Editorial

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1290
• Published date: 01 September 2014
• Date: 01 September 2014

Editorial

There is agreement that in order for management to be

effective its knowledge base should be evidence based. And

for evidence-based management to become an inf‌luential

arbiter of management decisions, there must be an ongoing

collaboration among evidence makers, knowledge makers,

and decision makers. This collaboration should produce sys-

tematic reviews of such evidence in an actionable format for

evidence-based management to endure. I have discussed this

in previous editorials, and in my last editorial, I offered a the-

ory of business articulating the domain in which CJAS par-

ticipates as a means of evidence for practice. Such evidence

is generated by researchers in the academy and by managers

in organizations. It differs in format, emanates from different

experiences, and attests to different processes. Therefore,

there must be a shared understanding of what evidence is

prior to being coded for use.

Evidence-based management moves the decision maker

away from unexamined habits, unverif‌ied heuristics, and

biased worldviews toward management based on sustainable

evidence that stems from real life experiences, systematic

research, and well-organized knowledge. Rigour, relevance,

and actionability drive this process of making evidence

available to both researchers and managers for use in arriving

at academic and professional decisions using individual

judgment as the f‌inal yardstick. The key is collaboration,

which can be facilitated through a theory of evidence to guide

the evidence-gathering process for management purposes.

Such a theory should articulate what evidence is, how it is

formulated, and what makes it appropriate to the context

along with when and why this is the case.

When we generate strong evidence, we enable effective

practice. When evidence is produced both with an optimal

methodology for answering the research question and from

a context appropriate to the application of said evidence, it

acquires strength and credibility. When the process by which

evidence is generated is replicable and transparent, it inspires

conf‌idence in the user. Consensus among decision makers

about the quality and value of the evidence makes it robust.

And f‌inally, the more coherence among these components,

the stronger the evidence becomes.

CJAS is an outlet for offering such evidence. Our read-

ership is largely the research community that in turn uses the

evidence we report to advance research more than to ad-

vance the practice of management. However, as I had men-

tioned in an earlier editorial, management research exists

because management practice exists. Hence it is important

that we consider the end user in generating evidence.

In this issue we offer empirical evidence that address

several aspects of our theory of business. Three papers look

at the success of business in different ways. The f‌irst shows

the different ways by which human capital can be leveraged

toward the success of a f‌irm. The second explores the

f‌inancial benef‌its of cross-listing for the f‌irm, and the third

challenges existing notions of intrafamily succession toward

af‌irm’s value creation and f‌inancial performance. The fourth

reports how a strike changes managers’perception of an

organization’s climate and employment relations. The f‌inal

paper deals with the reverse inf‌luence of involvement on

framing the issue when one is making an emotional or

rational choice. Our evidence covers different methodologies

appropriate both to the content of the investigation and

context of the research.

Until next time,

Vishwanath Baba,

Editor-in-Chief

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

31: 147 (2014)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1290

Can J Adm Sci

31(3), 147 (2014)Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 147