Evaluation informed management

Managers and policy-makers can no longer afford not to make greater use of evaluation in making and implementing decisions. Yet doing so is not so easy: the methods are different from those used in evidence-based medicine; evaluation methods and data-bases are less well developed; and the decision-making processes are not like those in clinical practice. This paper defines evaluation-informed management and explains how managers can use evaluation to make more effective decisions and projects. It gives a framework for assessing evidence from management research and proposes that different hierarchies of research design are developed for grading research studies of different management changes and methods. The paper notes the challenges which an evaluation-informed management approach presents to researchers, managers and different institutions.