EBM Essay - Evidence-Based Management Assignment PDF

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Evidence-Based Management Assignment...

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In your opinion, and based on the best-available evidence, can mindfulness enhance the practice of evidence-based management? With increasing competition amongst corporations in the market, mindfulness has grown in popularity within the past decade. Many studies have shown the physical, psychological and performance benefits that mindfulness provides (Hyland, Lee & Mills 2015). Thus much research has been performed on the benefits that mindfullearning or meditation brings to the workplace such as improvements in task performance and commitment and workplace relationships (Hyland, Lee & Mills 2015). As a result, in my opinion and based on the best-available evidence, mindfulness enhances the practice of evidence-based management. To support this position, the key elements of mindfulness and evidence-based management will be discussed. In addition, the reasons for making this claim will be explained in the essay through the use of evidence and findings. Evidence-based management “incorporates well-established scientific findings regarding critical thinking, human judgment, decisions and learning” to enable managers to make better-quality organisational decisions (Rousseau & Olivas-Lujan 2015). The four fundamental aspects of this style of management includes: the use of the best available evidence, the gathering of organisational information in a orderly manner, the continuous practice of reflective judgement and decision aids and the consideration of ethical issues (Rousseau & Olivas-Lujan 2015). Mindfulness can help enhance the aforementioned aspects of evidence-based management as through mindfulness, one can improve cognitive flexibility, ethical consideration and critical thinking. Ultimately, mindfulness will be able to enhance the practice of evidencebased management. An important element of evidence-based management is the ability to acquire, process, evaluate and make unbiased decisions using the information given. However, managers have a natural sense of bias due to past experiences (cognitive bias) or past investment of time and money (sunk-cost bias) influencing awareness of the current situation. Several studies have shown mindfulness meditation to reduce biases in decision-making. Hafenbrack, Kinias & Barsade (2013) conducted four studies in order to test whether greater mindfulness resulted in a greater resistance to sunk-cost bias. With 166 participants, two groups were randomly created whereby one group underwent a 15-minute mindfulness meditation and the other underwent a 15-minute mind-wandering control condition. This was followed by a decision-making task completed by the participants. The findings of the studies proved those who underwent the mindful condition demonstrated a greater resistance to sunk-cost biasness with 78% resisting in the first study and 53% resisting in the second study. However, a significant amount of those who underwent the control condition allowed their past experience to influence their current decision with only 44% resisting the bias in the first study and 29% in the second study. I believe this to be an effective and reliable experiment as controls were in place for age and self-esteem, previously found to resist to this bias and two studies were experimented, each with a different decision task to ensure accuracy. As a result the studies conducted by Hafenbrack, Kinias & Barsade (2013) show the positive correlation between mindfulness and resistance to sunk-cost biasness. Thus, giving emphasis to the importance of mindfulness its ability to enhance unbiased decision-making, which is a significant aspect of evidence-based management.

The relationship between mindfulness and ethical decision-making is a key factor as to why mindfulness enhances evidence-based management. Ethical decision-making is another key aspect of evidence-based management, as managers need to take ethical consideration in order to gain respect of employees. Mindfulness is said to promote ethical decision-making to two ways. Firstly, mindfulness boosts one’s awareness of a current situation allowing an accepting and non-judging quality (Kabat-Zinn 1994). For this reason, mindfulness can motivate individuals to look into all information when making a decision regardless of a conflict of interest or potential bias (Ruedy & Schweitzer 2010). Secondly, mindfulness promotes self-awareness, which in turn reduces unethical behaviour as research has shown that with greater self-awareness, individuals are more honest (Ruedy & Schweitzer 2010). An example of unethical decision-making can be seen through the “Ford Pinto” case as despite issues with the fuel system design, Ford Motor Company management made the decision to not change and improve the defective fuel system design due to cost and style issues taking priority over consumer safety (Lampe & Engleman-Lampe 2012). Hence, this is why mindfulness is essential to enhancing the practice of evidencebased management as with greater awareness of a current situation, ethical decisionmaking can be promoted. Ruedy & Schweitzer (2010) conducted a study in order to test whether a relationship could be distinguished between mindfulness and a reduction in unethical decisionmaking. 135 participants were recruited, each completing the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) in order to measure mindfulness. Once the anagram was completed with a dollar being rewarded for each correct answer, the participants underwent a 15-minute mindfulness meditation and were then given an answer key to mark their scores in private cubicles. Unknown to the participants was the carbon paper attached to the anagram to record the original answers. The result of the experiment could not conclude that mindfulness was associated with a lower occurrence of unethical behaviour as most participants cheated in the experiment with 55.2% cheating at least once. However, a link between mindfulness and a higher magnitude of ethical behaviour could be drawn as participants who scored a higher mark on the MAAS scale significantly reduced the cheating amount. The findings indicated that for each point decline on the MAAS scale, the participants cheated by approximately one additional answer. In accordance with this study, I believe that mindfulness will boost ethical decision-making through promoting awareness of oneself and the environment, ultimately enhancing the practice of evidence-based management. In addition, I believe that the conclusions drawn from this experiment are reliable as the experiment effectively tested for unethical behaviour in a discreet manner. Unlike the extensive amount of research on mindfulness and ethical decision-making or resistance to bias, there have not been many studies on the relationship between mindfulness and critical thinking. However, it can be proved that practices of mindfulness allow for better and improved critical thinking, a crucial aspect of evidence-based management. Critical thinking is acknowledged as a process involving the ability to analyse and assess facts or arguments to form a judgement without any bias (Noone, Bunting & Hogan 2016). In order to achieve critical thinking, the engagement of executive functioning which is the “monitoring, updating, and switching between representations in working memory” is essential as well as a non-automatic response to a situation to prevent bias thinking. This indicates

that executive functioning and critical thinking have a direct relationship. In addition, the properties of mindfulness including greater awareness of a current situation and non-reactivity promotes an unbiased approach to gathering and analysing relevant information which is an important aspect of critical thinking (Noone, Bunting & Hogan 2016). A study conducted by Noone, Bunting & Hogan (2016), explored the relationship between mindfulness, executive functioning and critical thinking. Crosssectional assessment of the 178 participants was achieved through use of the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire, a series of executive functioning tasks and a critical thinking assessment. The results from the study indicated that there was no direct relationship between mindfulness and critical thinking. However, a direct relationship could be drawn between mindfulness and executive functioning showing positive correlation. This suggests that although there is no direct relation between mindfulness and critical thinking, an indirect positive correlation can be drawn. The evidence from the findings clearly demonstrates that mindfulness has a positive impact on critical thinking, thus reiterating the claim that mindfulness can enhance the practice of evidence-based management. Ultimately, the ability of a manager to make better-quality decisions depends on the practice of evidence-based management. I believe that the fundamental aspects of evidence-based management consist of cognitive flexibility, ethical consideration and critical thinking. One element that enhances all the aspects is the practice of mindfulness. The aforementioned studies of the impact mindfulness have on cognitive flexibility, ethical consideration and critical thinking, all proved to show that the improved awareness of oneself and current situation through mindfulness improved the elements to a greater degree. The findings indicated a positive correlation between mindfulness and resistance to biasness, lower magnitude of unethical behaviour, executive functioning and critical thinking. Thus, in my opinion and based on the best-available evidence provided, mindfulness does not only enhance evidence-based management but is a fundamental quality to achieving this management.

Word Count (Without Referencing): 1383 words

References Hafenbrack, A.C., Kinias, Z. & Barsade, S.G. 2014, "Debiasing the Mind Through Meditation: Mindfulness and the Sunk-Cost Bias", Psychological Science, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 369-376. Hyland, P.K., Andrew Lee, R. & Mills, M.J. 2015, "Mindfulness at work: A new approach to improving individual and organizational performance", Industrial and Organizational Psychology, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 576-602. Kabat-Zinn, J. 1994, Wherever you go, there you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life, 1st paperback edn, Hyperion, New York, N.Y. Lampe, M. & Engleman-Lampe, C. 2012, "Mindfulness-based business ethics education", Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 99. Noone, C., Bunting, B. & Hogan, M.J. 2016, "Does mindfulness enhance critical thinking? Evidence for the mediating effects of executive functioning in the relationship between mindfulness and critical thinking", Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 6, pp. 2043-2043. Rousseau, D.M & Olivas-Lujan, M.R 2015, “Evidence-Based Management”, Organizational Behavior, vol.11, no.1, p.1-3. Ruedy, N.E. & Schweitzer, M.E. 2010, "In the Moment: The Effect of Mindfulness on Ethical Decision Making", Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 95, no. S1, pp. 73-87...