Meet us at the 10. Industry Day Southwest at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre on July 12th

Technical competencies are not sufficient to stay competitive in the 21st century knowledge economy.

The industrial sector with its small and medium-sized business (SMB) also called Mittelstand comprises an important part of the German economy. Many SMBs are world market leaders in their technology niche (Spath 2017). Moving from a 20st century industrial economy into the 21st century knowledge economy is one of the key challenges SMBs face nowadays. More specifically, digitization, internet of things, war for talents, virtual teams and a need to build-up their service competency are some examples of topics managers and professionals have to deal with on the way to making their company ready for the future.

Hiring the best talents, leading virtual teams and solving complex problems requires a unique set of competencies that go beyond what managers and professionals usually learn during their study and professional life. Evidence-based Management Learning Teams (EBMLTs) are an appropriate tool to build these competencies on highly efficient and on the job. However, before we will have a look at what is behind EBMLTs we’ll briefly introduce the overarching framework called Evidence-based Management.

Evidence-based Management provides a framework to increase management and organizational performance.

Evidence-based Management (EBM) is part of the so called “Evidence Revolution” that was first introduced in the medical and healthcare sector and has recently also reached policing, management and education (Rynes und Bartunek 2017). It is based on the assumption that managers and professionals can improve their decision making quality by relying on the best available evidence from four different sources. Scientific evidence, context-related information, practitioners expertise and the stakeholder perspective are compiled and critically assessed in a structured decision making process (Briner und Walshe 2014). Equipped with such a holistic decision making approach Evidence-based Managers cannot just increase their decision making quality, but also organizational performance (Hogan und Kaiser 2005). This is why business schools around the world have started to adapt this approach recently.

EBMLTs provide the necessary skills to apply evidence-based practices.

Becoming an Evidence-based Manager requires some training and an introduction on how to compile and interpret knowledge, especially when it comes to research and theory from social sciences. Evidence-based Management Learning Teams (EBMLTs) address specific business problems such as how to increase an organization’s innovation potential, how to select and hire the right employees or how to successfully lead virtual teams and manage transformational change. Besides solving specific business problems, EBMLTs provide managers and professionals the necessary skills to apply evidence-based practices in their daily business. All this can be done on the job with a virtual learning platform following an agile and social learning approach.

You are interested in Evidence-based Management Learning Teams? Meet us the 10. Industry Day Southwest at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre.

Successful SMBs have to develop their competencies beyond the technological domain in order to be successful in the 21st century knowledge economy. EBMLTs provide the right framework to develop those skills in your organization. Visit out booth at the 10. Industry Day Southwest at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre on July 12th to learn more. We are looking forward to meeting you.

References

Briner, Rob B.; Walshe, Neil D. (2014): From Passively Received Wisdom to Actively Constructed Knowledge. Teaching Systematic Review Skills As a Foundation of Evidence-Based Management. In: AMLE 13 (3), S. 415–432. DOI: 10.5465/amle.2013.0222.
Hogan, Robert; Kaiser, Robert B. (2005): What we know about leadership. In: Review of General Psychology 9 (2), S. 169–180. DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.169.
Rynes, Sara L.; Bartunek, Jean M. (2017): Evidence-Based Management. Foundations, Development, Controversies and Future. In: Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 4 (1), S. 235–261. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032516-113306.
Spath, Dieter (2017): Innovationsoffensive Mittelstand. In: ATZ Elektron 12 (3), S. 78. DOI: 10.1007/s35658-017-0040-3.