Innovation, Organizational Role, and Evidence Use By Human Service Managers

Background & Purpose: Although evidence use by managers is understood to be a critical factor in performance management and organizational improvement (Austin, Dal Santo, & Lee, 2012; Trocme et al., 2011), few studies of evidence use by human service managers exist. Moreover, while research suggests that managerial evidence use increases when organizations engage in performance management (McBeath & Austin, in press; Moynihan & Lavertu, 2012), little research has considered the individual attributes of human service managers influencing evidence use. The current study analyzed quantitative data from a survey of public human service workers across 11 California counties to examine the relationship between evidence use and two individual-level predictors: (a) innovation in approach to human service work; and (b) formal organizational role. 

Methods: An online survey of staff in 11 county human service agencies was conducted in June 2013. From 958 agency staff who were invited to participate, 458 completed the online survey, corresponding with a response rate of 52%. The dependent variable of evidence use was an average of 11 items concerning how often respondents engaged in different types of evidence use (e.g., searching online databases to identify promising practices, surveying clients to assess needs, reviewing client case records to assess service quality, conducting literature reviews); each item was scaled from 1=None to 5=Constantly (alpha=0.87). Concerning key predictors, respondents were coded as being innovative in their approach to human service work if they strongly agreed with two questions: “I often search for new ideas to use in my work”; and “I make use of new ideas when people send me interesting information” (Patterson et al., 2009). Concerning organizational role, respondents identified as administrative support staff (8%), frontline staff (9%), supervisors (38%), middle managers (27%), and administrators (18%). Analytically, multivariate ordinal logistic regressions were employed; models controlled for sociodemographic factors (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, gender, education, work experience) as well as county-specific dummy variables (to capture unmeasured organizational factors). 

Results: The mean level of evidence use was 2.30, corresponding with between “A Little” and “Sometimes”. Multivariate analyses determined that evidence use was significantly associated with both key predictors. Individuals who were strongly innovative in their approach to work were more engaged in evidence use (OR=2.90, p=0.000). Additionally, organizational role was associated with evidence use, with administrators (OR=3.86, p=0.000) and middle managers (OR=1.52, p=0.06) more engaged in evidence use as compared with supervisors. No significant differences in evidence use existed by sociodemographic factors or county. 

Conclusion: These findings imply that supporting innovative approaches to work may enhance evidence-based management practice; additionally, senior managers may play a key role in their agency’s overall level of evidence use as compared to other organizational roles. These results address the important question of why some human service managers use evidence more than others, and highlight factors that may help close the gap between the availability vs. actual use of evidence-informed practices. Further research is needed to identify organizational factors contributing to human service managers’ use of evidence.