Expert answer:Discussion Post U9D28034
Expert answer:Please read the instructions in U9D18034 then read chapter 8 to answer the discussion Post
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Enhancing the Supply Chain of Knowledge
Recently, scholars have suggested that evidence management is a useful paradigm for
enhancing the supply chain of knowledge. Review the article and provide a scholarly
critique of the main argument presented by these authors.
Include at least two APA-formatted citation (in-text, as well as the full reference). The
citation may be from course textbooks, assigned readings, or an outside source. Your
initial post must be a minimum of 300 words in length.
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4 (2011), 57–61.
Copyright © 2011 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/11
Broadening the View of
What Constitutes ‘‘Evidence’’
MATTHEW A. CRONIN AND RICHARD KLIMOSKI
George Mason University
To make industrial–organizational (I–O)
psychology more evidence based than it
is, Briner and Rousseau (2011) focus on
improving the knowledge ‘‘product’’ that
will serve as evidence. Make this product
more usable (i.e., understandable) and
useful (i.e., relevant to real-world issues)
to the practitioner, and they will consume
more of it. To this end, academics are
asked to do what amounts to ‘‘user-centered
design’’—spend more time engaged with
practitioners and their world to know what
the customer wants and to help them
choose wisely. Underlying this solution is
the idea that academics and practitioners
need to be more similar, also advocated in
various ways by other authors (see the 2007
special issue of Academy of Management
Journal ). This perspective sees practitioners
as buyers in a market where academics are
sellers, and we think this is simplistic.
The market perspective treats the
evidence-based practice as a simple product, like a hammer. We will argue that it
needs to be treated as a complex one, like
an assembly line robot—for it to work well
it needs to have quality components, be
well manufactured, be appropriate for the
specific task, and should fit with the rest
of the line. Building and integrating such
a complex product requires specialization
and coordination among those who play
different roles in the machine’s creation
and use. Thus, the key difference between
our view and Briner and Rousseau’s is that
where they see a market, we see a supply
chain. In our response, we justify our supply
chain metaphor and conclude by explaining the changes that our view implies for
achieving what Briner and Rousseau advocate, which we believe is a worthy aim.
The Evidentiary Basis
Briner and Rousseau’s description of evidence is, to us, a thin version of what a good
evidence-based practice is. An evidencebased practice is a complex synthesis of heterogeneous knowledge. Take their example
of the HRM VP looking to create a practice to reduce absenteeism. The applied
sciences (e.g., management and I–O psychology) may have relevant theories for
what causes and cures absenteeism, but
this research is best when it is supported by
more fundamental evidence from basic science about human psychology and group
interaction as supported by disciplinary
research (e.g., psychology and sociology).
Even with scientifically validated management theories, the HRM VP still needs to
integrate this evidence with practitioner’s
professional judgment and possibly with
other kinds of nonscientific but nonetheless relevant knowledge (e.g., what other
organizations are doing). This process of
creating such an evidence-based practice
is therefore like a supply chain, where
the manufacturers of basic science feed
Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Matthew A. Cronin.
E-mail: mcronin@gmu.edu
Address: School of Management, George Mason
University, Fairfax, VA 22030
57
M.A. Cronin and R. Klimoski
58
Manufacturer
Supplier
Producers
End User
Basic researchers
Cognitive
psychologists
Social psychologists
Sociologists
Economists
Applied researchers
Management
I–O psychology
Strategy
Practitioners
MBA
I–O MA
HR MA
Stakeholders
C-level executives
Shareholders
Employees
Quality is: valid with
respect to domain,
universal, basic
e.g., human
motivation
Quality is: valid with
respect to work
context, contingent,
integrated
e.g., reward systems
Quality is: useful in
this organization,
implementable
e.g., specific
payment plan
Quality is: justifiable,
aligned with culture
and other policies
e.g., compensation
package
Knowledge, skills,
abilities – discipline
knowledge, scientific
method
Knowledge, skills,
abilities – multidiscipline knowledge,
scientific method
Knowledge, skills,
abilities –
managerial
knowledge,
organization/industry
knowledge
Knowledge, skills,
abilities – varies
greatly
Figure 1. The evidence-based practice supply chain.
suppliers of management theory; these theories will go into custom practices designed
for specific organizations.
For simplicity, we have represented the
chain in Figure 1 as involving four classes
of actors. The end user represents the stakeholders. This group includes those who
will underwrite and evaluate a proposed
(evidence-based) practice or the actions of
the practitioner. Practitioners, professionals in management or consulting positions,
are the ‘‘producers’’ in our supply chain.
Practitioners’ recommendations should be
informed by research provided by academic
scholars who work on original research
(the ‘‘suppliers’’). Ideally, these scholars
could be differentiated from the manufacturers—those working in the more basic
disciplines1 such as psychology and sociology, who create (discover) the building
blocks of management knowledge.
An evidence-based practice is of highest quality when it can be justified (i.e.,
costs vs. benefits) by the end user, applied
to the particular context by the practitioner, has empirical backing from the
management scholar, and is grounded in
established mechanisms that themselves
1. We recognize that often they are not—many
business schools put out basic science research,
we discuss this at the end.
have scientific backing as shown by
disciplinary researchers. Each of these judgments of quality is a complicated one;
we therefore think it is too much to ask
that any single group in the supply chain
be skilled in making all of them. Developing good basic or applied knowledge
is very difficult, which is why academics
have long and intense training in their specific areas of expertise. This training is not
the same across disciplines. Similarly, practicing professionals must rely on a broad
array of knowledge that includes the organization’s values, existing policies, and the
law. Evidence of a high degree of technical accuracy is not necessarily evidence
that a decision is socially defensible (recall
Briner and Rousseau’s discussion of the use
of IQ in selection as effective but hard
to sell).
Our characterization is different from
Briner and Rousseau’s market-like characterization, where what is produced is
essentially what is used, and the producers and the users are likely to have similar
knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and
metrics for quality. This market characterization overburdens the academics and
ultimately restricts the quality of what is
created. So, metaphorically, if evidencebased practice feeds the stakeholders’ satisfying and nutritious meals, Briner and
What is evidence?
Rousseau’s transactional characterization
tasks the academics with figuring out what
people will want to eat, also what is most
nutritious, and putting these together into
attractive meal choices so they can be purchased off the shelf by practitioners, thrown
in the microwave, and served to stakeholders. We are advocating that the practitioners
be chefs who choose good ingredients from
their academic suppliers (butchers, bakers,
and fishmongers) and who have faith that
these ingredients come from quality farmers (disciplinary academics). The chefs can
then make meals (evidence-based practices)
to suit the taste of particular customers.
Implications for
Specialization Among Roles
We seek to support Briner and Rousseau’s
call for improving both the production and
the use of academic evidence, but we think
that a few points need to be made. The
first is to recognize that what constitutes
‘‘evidence,’’ particularly credible evidence,
changes across the supply chain, but all
these need to work together. Evidence that
something is true to the basic scientist (e.g.,
IQ is predictive of job performance) is not
evidence that it will be organizationally
defensible, but this incongruity does not
invalidate the basic science, nor does it
imply that the basic scientist needs to do
something different—their job is to create
valid knowledge. On the other end of the
spectrum, practitioners create evidence just
as much as scientists do, and sometimes,
that is the best available. As Briner and
Rousseau note, practice is ahead of science
when it comes to evidence about business
problems. We do not see how it could be
otherwise. Business was being conducted
long before management even existed as
a field of study, and the business landscape evolves quickly. Systematic analysis
of why something works takes much longer
than the simple demonstration that it does
work. In the interim, the fact that there
is no scientific basis for why practice X
works does not invalidate the practitioner’s
evidence that it does, nor should it task the
59
practitioner with discovering why. That is
the academics’ job.
The second point is that the value of evidence is determined by more than just the
next party in the supply chain; the vertical
market also matters (e.g., others in one’s
part of the supply chain). For example,
although academics are interested in the
attention of practitioners, they are not the
only customer. Academics also use what
is created by other academics to advance
knowledge. Practitioners use what is created by other practitioners to help guide
practice (as argued above). It is and should
be legitimate that people within a vertical
market use their own standards for what is
quality evidence; this is how the next stage
can be ensured to have quality ingredients. The systematic reviews that Briner and
Rousseau advocate need to be composed of
quality research—the academics who consume each others’ work help ensure that.
The third issue is that when quality is
encouraged to be different among stages,
we have more generativity. Quality to the
academic is very much in terms of validity, whereas quality to the practitioner will
be in terms of functionality. Forcing people to only operate in the intersection of
those two sets is limiting. Valid research
may have no immediate applicability (e.g.,
Feigenbaum’s, 1961, work was merely a
theory of knowledge acquisition until it
became the basis for text and speech recognition software 30+ years later), and many
methods that work well enough (rational
choice) are based on faulty assumptions
(e.g., selfishness, see Dawes & Thaler,
1988). Academics may notice problems
that practitioners do not, and practitioners
may discover problems that make academic
research suddenly very applicable.
Implications for
Coordination Among Roles
We are not advocating silos; there must
be horizontal connections among people
within the supply chain. We also believe
that the output of each phase in the supply
chain will be improved by attention to those
M.A. Cronin and R. Klimoski
60
before and after in the supply chain. But for
the entire chain to be maximally productive,
we need to be clear about the coordination
among the stages.
The Need for Trust and Respect
Academics should not be accountable for
what the end users might want. That translation should be the HR practitioner’s job.
Similarly, the end user does not need to
justify all practice decisions using the high
standards of science. If it works, it works.
The practitioner has the job of verification
that there are no ill side effects. But for
people to have faith that others have done
their job well there needs to be a solid
foundation of trust and respect. This faith
is expedient because as the evidence-based
product becomes more an integrated whole,
it becomes more difficult to verify the basic
research on which it rests. Trust increases
the willingness to rely on what others in
different phases of the supply chain create,
and respect helps people within a phase
realize that what happens outside their own
phase merits attention. To go back to our
food analogy, the applied academic baker
needs the customers to trust that he or she
is only using the best ingredients, and the
practitioner consumer needs to respect
the academic’s skill enough to believe
that the academic’s product is something
better than they themselves could create.
This is true across all phases of the supply
chain—far too often management scholars reinvent concepts from basic disciplines
and in doing so limit the strength of the
evidence they rely on for their findings.
An Educated Consumer Helps
The horizontal links in the supply chain
can be improved. This is what Briner and
Rousseau as well as many others want, but
doing this requires a very specific kind of
learning, one that will probably take more
than simple contact (which seems to be the
typically advocated means for these ends).
It is difficult to establish the credibility of
knowledge across professional boundaries
(Gulati, 2007). Frequently, this is explained
by a bias toward one’s own method or
approach, but we would like to suggest that
even under conditions of high openness
to foreign knowledge, comprehension of
other’s thought worlds is very difficult and
takes time. The upshot is that consumers
can benefit from knowing how their producers create quality evidence, but this will
take deliberate effort. So rather than making
the knowledge more accessible, as Briner
and Rousseau suggested, put that energy
toward educating the practitioner in the
fundamentals of recognizing quality basic
knowledge. The practitioner can similarly
try to ‘‘improve the stakeholder’s palette’’
(to go back to our food analogy) by educating their tastes rather than trying to turn
them into chefs. The education we advocate
must be one of translation not assimilation.
We are trying to make people in different parts of the supply chain understand
each other better, and value each others’
strengths, not look more similar.
Feedback
The upshot is that those who come before
and after in the supply chain should be
integrated partners, but they should know
how they are different and how to translate among these differences. This is what
Cramton and Hinds (2005) called mutual
positive distinctiveness—that, for example,
the practitioner knows the strengths and
weaknesses of the product the academics
produce with respect to the practitioner’s
purpose and does not discount the utility
of the academics’ scientific purpose (see
Briner and Rousseau’s discussion of IQ
as a selection criteria). Each stage has a
job, and each stage should endeavor to
do that job well. In this regard, we (academics) should not apologize (as a field)
for ‘‘failing to offer managers integrative
solutions to relevant and narrowly defined
problems’’ (McGahan, 2007, p. 751) any
more than practitioners should apologize
for wanting easily applicable knowledge.
This dialectical tension should be managed
not eliminated. In our view, the supply
What is evidence?
chain framework goes beyond ‘‘educating
the consumer.’’ It argues for the benefits
of a partnership between pairs of actors
in the flow (supply) of knowledge. As in
any partnership, it leverages the dynamics of specialization and coordination, of
mutual trust, respect, and mutual influence.
As another advantage, it places the responsibility for evidence-based practice where
it belongs at every point in the supply
chain not just with academic researchers
(Klimoski & Jones, 2008; Rynes, 2007).
References
Briner, R. B., & Rousseau, D. M. (2010). Evidencebased I–O psychology: Not there yet. Industrial
and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on
Science and Practice, 4, 3–22.
Cramton, C. D., & Hinds, P. J. (2005). Subgroup
dynamics in internationally distributed teams:
61
Ethnocentrism or cross-national learning? In
B. M. Staw & R. Kramer (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 26, pp. 231–263). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
Dawes, R. M., & Thaler, R. H. (1988). Anomalies:
Cooperation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2,
187–197.
Feigenbaum, E. A. (1961). The simulation of verbal
learning behavior. Proceedings of the Western Joint
Computer Conference, 19, 121–132.
Gulati, R. (2007). Tent poles, tribalism, and boundary
spanning: The rigor-relevance debate in management research. Academy of Management Journal,
50, 775–782.
Klimoski, R. J., & Jones, R. G. (2008). Intuiting the
selection context. Industrial and Organizational
Psychology; Perspectives on Science and Practice,
1, 352–354.
McGahan, A. M. (2007). Academic research matters to
managers: On zebras, dogs, lemmings, hammers,
and turnips. Academy of Management Journal, 50,
748–753.
Rynes, S. L. (2007). Let’s create a tipping point: What
academics and practitioners can do, alone and
together. Academy of Management Journal, 50,
1046–1054.
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