Week 1 MGMT5907

Tutorial
 Introduction to Tutorials

• Each week you will be randomly allocated into smaller groups

• In your groups, you will (i) complete HR-related activities and/or (ii) analyse
articles on an HR topic. We will then have a class discussion about the task.

• Starting in Week 3, each student will rate other students in the class on their
level of class participation.

• The ratings will be used at the end of term to determine each student’s class
participation mark.
 Evidence-Based Management Reading
In preparation for the tutorial, you were asked to read the article on Evidence-
Based Management (by Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).

Spend 15 minutes in your groups discussing the following questions:

1. What is evidence-based management (EBM) and why would we want to use it?

2. What makes it difficult to implement in practice?

3. How can these difficulties be addressed or overcome?

4. Think about the case study presented on p.4-6 of the article (i.e., the high-tech
firm that Emulated GE by adopting a forced ranking system). What went wrong?
Class Discussion: What is the claim or argument that
underlies the organisations action in Question 4?
 What evidence is the claim based on?
• The evidence for the claim is based on the co-occurrence of
forced ranking system and organisational performance.

• In other words, organisations that use forced ranking system (such

as GE) also perform well.

• But does this mean that forced ranking systems are the cause of
GE’s better performance?

• Also, how relevant is the evidence from GE for the high-tech firm’s
context?
Class Discussion: How do we evaluate the evidence for
the claim/argument in Question 4? Two Criteria:
Internal Validity
• How sure we can be that the evidence reflects the causal effect of a forced ranking
system on improved organisational performance?
• To answer this we need to consider and rule out the possibility of (i) reverse
causality and (ii) third-variable explanations.

External Validity
• To what extent can the evidence be generalised to contexts, people and/or times in
which we want to apply the evidence?
• To answer this we need to consider relevant similarities/differences between the
research setting and the application setting.
• But not enough to just note that there are differences! We need to explain why/how
differences make it less likely that the evidence will apply to the new setting.
 Using the criteria to evaluate the evidence from GE
• Internal Validity:
 Could it be that it is better organisational performance that leads to the adoption of forced
ranking systems?

 Is there a third variable (e.g., company size, management style) that causes both the use of
forced rankings and organisational performance, thus explaining their co-occurrence?

 Either of the above would pose a threat to the internal validity of the study.

• External Validity:
 Forced rankings may work in contexts that require competition among workers (such as GE),
but less so in contexts that depend on cooperation among workers, such as the high-tech firm.

 The culture at GE may attract a type of person who is more likely to thrive in competing with
others, whereas employees at the high-tech firm may respond less well to having to compete.

 The above are just two examples of possible threats to external validity.
 Evidence-Based Management Quiz
Spend 10 mins in your groups deciding whether the following statements are true or false:
1. The most important requirement for an effective leader is to have an outgoing, enthusiastic personality.
2. Once employees have mastered a task, they perform better when told to “do their best” than when they are given
specific, difficult performance goals.
3. On average, encouraging employees to participate in decision making is more effective for improving
organisational performance than setting performance goals.
4. Teams with members from different functional areas are likely to reach better solutions to complex problems than
teams from a single area.
5. Most managers give employees lower performance appraisals than they objectively deserve.
6. Most errors in performance appraisal can be eliminated by providing training that describes the kinds of errors
managers tend to make and suggesting ways to avoid them.
7. New companies have a better chance of surviving if all employees receive incentives based on organisation-wide
performance.
8. Most employees prefer to be paid on the basis of individual performance rather than team or organisational
performance.
9. Being very intelligent is actually a disadvantage for performing well on a low-skilled job.
10. Companies that screen job applicants for values have higher performance than those that screen for intelligence.
11. On average, applicants who answer job advertisements are likely to have higher turnover than those referred by
other employees.
12. Companies with vision statements perform better than those without them.
 Ted Talk: “The Puzzle of Motivation”
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/discussion?c=342202