Evidence based HRM
Chapter 1. Evidence based HRM
Introduction
Evidence-based HR activities focus on the employment relationship, an exchange relationship
between an employee and an organization
o Involve contracts & a less clearly defined social relationship agreement
Human resource management: the sum of all strategy, policy, procedures, and day-to-day
acts that together aim to guide employment relations in organizations towards the goals of
organizations, while ensuring alignment with various contextual conditions ( organization
characteristics, industry dynamics, competition, labour markets, legal and institutional settings and societal dynamics )
HR practices: all policies & procedures used for managing employment relationships
Rational decision making considering all information and weighing it according to criteria
before making a decision
o Bounded rationality: effort to best decision w/ an imperfect understanding of reality
Quick fix decisions do not tackle underlying issue produce HR practices based on
personal experience, outdated management theories and management fads severe risks
o Seldom evaluated, so repetition is common
Evidence based HRM: start with identifying a problem & take effort to understand the
problem and its underlying causes find evidence from theory, research, experts
combine sources of knowledge choose best practice
o Method to take decisions in a more rational way while recognizing the importance to
account or power and politics in organizations
Theory
Research done not use insights < > too hard to find close the gap?
o Open science / co-creation
Evidence-based management: actively help practitioners to find and use scientific evidence
Roots in evidence-based medicine (systematic approach & easily to find evidence)
o Time is limited and managers do not know where
to look for the right advice needed in particular
situations centre of evidence-based
management
Evidence-based HRM (EBHRM): a conscientious, explicit,
judicious decision making process to address important
people-related issues in organizations by combining the
best available research evidence with measurable data
and professional knowledge available in organizations
o Not about applying best practice, not about
benchmarking, but about evaluating a variety of
options to solve specific problems in a specific
content, by taking research evidence and the
organizational context into account
,Decision-making as bounded rationality
No rational decision-making as limited knowledge
Bounded rationality: take rational decisions within the limits o their preferences, their social
position and their understanding of the problem and the alternative solutions
EBHRM proposes a sequence of diagnosing, understanding, gatering alternatives before
jumping to a solution
Knowledge developed by doing EBHRM in non-crisis situations will help decision-makers to
develop intuiting or the quality of decisions under time pressure (crises)
The evidence-based HRM process
Part 1. Asking a focused question
Explore & determine the problem statement define the outcome as specific as possible
Part 2. Collect evidence
Explore causes o the problem for multiple angles look for causality
4 sources of evidence: organizational evidence, stakeholder evidence, experimental evidence
and scientific evidence
Local evidence helps understanding the problem in details, social dynamics, past trials
External evidence: databases, rely on larger body of research ( systematic reviews & metal-analysis)
o Systematic reviews: methodical approach for comparing research indings across
different researches: find relevant research check abstracts ensure
comparability and interpretability compare (patterns, potential sources of
disagreements, new findings are provided)
o Meta-analysis: a statistical procedure for examining overall strength of findings
Part 3. Evaluate the evidence
Consider quality of evidence understand research methodology:
o Validity: evidence is telling us about the causal relationship cause < > effect // no
alternative explanations 3 strategies:
Check quality of measures: is the evidence based on measures capturing the
meaning od constructs in the problem statement construct validity
Check quality of research designs longitudinal (&quasi-experimental) designs
Good theory: explanation why a cause would lead to an effect; valid when
based on insights derived from many researches
o Reliability: when repeated, do we ind the same results? verify the research
method with information about the sample and the sampling procedure ( amount & clear)
o Generalizability: draw conclusions for people/org not included repeated?
Check for: boundaries? / unclear generalization?
o Ethicality: guide behaviour of those using EBHRM guidelines (informed consent, honest
information sharing, data protection and privacy regulations)
, Part 4. Decide, prepare and implement
Prepare for implementation search for obstacles (user-friendliness of the practice / support & beliefs of
stakeholders / legislation / conflicting policies / behaviour of key managers)
Culture where use of evidence is a good practice prevention of many obstacles
Wider awareness about EBHRM promote data / facilitate access / collaboration /
training / curiosity
Summary chapter 1
HR practices are tools for managing people in organizations, with the aim to change or improve
an outcome. Outcomes vary from organizational performance (the business case), to ensuring
alignment with the organizational environment (the context of HRM) to employee health and
wellbeing (the employee perspective). Some HR practices are more effective compared to others
in achieving results in the outcome. Evidence-based HRM is a decision-making process to
improve the choice and design of effective HR practices, under conditions of bounded rationality.
Bounded rationality is the condition that it is impossible to know everything, and that
unforeseeable change can happen. Evidence-based HRM proposes an iterative process, where
decision-makers go back and forth in the process before reaching a decision. The Evidence-based
HRM decision-making process promotes a judicious evaluation of organizational and research
evidence, while taking into account ethicality, to design effective HR practices. The process is
sequential, starting with defining a problem, continued by collecting evidence, evaluating
evidence, generating alternatives and deciding on an HR intervention, preparing for
implementation and finally evaluating the implementation and its effects on the outcome. Good
evidence is the key to effective decisions. The quality of evidence can be checked by evaluating
validity, reliability, generalizability and ethicality. The success of the Implementation will depend
on how well an HR practice is designed and finds support of users in the organization. The
chapter provides practical tips to guide effective designs of HR practices.
Chapter 1. Evidence based HRM
Introduction
Evidence-based HR activities focus on the employment relationship, an exchange relationship
between an employee and an organization
o Involve contracts & a less clearly defined social relationship agreement
Human resource management: the sum of all strategy, policy, procedures, and day-to-day
acts that together aim to guide employment relations in organizations towards the goals of
organizations, while ensuring alignment with various contextual conditions ( organization
characteristics, industry dynamics, competition, labour markets, legal and institutional settings and societal dynamics )
HR practices: all policies & procedures used for managing employment relationships
Rational decision making considering all information and weighing it according to criteria
before making a decision
o Bounded rationality: effort to best decision w/ an imperfect understanding of reality
Quick fix decisions do not tackle underlying issue produce HR practices based on
personal experience, outdated management theories and management fads severe risks
o Seldom evaluated, so repetition is common
Evidence based HRM: start with identifying a problem & take effort to understand the
problem and its underlying causes find evidence from theory, research, experts
combine sources of knowledge choose best practice
o Method to take decisions in a more rational way while recognizing the importance to
account or power and politics in organizations
Theory
Research done not use insights < > too hard to find close the gap?
o Open science / co-creation
Evidence-based management: actively help practitioners to find and use scientific evidence
Roots in evidence-based medicine (systematic approach & easily to find evidence)
o Time is limited and managers do not know where
to look for the right advice needed in particular
situations centre of evidence-based
management
Evidence-based HRM (EBHRM): a conscientious, explicit,
judicious decision making process to address important
people-related issues in organizations by combining the
best available research evidence with measurable data
and professional knowledge available in organizations
o Not about applying best practice, not about
benchmarking, but about evaluating a variety of
options to solve specific problems in a specific
content, by taking research evidence and the
organizational context into account
,Decision-making as bounded rationality
No rational decision-making as limited knowledge
Bounded rationality: take rational decisions within the limits o their preferences, their social
position and their understanding of the problem and the alternative solutions
EBHRM proposes a sequence of diagnosing, understanding, gatering alternatives before
jumping to a solution
Knowledge developed by doing EBHRM in non-crisis situations will help decision-makers to
develop intuiting or the quality of decisions under time pressure (crises)
The evidence-based HRM process
Part 1. Asking a focused question
Explore & determine the problem statement define the outcome as specific as possible
Part 2. Collect evidence
Explore causes o the problem for multiple angles look for causality
4 sources of evidence: organizational evidence, stakeholder evidence, experimental evidence
and scientific evidence
Local evidence helps understanding the problem in details, social dynamics, past trials
External evidence: databases, rely on larger body of research ( systematic reviews & metal-analysis)
o Systematic reviews: methodical approach for comparing research indings across
different researches: find relevant research check abstracts ensure
comparability and interpretability compare (patterns, potential sources of
disagreements, new findings are provided)
o Meta-analysis: a statistical procedure for examining overall strength of findings
Part 3. Evaluate the evidence
Consider quality of evidence understand research methodology:
o Validity: evidence is telling us about the causal relationship cause < > effect // no
alternative explanations 3 strategies:
Check quality of measures: is the evidence based on measures capturing the
meaning od constructs in the problem statement construct validity
Check quality of research designs longitudinal (&quasi-experimental) designs
Good theory: explanation why a cause would lead to an effect; valid when
based on insights derived from many researches
o Reliability: when repeated, do we ind the same results? verify the research
method with information about the sample and the sampling procedure ( amount & clear)
o Generalizability: draw conclusions for people/org not included repeated?
Check for: boundaries? / unclear generalization?
o Ethicality: guide behaviour of those using EBHRM guidelines (informed consent, honest
information sharing, data protection and privacy regulations)
, Part 4. Decide, prepare and implement
Prepare for implementation search for obstacles (user-friendliness of the practice / support & beliefs of
stakeholders / legislation / conflicting policies / behaviour of key managers)
Culture where use of evidence is a good practice prevention of many obstacles
Wider awareness about EBHRM promote data / facilitate access / collaboration /
training / curiosity
Summary chapter 1
HR practices are tools for managing people in organizations, with the aim to change or improve
an outcome. Outcomes vary from organizational performance (the business case), to ensuring
alignment with the organizational environment (the context of HRM) to employee health and
wellbeing (the employee perspective). Some HR practices are more effective compared to others
in achieving results in the outcome. Evidence-based HRM is a decision-making process to
improve the choice and design of effective HR practices, under conditions of bounded rationality.
Bounded rationality is the condition that it is impossible to know everything, and that
unforeseeable change can happen. Evidence-based HRM proposes an iterative process, where
decision-makers go back and forth in the process before reaching a decision. The Evidence-based
HRM decision-making process promotes a judicious evaluation of organizational and research
evidence, while taking into account ethicality, to design effective HR practices. The process is
sequential, starting with defining a problem, continued by collecting evidence, evaluating
evidence, generating alternatives and deciding on an HR intervention, preparing for
implementation and finally evaluating the implementation and its effects on the outcome. Good
evidence is the key to effective decisions. The quality of evidence can be checked by evaluating
validity, reliability, generalizability and ethicality. The success of the Implementation will depend
on how well an HR practice is designed and finds support of users in the organization. The
chapter provides practical tips to guide effective designs of HR practices.
