Management: Theory and Evidence

Flashcards from lecture notes

Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

A decision-making approach where managerial actions are guided by the best available evidence rather than intuition or tradition.

Common sense reasoning in management

Relies on heuristics, hunches, or anecdotal evidence, leading to poor decision-making due to cognitive biases.

Fast thinking

Instinctive and automatic thinking, relying on heuristics or rules of thumb.

Slow thinking

Deliberate and reasoned thinking, involving information collection and analysis.

Epistemology

The philosophy of knowledge, guiding how evidence is interpreted and what is considered valid knowledge in research.

Positivism in management research

Uses deductive reasoning and quantitative methods to test hypotheses, emphasising objectivity and statistical significance.

Interpretivism

Based on inductive reasoning and qualitative methods, focusing on understanding social phenomena from the perspectives of those involved.

Ethnography

Involves participant observation in a social setting to observe behaviors and interactions.

Research Interviews

Involves speaking to individuals to gather their experiences or views.

Theoretical sampling

Selecting participants based on emerging theory, not randomness.

Saturation

Reached when new data no longer adds new insights or themes.

Credibility

Accuracy of findings in qualitative research.

Transferability

Applicability to other contexts in qualitative research.

Dependability

Research process is logical and documented in qualitative research.

Confirmability

Findings are shaped by participants, not researcher bias in qualitative research.

Self-censorship

Researchers monitoring themselves to avoid causing harm or misrepresentation, especially in ethnographic studies.

Classic experimental design

Includes a treatment and control group, with measurements taken before and after the intervention.

Internal validity

The extent to which a study shows a causal relationship.

External validity

How generalisable the findings are to other settings or populations.

Field experiments

Take place in real-world settings, improving external validity.

Quasi-experiments

Lack random assignment but compare groups affected by different conditions.

Reliability

Consistency in measurement.

Stability

Consistency over time.

Internal reliability

Consistency across items.

Inter-observer consistency

Agreement among researchers

Face validity

Appears reasonable.

Convergent validity

Correlates with similar measures.

Discriminant validity

Does not correlate with different constructs.

Predictive validity

Predicts outcomes logically associated with the concept.

Probability sampling

Gives every individual a known chance of selection.

Non-probability sampling

Does not give every individual a known chance of selection.

1. What is the purpose of the Difference-in-Difference (DiD) method in research?

The DiD method estimates causal effects by comparing changes over time between a treatment group and a control group.

How is the treatment effect calculated in the DiD method?

The treatment effect is calculated by taking the difference in the changes (differences) in outcomes before and after the intervention between the two groups.

When is the Difference-in-Difference method typically used?

DiD is used in quasi-experiments, especially when random assignment is not feasible.

What advantage does the DiD method offer in research?

It helps control for external time trends that affect both groups equally, improving the accuracy of causal inference.