CCAL Hosts Presentation by Visiting Scholar Dr. Denise Rousseau

Last month, CCAL hosted Denise Rousseau, one of the pioneers in the field of organizational behaviour. Denise is the H.J. Heinz II University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and the Tepper School of Business. She is well-known for her work in psychological contracts, which is the unspoken agreement between employees and their employers and how they shape work and working relationships. As the two-time winner of the Academy of Management’s George Terry Award for best management books (I-Deals, 2006; Psychological Contracts, 1996), Dr. Rousseau received the 2009 Lifetime Career Achievement Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. Besides serving as the President of the Academy of Management, the largest professional association for management scholars from 2004-2005, Denise also worked as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, one of the leading journals in the field, from 1998-2007.

In addition to her theoretical contributions to organizational behaviour, Dr. Rousseau is also well-known for promoting evidence-based management through the Centre for Evidence-Based Management, a non-profit organization that involves scholars, consultants and managers across the world who gathered to enhance the understanding of evidence-based management. Evidence-based management refers to collecting and critically appraising the best available information (or evidence) before making a management decision. Dr. Rousseau and colleagues’ framework recommends six behaviours for managers to implement evidence-based management in their practice. The first step is asking the right question. She suggests that when the question is articulated in an answerable way, the following five steps becomes easy. The second step involves acquiring, which is about gathering evidence systematically. The sources of the evidence can be a combination of scientific literature, organizational facts and figures, professional opinions of practitioners such as consultants, and the values and concerns of stakeholders including employees. Appraising, which is the third step, is the phase when leaders should assess the trustworthiness of the collected information. The fourth step, aggregating, is when leaders weight the critically assessed evidence based on their relevance. Denise argues that this is the phase where leaders should prefer scientific findings and evidence collected from multiple sources over individuals’ gut feelings or fads and fashions. The fifth step, applying, involves implementing the decision given based on the first four steps. Last, in the sixth step, which is assessing, organizational leaders should evaluate the consequences of their evidence-based decisions and revise them if the outcome is unfavourable.

During her visit to Haskayne School of Business, Denise gave two research talks. The first talk was a roundtable discussion that business leaders attended. Dr. Rousseau shared insights about how managers can use evidence-based management for business decisions instead of using popular trends and quick-fixes. Eleven executives from different backgrounds had a chance to ask questions and discuss how evidence-based management can be used in their respective fields. The second talk was to faculty, post-doctoral associates, and graduate students from the areas of organizational behaviour, strategy, psychology, and education, who gathered to learn how they can implement the tenets of evidence-based management in their teaching and research. Researchers from the University of Alberta, the University of Lethbridge, Mount Royal University, and the University of Tehran also attended Dr. Rousseau’s talk. The session that started with the main principles of evidence-based management was followed by group discussions and reflection on practice activities.

 

References

Barends, E., & Rousseau, D. M. (2018). Evidence-based management: How to use evidence to make better organizational decisions. New York: Kogan Page Publishers.

Rousseau, D. M. (2018). Making evidence-based organizational decisions in an uncertain world. Organizational Dynamics, 47(3), 135-146.