Reviews
Book Reviews
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton
Book description From The Publisher: A Better Way to Separate Sound Management Ideas from Seductive Hype
The best organizations have the best talent. . . Financial incentives drive company performance. . . Firms must change or die. Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management "wisdom" isn’t wise at all—but, instead, flawed knowledge based on "best practices" that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton show how companies can bolster performance and trump the competition through evidence-based management, an approach to decision-making and action that is driven by hard facts rather than half-truths or hype. This book guides managers in using this approach to dismantle six widely held—but ultimately flawed—management beliefs in core areas including leadership, strategy, change, talent, financial incentives, and work-life balance. The authors show managers how to find and apply the best practices for their companies, rather than blindly copy what seems to have worked elsewhere.
This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life—and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.
Information for this book can be found at: http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/1591398622.html
Evidence-based practice for information professionals: a handbook by Andrew Booth and Anne Brice
Evidence-based practice is a paradigm that originated within healthcare but is rapidly migrating to other fields. It involves applying the results from rigorous research studies to professional practice in order to improve the quality of services to clients. Familiarity with these methods has caused an increasing number of information professionals to turn a critical eye to their own practice. Is it possible to adapt this model to librarianship and information work? To what extent are its skills and techniques transferable to the various areas of professional practice? Is it desirable for information professionals to integrate research findings into their day-to-day decision-making? These and other related issues are discussed in this book, the first to examine this key topic in depth. It is divided into three parts: The Context for Evidence-based Information Practice; Skills and Resources for Evidence-based Information Practice; and Using the Evidence Base in Practice. Chapters with their associated Special Topics present concise summaries of evidence-based information practice within generic areas of work, together with practical examples of the application of evidence-based principles and methods.
Information for this book can be found at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856044718/qid%3D1145832822/202-3887142-6503800
Website Reviews
Campbell Collaboration – What helps? What harms? Based on what evidence?
The international Campbell Collaboration (C2) is a non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioural and educational arenas. C2's objectives are to prepare, maintain and disseminate systematic reviews of studies of interventions. It acquires and promotes access to information about trials of interventions. C2 builds summaries and electronic brochures of reviews and reports of trials for policy makers, practitioners, researchers and the public.
The systematic reviews of research evidence prepared and maintained by contributors to the Campbell Collaboration's Review Groups will be designed to meet the needs of those with a strong interest in high quality evidence on "what works".
The Campbell Collaboration will collaborate closely with its sibling organization, the Cochrane Collaboration, which prepares and maintains systematic reviews of the effects of interventions in health care.
Because concern about the quality of evidence transcends the respective focuses of the Campbell and Cochrane Collaborations, and because the science of research synthesis is still young, joint Cochrane-Campbell Methods Groups are being established. Their objective is to stimulate the empirical methodological research required to improve the validity, relevance and precision of systematic reviews and the randomized trials and non-randomized trials on which they are based. Both Collaborations base their work on nine key principles. These principles are listed on their website.
This website can be found at: http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/About.asp
The Cochrane website can be found at: http://cochrane.org
Australian Social Science Data Archive Website
The Australian Social Science Data Archive (ASSDA), located in the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) at The Australian National University, was set up in 1981 with a brief to collect and preserve computer-readable data relating to social, political and economic affairs and to make the data available for further analysis.
The focus of the Centre is to undertake and sponsor empirical research work on important aspects of Australian society. This research will intersect with the ongoing research agenda of RSSS, with an emphasis on policy-relevant research.
ASSDA collects data files from all parts of Australia, and from many different types of organisations, including universities, market research companies, and government organisations. Since its establishment, ASSDA has collected over 1050 datasets from Australian surveys and opinion polls. The uniqueness of ASSDA as a repository for machine-readable data makes it an attractive storage place for many important national surveys.
In addition to its acquisition and distribution activities, the Australian Social Science Data Archive is aware of other data collection activities in Australia and will endeavour to locate and obtain relevant data for researchers upon request.
This website can be found at:http://assda.anu.edu.au/about.html
Data4nr Website
The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU) is part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) in England and is responsible for overseeing the Government's comprehensive Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy (a strategy that responds to local circumstances rather than directs everything from Whitehall). With that a range of different programmes have been established to determine local needs and to pilot new ways to fight deprivation in our poorest, most deprived communities.
The emphasis on evidence-based delivery and decision making means that there is an increased need for detailed information on neighbourhood renewal issues. NRUcommissioned the “Data Provision for Neighbourhood Renewal” project to identify and signpost datasets and resources to help local partnerships target and monitor local programmes.
The project's outputs include the data4nr website, the full report signposting the key datasets and issues, and an Excel spreadsheet signposting all the datasets. The website signposts the datasets available for targeting, monitoring, priority setting and performance management at a neighbourhood level. Both the report and spreadsheet is accessible on the website.
The data and resources highlighted are aimed at people working on a variety of questions such as:
- Where can I find information to help me target specific programmes at the right areas and communities?
- Are we meeting our Floor Targets?
- Are our priority neighbourhood areas closing the gap?
- Are our priorities right - is our strategy helping the most deprived areas and groups?
- Where can we find information to develop baseline area profiles for Neighbourhood Renewal Fund /Local Area Agreements /Local Enterprise Growth Initiative and/or other programmes?
- What communities are proving harder to reach?
This website can be found at : http://www.data4nr.net/introduction/
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