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Enablers of evidence-based management: Clues from the absorptive capacity

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Article in Australian Journal of Management · May 2020

DOI: 10.1177/0312896220919784

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Enablers of Evidence-Based Management: Clues from the Absorptive

Capacity Literature

Christian Criado-Perez; Catherine G. Collins*; Chris J. Jackson*

UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Contact details: [email protected]
* Catherine G Collins and Chris Jackson contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order.

This article has been accepted for publication in

Australian Journal of Management

published by SAGE Publications.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0312896220919784

1
Abstract
Evidence-based management (EBM) is a framework well-suited to improving decision-making

amid the deluge of available information. However, little is known about the enablers of EBM,

particularly with regards to organisational-level factors. Drawing on the absorptive capacity

(AC) literature, we identify novel multi-level factors that are likely to enable EBM

implementation. Specifically, we review the empirical literature on antecedents of AC and use

meta-analyses to determine the relationship between these antecedents and AC. Findings

highlight organisational-level enablers of EBM including information system capabilities,

transformational leadership, available resources, and collaboration. Individual-level enablers

include prior related knowledge, motivation for learning and employee empowerment. We

contribute to the literature by illustrating the importance of organisational-level enablers for

EBM, advancing a research agenda on EBM and providing recommendations for practitioners.

JEL Classification: M10

Keywords

Evidence-based management, evidence-based practice, absorptive capacity; meta-analysis;

enablers

2
1. Introduction

Information technologies have resulted in unprecedented amounts of data and relevant

information that managers can collect and rely on to inform decision-making (Knippenberg et

al., 2015). In parallel, rapidly growing fields such as artificial intelligence and machine

learning are increasingly assisting in complex pattern recognition, facilitating a trend towards

more informed decision-making across a wide range of applications (Jarrahi, 2018; Jordan

and Mitchell, 2015; O’Leary, 2013). However, information technologies have also resulted in

the need to filter a huge amount of irrelevant or misleading information. These changes

present organisations with an opportunity to capture additional value and gain competitive

advantage, provided they can cope with unprecedented information processing demands

(Cheatham et al., 2019; Gupta and George, 2016; World Economic Forum, 2018). Making

informed and accurate decisions will require formulating the right questions to collect and

evaluate a growing body of evidence.

To improve decision-making and increase the chances of desired outcomes amid such

complexity, scholars have proposed the evidence-based management (EBM) framework,

whereby managers engage in conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available

evidence to make decisions (Barends and Rousseau, 2018; Briner et al., 2009). Since its

inception, the literature on EBM has mostly expanded through conceptual papers, advocacy

articles, and teaching related studies to help bridge the research-practice divide (Rynes and

Bartunek, 2017). Building on this important work, there is little empirical research shedding

light on the conditions that enable EBM. Research from the fields of medicine and

psychology provide initial insights into individual level factors that may foster EBM (e.g.,

Michie et al., 2005; Smith and Lilienfeld, 2015), yet organisational level enablers have

mostly been overlooked. Recent research in management has started to demonstrate that, in

3
addition to these individual factors, organisational factors such as culture also impact EBM,

and are potentially more powerful predictors (Criado-Perez et al., 2020).

This paper aims to highlight insights from organisational research regarding potential

enablers of EBM and propose a future research agenda for this important framework. To do

so, we will explore the construct of absorptive capacity (AC) which is one of the most

influential constructs used to understand how organisations leverage available information

within their environment (Camisón and Forés, 2010). As we will demonstrate, AC presents

similarities with many key elements of EBM, and thus we identify ways in which knowledge

about enablers of AC could be applied to enhance EBM research and practice. Specifically,

we conduct a literature review of the predictors of AC and determine their aggregate

correlation with AC via a meta-analysis to extract evidence-based themes that EBM research

can build upon. In this way, we provide a research agenda for future research on EBM and

identify factors that can help organisations make the most effective use of evidence in the

twenty-first century.

2. Decision-making in the era of information

The growing volume of information made available through computer technology and the

internet has revolutionised the nature of management decision-making across a wide range of

industries. To illustrate this change, consider two examples from sectors that have

traditionally differed in their dependency on timely information: supply chain management

and the built environment. A supply chain manager is responsible for orchestrating the timely

acquisition and movement of goods to facilitate an efficient production and delivery of end

products. Information about demand, movement of stock, resource availability, or the

location of bottlenecks is essential to streamline an organisation’s supply chain. Not so long-

ago managers in this position would struggle to gather this important data. Fast forward to

today and the tables have turned. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and radio

4
frequency identification have enabled supply chain managers to monitor and forecast the

demand for goods, movement of stocks, and predict the future workload to size their

organisation accordingly. Furthermore, the development of communication technologies,

artificial intelligence, and the use of big data analytics are providing managers with the

opportunity to benefit from unprecedented volumes of information, giving rise to a new era

of industrial development (Lu, 2017; Roblek et al., 2016; Rossit et al., 2019). Yet the

vastness of available data can often be overwhelming and detrimental (Schwartz and Ward,

2004; Whelan and Teigland, 2013). Thus, selecting what information to focus on, and how to

discern its meaning and validity is increasingly important.

The second example is a manager in the built environment sector. Until recently,

building designers and facility managers had little information on how buildings were used.

Learning from the performance of previous designs or fine-tuning the efficiency of an

operational building was an arduous and unusual task (Duffy, 2012). Today the use of

sensors and building management systems can give detailed real time occupancy information

(e.g., energy use, indoor environment quality, usage of rooms and desks), providing an

abundance of information related to the buildings performance and behavioural consequences

(Duarte et al., 2013). If used wisely, this newly available data can help narrow the gap

between the predicted and actual performance of buildings, as well as shed light on the

complex relationship between design features and occupants’ well-being and satisfaction

(Göçer et al., 2015). Built environment managers who capitalise on this opportunity can

improve operating costs, employees’ wellbeing, and productivity through an efficient

customisation and a deeper level of expertise in their field.

The impact of the growing volume of information goes beyond supply chain management

or the built environment and impacts most management roles across the organisation (e.g.,

HR, strategy, sales, finance). As a result, most managers will no longer struggle to collect

5
information, but instead will have so much within reach that being selective and critical in

making sense of the available evidence will be increasingly important. The vast amount of

information available may look homogeneous to the untrained eye in terms of validity and

applicability. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Management fads, fake news,

and unfounded advice abound and intermingle with rigorous and trustworthy evidence. The

validity of the information used to make strategic decisions is likely to influence whether the

organisation achieves or steers away from competitive advantage. Furthermore, contradictory

information stemming from different sources can place decisions-makers at a difficult

crossroad, creating uncertainty that motivates them to rely on intuitive judgements instead

(Sadler-Smith and Shefy, 2004). Hence, to benefit from the acquisition and exploitation of

the available knowledge, managers must be able to discern weak from strong evidence to

focus on leveraging the latter.

3. Evidence-based management – insights from absorptive capacity

The evidence-based management (EBM) literature provides a framework to help

practitioners navigate through the available information and make decisions based on the best

available evidence. Barends and colleagues (Barends et al., 2014; Barends and Rousseau,

2018) define EBM as the judicious and conscientious use of evidence from multiple sources.

It comprises the six following steps:

1. Asking: translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question.

2. Acquiring: systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence.

3. Appraising: critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence.

4. Aggregating: weighing and pulling together the evidence.

5. Applying: incorporating the evidence into the decision-making process.

6. Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken.

6
 The purpose of the framework is to provide managers with a method to question their

assumptions with evidence, apply this evidence to the managers’ specific context, and learn

from the implemented solutions (Barends et al., 2014; Briner et al., 2009). Despite the

growing body of research on EBM, recent reviews of the EBM literature highlight a shortage

of empirical work on the process of how to implement EBM (Rousseau and Gunia, 2016;

Rynes and Bartunek, 2017). That is, little is known about what facilitates EBM

implementation. Rousseau and Gunia (2016) started to address this gap by reviewing related

literature on enablers of evidence-based practice in the fields of medicine and allied health.

Evidence-based practice originated with the goal of training medical professionals to

independently update their knowledge through the systematic use of scientific evidence

(Barends and Briner, 2014). EBM evolved from this literature, thus relying on the best

available evidence to make decisions, although it differs with regards to the context and

nature of those decisions. Rousseau and Gunia (2016) drew on the ability-motivation-

opportunity (AMO) framework to provide a theoretical mechanism to review the literature on

evidence-based practice, incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives. Their core insights

included the importance of foundational competencies (abilities) to support EBM adoption,

the motivation to do so, and the required support (opportunity) to overcome its barriers. As

expected for a literature in its formative stages, there was a call for more empirical research,

and of particular note and relevance for this paper, a deeper understanding of organisational

factors driving EBM was highlighted as critical.

Building on Rousseau and Gunia’s (2016) review paper, we draw on a different literature

to identify multi-level factors that may facilitate EBM adoption. We ventured beyond the

evidence-based practice literature and scanned fields of research such as organisational

learning (e.g., Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011), information seeking behaviour (e.g., Mai,

2016), behavioural decision research (e.g., Moore and Flynn, 2008) and human factors

7
research (e.g., Russ et al., 2012). Heeding calls for EBM to address organisational-level

factors, we focus on AC because it examines the process through which firms identify and

utilize knowledge in a way that is beneficial to organisational outcomes (Song et al., 2018).

Next, we unpack the similarities and differences between EBM and AC to highlight why it is

important to extrapolate learnings from AC since it is a more mature body of literature.

3.1 Comparison of evidence-based management and absorptive capacity

Absorptive capacity (AC) refers to the ability to identify, accumulate, process and use

valuable new knowledge from external sources (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; van Doorn et al.,

2017; Zahra et al., 2009). Terminology for AC dimensions or steps differ (Lane et al., 2006;

Lewin et al., 2011; Todorova and Durisin, 2007; Zahra and George, 2002), and whilst there

has been some debate over the different dimensions within AC, scholars most typically use

the construct of AC and pay less attention to the process or dimensions (Song et al., 2018;

Volberda et al., 2010). To address these issues, Song et al. (2018) argued there are three

comprehensive dimensions of AC: absorptive effort, resembling the function of a radar to

search for and acquire valuable external knowledge; absorptive knowledge base, to

understand, adapt, and exploit the acquired knowledge; and absorptive process to facilitate

knowledge diffusion within the organisation.

The constructs of AC and EBM are associated with different streams of research and to

our knowledge have never been juxtaposed or combined. However, a close look at the

building blocks of both constructs reveals many similarities. As illustrated in Table 1, steps

2-5 of the EBM framework parallel dimensions of AC. Specifically, there are four

commonalities. First, both EBM and AC involve the acquisition and use of valuable

knowledge with the aim of pursuing beneficial organisational outcomes. Second, EBM

considers appraising quality of evidence collected (Barends and Rousseau, 2018), which is

similar to how AC emphasizes recognition of value during knowledge acquisition and

8
consequent processing to assess relevance and utility (Lane et al., 2006; Song et al., 2018).

Third, to synthesise and contextualise new knowledge both EBM and AC ‘aggregate’ the

available evidence (Barends and Rousseau, 2018) or ‘adapt’ the acquired knowledge by

combining it with the accumulated knowledge held by the firm (Song et al., 2018). Fourth

and lastly, both EBM and AC describe the application or exploitation of the acquired

knowledge as a subsequent step.

[INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]

As seen in Table 1, the similarities between these two constructs are such that EBM

appears to comprise all of the steps involved in AC, as well as two additional components,

steps 1 and 6. In step 1, EBM includes the identification of a problem as an important

starting point preceding the search for evidence. This stems from the framework’s

conceptualisation as a general approach towards solving organisational problems and making

decisions to increase the likelihood of the desired outcomes. On the other hand, AC focuses

on the capability of a firm to learn from its external environment and exploit that novel

knowledge to innovate, without necessarily focusing on an identified problem. Additionally,

EBM focuses on the collection of evidence from multiple internal and external sources and

consequent aggregation (Barends et al., 2014). AC implies a similar process whilst focussing

on acquiring new external knowledge and subsequently adapting it when combined with prior

(i.e., internal) knowledge (Song et al., 2018; Zahra and George, 2002). In step 6, EBM

underscores the importance of assessing the outcomes of the implemented solutions to

generate and disseminate additional knowledge. Although Song et al. (2018) describe the

dissemination of acquired knowledge as part of AC, none of the proposed definitions of AC

refer to the collection and dissemination in terms of a feedback loop. Overall, our comparison

9
of EBM and AC underscores some nuances regarding terminology and scope, yet also

displays many similarities.

In summary, AC provides the organisational nuances which, we argue, can enrich the

EBM literature. Whereas EBM is generally described as an individual level construct adopted

by managers, AC is a multilevel construct that has mostly been measured at a firm level to

focus on organisational issues (Volberda et al., 2010). This difference is beginning to fade as

researchers who study AC and its antecedents are more recently also focusing on the

individual or team levels (e.g., Lowik et al., 2017; Ojo and Raman, 2016). We see this as an

opportunity to broaden the current horizons of the EBM literature. As empirical research on

the enablers of EBM is scarce, the AC literature provides a list of empirically supported

enablers that could provide clues to the factors that enable EBM. From this perspective, we

draw upon the construct of AC and empirical research on its multi-level antecedents to

complement the EBM literature and highlight promising research avenues.

4. Antecedents of Absorptive Capacity: A review and a meta-analytic consolidation

Volberda et al (2010) reviewed the theoretical and empirical studies of AC to identify the

conceptual gaps within the literature. The authors found that organisational and individual

level antecedents have been mostly neglected and called for more empirical research on

‘macro-antecedents’ and ‘micro-antecedents’ of AC. Since then, more scholars have studied

predictors of AC, but we have not found a systematic review of these findings. For example,

Song et al.’s (2018) meta-analysis synthesizes the empirical findings yet only covers the

outcomes of AC. Therefore, to take stock of the empirical evidence regarding the antecedents

of AC we performed a literature review and drew on empirical studies from the last 10 years

that examined the antecedents of AC in a management context. We searched for articles that

included the term “absorptive capacity” in the abstract and short-listed those including

predictors of AC. We used the ProQuest and EBSCO databases to search for papers that met

10
our criteria across management journals. This yielded a total of 95 articles which were

scanned for relevance and coded for the following criteria: (1) How AC was operationalised;

(2) empirically supported antecedents of AC; (3) whether these antecedents were individual,

organisational or about the environment external to the organisation; and (4) whether data

collected were cross sectional or lagged. Out of the 95 articles initially identified, 43 tested

for antecedents of AC. Table 2 provides a high-level summary of the included literature.

[INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]

Given AC is a concept from the strategy literature, empirical research on the

antecedents of AC paid most attention to constructs at the organisational level. In fact, 70%

considered and measured AC at the organisational level, and 65% of the studies focused on

organisational level antecedents. In contrast, less attention has been paid to antecedents at the

individual level (23% of studies), team level (9%) and from the external environment (5%).

What was reassuring from a construct validity perspective for the purpose of drawing

parallels between AC and EBM, is that most articles operationalised AC through self-

reported scales that built on seminal conceptual papers (e.g., Cohen and Levinthal, 1990;

Todorova and Durisin, 2007; Zahra and George, 2002) to measure the ability to absorb,

transform, and exploit valuable external knowledge. Only 9% of the included studies relied

on narrower proxies to measure AC such as the perceived internationalisation of innovation

within a firm (Schubert et al., 2018), or through objective measures such as R&D expenditure

and number of employees with bachelor degrees (Kostopoulos et al., 2011). Given most

studies utilised measures with a comprehensive operationalisation of AC that reflect many

aspects of EBM - the collection, evaluation, and use of valuable knowledge - this enables us

to explore the application of these findings to the EBM framework.

4.1 Consolidating the identified antecedents through a meta-analytic procedure

11
 Our review identified over 70 antecedents of AC, yet this broad list of predictors did

not consider the supporting evidence for each antecedent, nor does it consider predictive

validity. Further, many of the identified antecedents were overlapping (e.g., employee

collaboration and teamwork); some of these antecedents were supported by several studies,

while others were only supported by anecdotal evidence. Rather than provide an exhaustive

list of predictors without evaluating their relevance, we aimed to identify the most viable

antecedents of AC and their estimated effect sizes through a meta-analytic procedure. To do

this, we condensed the list of potential antecedents by aggregating across highly similar

constructs. Two coders – the first author and an independent researcher without knowledge of

the purpose of the research – performed this aggregation by obtaining definitions of each

antecedent from the original sources, then by matching antecedents with highly similar

definitions under an overarching construct. For example, external knowledge inflows,

interacting with the external environment, external openness, and search breadth were

grouped under the overarching construct labelled ‘external knowledge inflows’. This process

resulted in an inter-rater reliability of 92%. Disagreements were resolved through further

discussion after viewing scale items. Next, we selected the constructs that were measured in

more than one study and calculated their meta-analytic correlation coefficients with AC,

correcting for sampling error and measurement error. This procedure provides unbiased

estimates of the relation between two constructs and helped us highlight the more promising

predictors of AC (Hunter and Schmidt, 2004). Table 3 provides a summary of the results

ranking the identified predictors based on their aggregated correlation with AC. The studies

used to meta-analyse the constructs are provided in appendix 1, followed by the list of

constructs that were only identified in one study and therefore dropped from the analysis in

appendix 2.

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 [INSERT TABLE3 ABOUT HERE]

Effect sizes were interpreted based on Cohen (1992) and the recommendations by

Bosco et al. (2015) for relations involving behaviour. Thus, we consider 0.35 to be a strong

correlation, 0.2 to be moderate, and 0.1 to be small. Out of the 15 constructs included in our

meta-analysis, 11 resulted in significant aggregate correlations with AC ranging from

moderate (ρ = 0.21) to large (ρ = 0.65). On the other hand, the constructs of trust,

environmental dynamism, and competitive pressure were not significantly associated with

AC when aggregating the corresponding data. We discuss each of the constructs in relation to

AC and EBM in the following paragraphs.

5. Mapping the antecedents of AC on to the EBM framework

We now analyse the most promising antecedents of AC (Table 3). Since the aim is to

extrapolate how these findings apply to EBM, we examine the results about AC through the

lens of EBM. We draw on Rousseau and Gunia (2016) as the most current and

comprehensive review of enablers of EBM1 and then examine the 11 constructs identified as

significant predictors of AC in conjunction with the EBM enablers identified in the review

paper.

5.1 Individual level:

The review by Rousseau and Gunia (2016) concludes that “we have good evidence

that effective evidence-based practice adoption depends on the ability, motivation and

opportunity of the individual practitioners involved” (p.40). The authors draw on

1
The work of Barends and Rousseau (2018) and Rynes and Bartunek (2017) are more recent review
publications on EBM. However, unlike Rousseau and Gunia (2016), neither reviews the literature on enablers of
EBM. Barends and Rousseau (2018) focus on the essential concepts of EBM and the steps involved to guide
practitioners in adopting EBM and educators to train future managers. Rynes and Bartunek (2017) reviewed the
EBM literature to identify the nature of previous work (e.g., advocacy articles, critiques, empirical work) and
evaluate the quality of empirical studies on EBM.

13
multidisciplinary research to further elaborate on each of these elements. In relation to ability,

three elementary skills for EBM are proposed as key enablers, albeit to our knowledge not

yet empirically investigated: expertise in the domain, critical thinking skills, and the

functional skills to implement each of the steps involved in EBM. With regards to motivation

to adopt EBM, Rousseau and Gunia (2016) draw on the Theory of Planned Behaviour

(Ajzen, 1991) to propose that the perceived norms regarding EBM, perceived barriers to

implement it, and the individual’s attitude towards its practice will predict its practice.

Indeed, the predictive power of Theory of Planned Behaviour is supported by recent

empirical research on EBM (Criado-Perez, et al., 2020). Lastly, regarding the factors that

may enable EBM under the umbrella of opportunity, Rousseau and Gunia (2016) draw on

nursing and healthcare research to suggest the following enablers: autonomy and flexibility,

psychological safety, leadership support, time availability, and a cross-disciplinary

involvement in decision-making.

Our meta-analysis provides further support from the AC literature for enablers in

relation to an individual’s ability, motivation, and opportunity. With regards to ability, prior

related knowledge and experience was moderately correlated with AC (ρ = 0.21). This

antecedent of AC provides some preliminary evidence that expertise in the domain is relevant

to EBM as a knowledge base is required to understand the problem at hand, seek appropriate

evidence and appraise its quality (Carlo et al., 2012). Our meta-analysis also provides

evidence that an individual’s motivation to engage in learning tasks is strongly associated

with AC (ρ = 0.45). The consequences of such a predisposition are a heightened likelihood of

engaging with information seeking and striving towards continuous improvement (Cazan and

Indreica, 2014; DeShon and Gillespie, 2005), which would likely impact the adoption of

EBM (Criado-Perez et al., 2020). Lastly, in relation to opportunity, our findings support a

positive effect of employees’ empowerment on increased AC (ρ=0.47). Employees’

14
discretion and involvement in decision-making is therefore strongly associated with the

degree to which they identify and apply new valuable knowledge, suggesting that

empowerment may be an important predictor of EBM.

5.2 Organisational and environmental level

Individual decision making by managers does not happen in a vacuum, it is

influenced by the broader organisational and environmental context (Johns, 2006; Kozlowski

and Klein, 2000)). As such, it is not surprising that managers implementation of EBM is also

influenced by factors at the organisational and industry level (Criado-Perez et al., 2020). The

only factors that Rousseau and Gunia (2016) identified in the literature as organisational-

level enablers were organisational climate and leadership support, and importantly the

evidence for the latter is particularly scarce and inconclusive (Reichenpfader et al., 2015).

The authors concluded that little is known regarding organisational level enablers and

encouraged future research to draw their attention to this gap. The literature on AC provides

extensive evidence supporting a wide range of organisational level constructs as predictors of

AC. Here we will summarise the meta-analysis findings for higher level constructs related to

AC in order from strongest to weakest.

Information systems capabilities - the firm’s ability to scan environments, access

relevant information and manage knowledge - were identified through our meta-analysis to

have the highest correlation (ρ=0.65) with AC. This finding indicates the important role that

information systems play in enabling an organisation to collect, store and share knowledge,

permitting its exploitation, all of which are likely to be essential for an effective adoption of

EBM.

Transformational leadership was also strongly correlated with AC (ρ=0.60). This is

consistent with the Rousseau and Gunia’s (2016) proposition that leadership support is

important for EBM. Transformational leadership involves intellectual stimulation and

15
encouraging followers to question long-held assumptions (Bass et al., 2003), both of which

would encourage teams and individual employees to question their practices and seek the best

available evidence.

An additional set of constructs related to collaboration and knowledge sharing were

also identified as being strongly related to AC in the meta-analysis. These included employee

collaboration (ρ=0.59), knowledge sharing within the organisation (ρ=0.58), and socialisation

(ρ=0.40). Collaborating and sharing knowledge across departments facilitates the

identification and application of relevant knowledge and evidence across an organisation,

thus are also likely to be relevant for EBM. Our review also identified constructs related to

the collaboration and knowledge sharing with stakeholders outside the organisation as

possible predictors of AC. External knowledge inflows and interorganisational collaboration

were both strongly related to AC (ρ=0.43 and ρ=0.36 respectively). Both constructs provide

ways to learn from the external environment, a fundamental requirement for both AC and

EBM. This finding also illustrates that EBM research may need to develop domain

knowledge of organisational and environmental enablers, including how to integrate insights

from industry and wider level influencers.

Lastly, resources available for innovative tasks were also strongly related to AC

(ρ=0.52). The firm’s ability to assign resources to novel value-creating opportunities impacts

the capability employees have to identify and exploit innovative solutions (Bierly et al., 2009;

Burcharth et al., 2015; Chang et al., 2014). Similar to AC, EBM adoption is likely to require

available resources to think innovatively, identifying alternative solutions and experimenting

to adapt them to their context (Tucker et al., 2007).

Our review identified additional organisational enablers of AC that were only

included in one study, thus could not be included in our meta-analysis of AC. For example,

customer relationship capability, flexibility in resource allocation, and innovation incentives

16
were found to have a positive significant effect on AC (Chang et al., 2014; Tzokas et al.,

2015; Wang et al., 2018). Similarly, the firms knowledge base, their variety of business

partners, the degree of interorganisational trust, and the exchange of tacit knowledge were

also found to be positively associated with AC (Carlo et al., 2012; Ebers and Maurer, 2014;

Lazzarotti et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2016). Whilst worth highlighting as potentially relevant

factors for EBM, these constructs have been examined less in the AC literature and need

further empirical testing before determining if they are promising enablers of AC and EBM.

In comparison to the individual, team, and organisational level enablers reviewed so

far, environmental factors have received little attention in the EBM literature and in studies

on AC. In fact, Rousseau and Gunia (2016) do not identify any environmental level enablers

of EBM besides suggesting that the support of institutions to curate and enable the access to

knowledge would help facilitate EBM. Similarly, our review only identified two constructs as

environmental factors related to AC: competitive pressure and environmental dynamisms,

both of which resulted in a non-significant relation with AC when meta-analysed. Perhaps

these issues did not emerge as significant because they play a contingency role, moderating

the link between enablers and AC (e.g., Ben-Oz and Greve, 2015).

6. Discussion

The opportunities and challenges in the workplace resulting from the overwhelming

volume of available information exacerbate the need to study the enablers of EBM. This is

not merely of academic interest; the effective use of the available evidence is becoming a

capability of critical importance to managers and organisations. This paper sought to

understand enablers likely important for EBM by drawing on the related literature of AC. The

results of our meta-analysis highlight 11 antecedents of AC, which are also potential enablers

of EBM. At the firm level this included: information system capabilities, transformational

leadership, employee collaboration, employee knowledge sharing, resources available for

17
innovative tasks, external knowledge inflows, employee socialisation and interorganisational

collaboration. At the individual level this included: empowerment of employees, a tendency

to engage with learning tasks, and prior related knowledge and experience. These findings

provide promising and actionable guidance for researchers and practitioners alike.

6.1 Implications for research

The findings from this study provide important insights for EBM that merit further

examination. Most importantly, the conceptual overlap between AC and EBM presented in

Table 1 requires empirical testing. What is the convergent and divergent validity of AC and

EBM? Further, future research needs to empirically test whether the AC antecedents

identified in the meta-analysis are also important facilitating conditions for EBM, and the

mechanisms through which they impact its practice. The empirical findings related to AC and

the resulting aggregated correlations reported in Table 3 highlight promising multilevel

enablers of EBM, and are especially helpful in pointing towards relevant organisational level

enablers. These have been largely overlooked in the EBM literature and require urgent

attention. Understanding the enablers of EBM is important for the future workplace, so that

the proliferation of information and emerging technologies such as AI can be harnessed for

knowledge generation and creative problem solving.

Our study provides less guidance on factors external to the organisation that impact EBM

adoption. These include institutional forces that impact management decision-making

through coercive, normative or mimetic processes and hence influence which sources of

evidence and decision-making processes are considered legitimate (See DiMaggio and

Powell, 2000; as well as Palthe, 2014). For example, Criado-Perez et al. (2020) found that

industry-wide routines and norms in the built environment sector favour experiential

evidence over scientific research, a practice that restricts the sources of evidence managers

draw on, thus putting boundary conditions on their capability to implement EBM. Moving

18
forward, regulatory changes aimed at increasing transparency may encourage managers to

seek for more reputable and systematic sources of evidence. The regulatory changes

implemented in the European Union in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis (see

Wouters and Van Kerckhoven, 2012) and those recommended by the Haynes Royal

Commission in Australia (see Deloitte, 2019) may provide interesting cases to study the

effect on EBM adoption in the financial sector. Overall, exploration of the relationship

between varied institutional arrangements and EBM adoption could clarify the effects of

more distal forces and better convey the applications of our findings.

Given the theoretical overlap of AC and EBM, the findings of our study assist in

identifying predictors of acquiring, appraising, aggregating and applying evidence. However,

less is known about the steps of EBM that are not represented in AC. Each of these two steps

– ‘ask’, which is about identifying a practical problem and ‘assess’, which involves

evaluating the effectiveness of the implemented solution – could be driven by distinctive

factors and are critical steps of EBM to understand. Thus, understanding the multilevel

enablers of these steps is a high priority for researchers. The capability for employees to

identify practical problems and challenge assumptions as part of the step ‘ask’, will likely be

hindered by centralised organisational structures and a climate of low psychological safety

(Anderson et al., 2014; Tucker et al., 2007). The ‘assess’ step may also be susceptible to the

organisational climate of psychological safety and an individual’s curiosity (Harrison and

Dossinger, 2017).

Building on the findings of this paper, another area of research that requires prioritising is

the development of skills necessary to adopt EBM, particularly the skills required for tasks

unlikely to be accomplished by technology alone. Formulating the right questions or

appraising the validity and applicability of evidence will likely require a skilled manager.

Some tertiary education programs are beginning to include EBM as a core element of their

19
graduate management programs (see Keating, 2016). Thus, opportunities for research will

emerge to assess the efficacy of these programs to develop evidence-based managers and the

roles (i.e., top vs lower manager, specialist vs generalist, employee vs freelance) that are best

positioned to maximize EBM adoption in an organisational setting. Additionally, as

technology uncovers the potential of monitoring further intangible factors in real-time (e.g.,

the public’s sentiment towards a brand or product), the nature of available and relevant data

will cross the traditional boundaries of management into new disciplines, calling for a wider

range of expertise.

Lastly, there are important implications for future research regarding research design and

measurement. Our review of the AC literature uncovered a prevalence of cross-sectional

studies (95%). We call for experimental designs and quasi-experimental field studies that can

control for confounding factors and test for causal mechanisms, as well as longitudinal

studies with multiple data points to understand the pattern of how the relationships unfold

over time (Podsakoff and Podsakoff, 2019). Furthermore, as our study illustrates EBM

research will necessitate multilevel theorizing. Future research would benefit from

considering and justifying the level at which the mechanisms and EBM itself are being

operationalised. In doing so, scholars will be more sensitive to the assumptions inherent to

each level and avoid assuming similar relationships between constructs across different levels

of analysis (Paruchuri et al., 2018). Cross-level designs will also examine how the effect of

lower level enablers depend on higher level factors or vice versa. For example, collaboration

between departments may prime individuals to question assumptions, enhancing EBM, but

only if the individual employees are motivated to engage in learning tasks. Advanced

methods of data analysis such as mixture modelling and latent class analysis can be helpful in

exploring heterogeneous changes across time and discern the effect of group-level variables

from individual-level variables.

20
 Accurate measurement of EBM is also vital and requires further development. The time is

ripe for the development and validation of a scale of EBM that comprises all six steps of the

framework. For field studies, we recommend building on previously published scales (e.g.,

Criado-Perez et al., 2020; Jepsen and Rousseau, 2016) and adopting mixed methods to assess

the level of EBM implementation. Recent research by Criado-Perez et al. (2020) found a

substantial difference in the reported levels of EBM between survey responses and face-to-

face interviews after some probing. Notably, the qualitative data illustrated the dissonance

between academics and senior managers when referring to EBM, showing different

expectations regarding the amount of evidence collected, and the reliance on personal

experience over scientific research. Self-reported levels of evidence-based practice have also

been found to overestimate its use in other disciplines (Adams et al., 1999), hence

triangulation is important to improve the validity of the data collected. Relying solely on peer

evaluations of EBM also presents limitations such as the potential lack of awareness about

the degree to which their manager or colleague performed each of the steps involved in EBM.

This can be particularly salient in hierarchical organisations where employees are not

necessarily aware of the process that led to a particular decision. Laboratory studies provide

many opportunities to measure EBM more accurately as they can include objective measures

of EBM. Researchers can measure how effectively an individual diagnoses the problem, how

much information an individual collects before making a decision, how the participant

evaluates its quality, how effectively multiple pieces of evidence are aggregated, and finally

whether the final decision is in line with the strongest evidence that was available to them.

6.2 Implications for practice

This study has identified promising enablers that are well worth employing to

influence the adoption of EBM. The practical implications will differ for each of the major

stakeholders involved within the business field. For each stakeholder, we draw on the

21
findings from this study to create a checklist of actions that were supported by our meta-

analysis and are likely applicable for EBM. This checklist is presented in Table 4. Note that it

is premature to make bold statements about the effectiveness of the identified enablers given

the boundary conditions of this study – we are drawing from insights about a meta-analysis

on antecedents of AC in which most primary studies had a cross-sectional research design.

[INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE]

Perhaps one of the most influential roles in creating a situational context that favours

EBM is the top management of an organisation. Building on the potential enablers identified

in this study, Table 4 highlights some of the actions and strategic decisions that can create a

favourable organisational climate for EBM. Executives and general managers can facilitate

EBM implementation within their organisation by investing in their information systems

capabilities to enable efficient collection and storage of data, making it easily accessible

across the organisation; in the digital era, this finding is of little surprise. Creating a work

environment that fosters enquiry and exploration while having the time and resources to do

so can also facilitate EBM, and perhaps this aspect is most crucial given the digital era seeks

to drive efficiency and speed. Collaboration across functions and with stakeholders beyond

the organisation can be fostered to facilitate access to novel knowledge. Launching

multidisciplinary projects, and sponsoring research projects in collaboration with universities

can enhance the knowledge exchange required for EBM.

Line managers can also contribute to fostering EBM. Besides implementing EBM

themselves, their team members may also feel motivated and courageous enough to question

assumptions and apply EBM if they feel empowered and judged based on the quality of their

decision-making, rather than solely on end results. Adopting informal structures and a

22
transformational leadership style will also contribute to the level of socialisation and

psychological safety required for knowledge exchange and EBM.

Finally, there are important implications for HR managers regarding recruitment and

training. The findings suggest HR managers can consider an applicant’s skills for critical

thinking and motivation to engage in learning tasks. Training provided to managers across

the organisation that focuses on developing these skills would likely facilitate EBM

implementation. To foster such motivation for learning, and embed EBM, EBM skills can be

developed by tackling their own organisational problems with cross-functional teams rather

than learning about decontextualized case studies with conclusions that may not apply to their

context. By focusing on their own organization, managers will have the domain knowledge

required, and the exercise may result in an organizational improvement of the operational

efficiency; furthermore, the training can provide a tangible exemplar to other employees of

the decision-making norms embraced by management.

Industry bodies and regulators can also foster EBM by influencing the perceived

meaning and value of its practice. Often seen as a reference for best practice, these

organisations can become actively involved with universities to help develop and disseminate

scientific research that is both rigorous and relevant to practice. In doing so, industry bodies

and regulators help identify and promote evidence-based recommendations building on

multiple sources of evidence, rather than solely relying on what is portrayed as best-practice

by a particular organisation.

Lastly, educators play an important role in developing students’ skills and self-

efficacy for management decision-making. Particularly in a world with an overflow of

information that includes unsubstantiated fads and fake news, it is fundamental that educators

teach students how to acquire evidence from the multiple sources available, and how to think

critically to make evidence-based decisions (see Dietz et al., 2014, as well as Erez and Grant,

23
2014). For example, academic assessments in courses that teach management skills may need

to move away from closed book examinations testing knowledge and memorisation, to favour

evaluations of problem-solving skills through a systematic and judicious use of the sources of

information available in their future workplace.

7. Conclusion

To bolster our understanding of EBM and carve a roadmap for future research and

practice, this paper extracted insights from empirical research on the construct of AC. The

resulting aggregated correlations highlight promising multilevel enablers of EBM. At a firm

level, the importance of being able to store, access and share integrated and relevant

information across the organisation was highlighted as a promising enabler of EBM. Our

findings also suggest a transformational leadership style and the availability of resources for

innovative tasks may influence EBM adoption. Lastly, the constructs of employee

collaboration, knowledge sharing, external knowledge inflows, socialisation and

interorganisational collaboration were identified as potential enablers of EBM. It is

noteworthy that this cluster of constructs about collaboration and knowledge exchange was a

dominant theme for the potential enablers EBM implementation, and this underscores the

critical role for multiple stakeholders needed to shift EBM practice in organisations. At the

individual level, our findings support and extend prior work (Rousseau and Gunia, 2016) that

an individual’s ability, motivation and opportunity to adopt EBM will also influence its

adoption. Our review highlights each of these components providing evidence that prior

related knowledge, a motivation to engage in learning tasks, and employees’ empowerment

are all associated with AC, and are likely important enablers of EBM. In conclusion, our

study highlighted that we have much to learn from the AC literature. The findings provided

help to prioritise the future research agenda on organisational enablers of EBM and provide

advice for practitioners who strive to foster EBM in their work environment.

24
Key Practical and Research Implications

• The most promising organisational enablers of evidence-based management (EBM)

identified in our meta-analyses are information system capabilities, transformational
leadership, available resources, and a group of constructs related to collaboration and
knowledge sharing (i.e., employee and interorganisational collaboration, employee
knowledge sharing, external knowledge inflows, and employee socialisation). We
encourage researchers to prioritise the study of these enablers.

• As outlined in Table 4, different stakeholders have a unique contribution to make to

enable EBM. For example, executives and general managers can facilitate collaboration
across departments through organisational design, interdisciplinary project teams, and
knowledge broker roles to break down silos. Further recommendations are also provided
for line managers, HR managers, industry bodies, and educators.

• Collaboration and knowledge sharing are a predominant theme among the identified
enablers for EBM. Practitioners could start to change practice on these issues now.
Researchers could work with these organisations to follow up on the efficacy of such
interventions with quasi-experimental research designs to move the EBM practice and
literature beyond the predominant focus on individual decision-making to how evidence
is meaningfully derived from collaboration and knowledge sharing across diverse
stakeholders.

• Although not the primary focus, insights about potential individual enablers of EBM were
also identified: prior related knowledge, motivation for learning and employee
empowerment. These enablers concur with insights from Rousseau and Gunia’s (2016)
review of related multidisciplinary research.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Mahreen Khan, Amirali Minbashian, and our anonymous reviewers for

their helpful comments.

25
Appendix 1

Studies used to meta-analyse each of the constructs from Table 3.

Construct References
1. Information system capabilities (Felipe et al., 2016; Roberts, 2015; Setia and Patel,
2013; Zhang et al., 2018)
2. Transformational leadership (Ferreras Méndez et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018)
3. Employee collaboration (Beheregarai Finger et al., 2014; Mennens et al.,
2018; Wang et al., 2018)
4. Employee knowledge sharing (Ali et al., 2018; Kang and Lee, 2017)
5. Resources available for (Bierly et al., 2009; Burcharth et al., 2015; Chang et
innovative tasks al., 2014)
6. External knowledge inflows (Bierly et al., 2009; Burcharth et al., 2015; Ferreras
Méndez et al., 2018; Kostopoulos et al., 2011;
Mennens et al., 2018)
7. Employee socialisation (Ali et al., 2018; Ebers and Maurer, 2014; Roberts,
2015)
8. Interorganisational collaboration (Beheregarai Finger et al., 2014; Chowdhury et al.,
2017; Ebers and Maurer, 2014; Leal-Rodríguez et
al., 2014; Wang et al., 2016)
9. Empowerment of employees (Ebers and Maurer, 2014; Ferreras Méndez et al.,
2018; Siachou and Gkorezis, 2014)
10. Tendency to engage with (Ojo et al., 2017; Ojo and Raman, 2016, 2017; Yao
learning tasks and Chang, 2017; Yildiz et al., 2018)
11. Prior related knowledge and (Bierly et al., 2009; Ojo et al., 2017; Ojo and Raman,
experience 2016, 2017; Yildiz et al., 2018)
12. Trust among employees (Ebers and Maurer, 2014; Zhang et al., 2018)
13. Environmental dynamism (Ben-Oz and Henrich R Greve, 2015; Schubert et al.,
2018)
14. Competitive pressure (Kim and Park, 2017; Schubert et al., 2018)

26
Appendix 2

Identified antecedents of AC that were not meta-analysed.

Construct Reference
Firm level
Firm size and firm age (Zou et al., 2018)
Performance below aspirations (Ben-Oz and Henrich R. Greve, 2015)
Customer relationship capability (Tzokas et al., 2015)
Resource flexibility (Chang et al., 2014)
Knowledge depth and diversity (Carlo et al., 2012)
Business partner variety (Lazzarotti et al., 2015)
Interorganisational trust (Ebers and Maurer, 2014)
Exchange of tacit knowledge (Wang et al., 2016)
Firms entrepreneurial orientation (Bierly et al., 2009)
Innovation incentives (Wang et al., 2018)
Individual level
Colleagues workstyle and knowledge (Backmann et al., 2015)
Bisociative cognitive style (Lowik et al., 2017)
Social interaction (extent and diversity) (Hotho et al., 2012)

27
TABLES

Table 1. Comparison of steps involved in evidence-based management and absorptive

capacity

Emphasis on
EBM Steps
Evidence-based management Absorptive Capacity
Identifying the problem & translating a
1. Ask practical issue or problem into an answerable Not included
question
Retrieving evidence from four sources of
Acquiring valuable external
evidence: organisational data, decision
2. Acquire knowledge. Sources not
makers expertise, scientific research,
specified
stakeholder’s concerns
Processing to understand
Critically evaluating the quality of all
3. Appraise new knowledge and to
available evidence, internal and external
assess relevance and utility
Adapting the external
Pulling together the evidence from multiple
4. Aggregate knowledge, integrating it
sources and synthesizing
with prior knowledge
Incorporating the evidence into the decision-
5. Apply Exploiting new knowledge
making process
Evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
6. Assess Not included.
to inform future decisions

Table 2. Methods used in empirical absorptive capacity research during the last decade
Number of
studies
identifieda
Timing of data collection
- Cross sectional 41 (95%)
- Lagged 2 (5%)
Level at which AC is measured
- Individual level 9 (21%)
- Business unit level 4 (9%)
- Organisational level 30 (70%)
Level of IVsb
- Individual level 10 (23%)
- Team / business unit 4 (9%)
- Organisational level 28 (65%)
- Environmental 2 (5%)
a. Percentage of studies shown in brackets, calculated from the 43 articles that focused on
antecedents of AC.
b. The total number of studies categorised under ‘Level of IVs’ is greater that the number of studies
analysed. This is because one study included an organisational and an environmental level IVs.

28
Table 3. Meta-analytic relationships between absorptive capacity and its antecedents

Antecedent k N r ρ Sdρ 95%CI:L 95%CI:H

FIRM LEVEL
1. Information system capabilities 4 779 0.57 0.65 0.10 0.51 0.78
2. Transformational leadership 2 569 0.52 0.60 0.10 0.33 0.87
3. Employee collaboration 3 519 0.51 0.59 0.03 0.47 0.70
4. Employee knowledge sharing 2 271 0.52 0.58 0.00 0.50 0.66
5. Resources available for innovative tasks 3 779 0.46 0.52 0.17 0.24 0.79
6. External knowledge inflows 5 1377 0.37 0.43 0.20 0.27 0.60
7. Employee socialisation 3 529 0.34 0.40 0.12 0.19 0.61
8. Interorganisational collaboration 5 1092 0.30 0.36 0.11 0.19 0.53
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
9. Empowerment of employees 3 785 0.40 0.47 0.13 0.23 0.72
10. Tendency to engage with learning tasks 5 1488 0.35 0.45 0.21 0.17 0.73
11. Prior related knowledge and experience 5 1529 0.18 0.21 0.01 0.12 0.29
NON SIGNIFICANT
12. Trust among employees 2 494 0.31 0.37 0.00 -0.13 0.88
13. Environmental dynamism 2 4687 0.08 0.07 0.16 -0.83 0.97
14. Competitive pressure 2 5016 0.03 0.03 0.08 -0.21 0.28

29
Table 4. Recommendations for enabling evidence-based management

Key Stakeholders Actions to Enable EBM

Executives and Facilitate EBM implementation by:

Investing in strong information system capabilities for efficient
general managers collection and use of data 1,4
Nurturing a culture that embraces questioning and exploration 2,5,6,10
Facilitating collaboration across departments through organisational
design, interdisciplinary project teams, knowledge broker roles to de-
silo organisations 3,4,7,11
Building strong ties with external stakeholders to facilitate the
collection of evidence 6,8
Committing human and financial resources to innovative tasks 5

Line Managers Signal that EBM is valued and expected by:

Empowering employees to adopt EBM 9
Adopting a transformational leadership style 2
Facilitating informal structures that foster team’s socialisation and
knowledge exchange 4,7
Judging decisions based on quality of decision-making, not solely on
results. 10

HR Managers Prioritise critical thinking and EBM related skills during selection and
training by:
Nurturing a questioning mindset and an ability to think beyond
disciplinary boundaries 6,10
On-the-job EBM training, addressing real organisational problems11

Industry bodies Actively support the creation and dissemination of quality research
findings that go beyond benchmarking of ‘best practices’ 6,8

Educators Develop students critical thinking skills and self-efficacy to utilise

the multiple sources of evidence and tools for being evidence-based
6,10,11

Note. Numbers refer to the following constructs, which map onto the significant meta-analysis findings in Table
3:
1
. Information systems capability; 2. Transformational leadership; 3. Employee collaboration; 4. Employee
knowledge sharing; 5. Resources available for innovative tasks; 6. External knowledge inflows; 7. Employee
socialisation; 8. Interorganisational collaboration; 9. Empowerment of employees; 10. Tendency
to engage with learning tasks; 11. Prior related knowledge and experience;

30
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