, we
tested each of these factors for their ability to predict managers’ attitudes towards
the concept of evidence-based management.
RQ 5: Are managers’ attitudes towards evidence-based management associated
with
! level of education?
! level of experience?
! attention given to scientific research in their formal education?
! experience in conducting scientific research
Much of the discussion around evidence-based management is rooted in similar
efforts across fields as diverse as nursing, education, criminology, social work, and
public policy. Hence there is an opportunity to learn from other more advanced
evidence-based disciplines. If managers identify the same kind of barriers as
practitioners from other disciplines, this could open up opportunities for applying
the strategies used successfully in those other areas to enhance the uptake of
evidence-based management.
METHOD
Design
We used a cross-sectional survey design to assess the aforementioned attitudes
and barriers towards evidence-based management. A survey approach was
preferred in this instance to capture the broad trends present in management
today, as well as making comparisons with practitioners from other fields. It should
be noted that while the design of the study involved collecting data at one point in
time, several of the questions were retrospective, measuring managers’ past
behavior and comparing it with their present-day attitudes and perceptions.