Without a map: life in the (EBMgt) information universe Roye Werner, Business & Economics Librarian, Carnegie Mellon University Evidence-Based Management PDW, 71 st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, San Antonio, TX, August, 2011

Finding the evidence: what I’ll cover: 1.Where does this fit in the teaching of EBMgt? 2.How is information on how to manage structured? 3.How is research on how to manage structured? 4.Tips for teachers 5.Tips for searchers 6.Tips for managers 7.Future visions

Where this fits in the 5 Steps 1.Formulate an answerable question 2.Search for the best available evidence 3.Critically appraise the evidence 4.Integrate the evidence with your managerial expertise and organizational concerns and apply 5.Evaluate the process

Articles in magazines, newspapers, trade publications, journals. Example: 1,471,332 under subject heading “Management” in ABI-Inform database - of those, 135,778 peer-reviewed. Print is almost gone. Books from academic, trade, and popular presses. Amazon lists 10,000 books on “Management Science” and 6,500 on “Organizational Behavior.” Also large sections in bookstores. Print still rules, but how long before ebooks take over? Websites, blogs, apps, social networks, open courseware. i.e. MIT Sloan courses, HRM Today network, “My MBA – Human Resources” app, HRSpace twitter, business professor blogs, British Library Management Portal Organizations. i.e. SHRM, Conference Board, CEBMa(!) Consultants. US has 361,206 management consultancies listed in Dun & Bradstreet. Peer- reviewed (vague estimate) Map: Management Advice What they see Found on Google?

Google Scholar ProQuest (ABI Inform, etc.) EBSCO (Business Source Premier, etc.) JSTOR Library discovery service, (Summon, Worldcat Local, Primo Central, etc.) or federated searching program Map: Management Research What you want them to see Databases (3 popular ones) Academic books (soon to be mixed with databases)

Tips for Teachers: 1. Find out what databases your university library offers

Tips for Teachers: 1. Work with your librarians. They can teach classes, confer with students, create guides. They want to do this!

Tips for Teachers: 1a. Example of a librarian-created guide

Tips for Teachers: 3. Offer hands-on training and practice

Tips for Teachers: 4. Put links to resources on your course management system

Tips for Teachers: 5. Google Scholar – excellent results, but text not part of the deal Good: Powerful search Recognized Wider range Easy, intuitive Some things are free More languages Preferred route for many Not so good: Less control over search Some non-scholarly items Duplicates No citation help Connection to univ. unclear Needs subscriptions!

Tips for searchers Some basic principles Databases are different from search engines – more structured, can take advantage of human-assigned categories Boolean AND, OR, NOT, parentheses – combining sets “Quotation marks define a phrase” usually Truncation symbols (often *) Field searching – limiting to title, abstract, subject fields Give “Advanced Search” a try Look for a tutorial – 5 minutes there can save you much more in your search

Tips for managers Public libraries have more than you think Is an abstract good enough? Google Scholar provides. (If not, public libraries do interlibrary loan also.) Small Business Development Centers Work with local universities and professors CEBMa model

Future visions Open Access – please sign on “International Journal of Management Reviews”, “Science You Can Use” – better availability of systematic reviews All in one place - example: ProQuest’s EBMedicine search model Mobile access: get ready