Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/80527
research UPCOMING & ONGOING n TRANSIT STUDY The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), based at San Jose State University in California, has awarded a US$120,000 two-year grant to Hokey Min, profes- sor of supply chain strategy at Bowling Green State University's College of Busi- ness in Ohio. Min will study mass transit systems in small urban areas. Min hopes to identify the causes of stag- nant ridership and assess mass transit's impact on economic development. Min's grant is part of a larger $3.49 million grant that MTI received from the U.S. Department of Trans- portation. Bowling Green is one of nine institutional members of MTI's newly formed National Transit Research Consortium. A research center at each school received a portion of the funding for projects in the consortium's areas of expertise, such as alternative fuels, public policy, finance, workforce development, sustainability, and livable communities. The other eight schools include the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, Rutgers University, Howard University, University of Detroit Mercy, Grand Val- ley State University, Univer- sity of Toledo, University of Nevada, and Pennsylvania State University. No EBM in the MBA n EYE ON CONSUMERS Georgetown University's McDonough School of Busi- ness in Washington, D.C., and tax firm KPMG have part- nered to form the George- town Institute for Consumer Research. The institute will generate research about how consumer buying patterns are changing and what it takes to effectively market to tech- savvy consumers. 56 n INSIGHTS ON ADDICTION The U.S. National Insti- tutes of Health has granted US$350,000 to Yongtao Guan, a professor of man- agement science at the Uni- versity of Miami's School of Business in Florida. He will study the patterns of cocaine abuse and evaluate the effec- tiveness of certain treatments for cocaine addiction and other drugs. September/October 2012 BizEd A NEW STUDY from the University of Iowa's Tippie Col- lege of Business in Iowa City shows that MBA programs rarely incorporate evidence-based management (EBM), which teaches students to use studies, data analysis, and other forms of scientific method to derive their conclu- sions. The objective of EBM is to produce managers who make decisions based on social science and organizational research, rather than on less reliable factors such as intu- ition or conventional wisdom. Ken Brown and Sara Rynes, profes- sors of management and organizations, and doctoral candidate Steven Charlier studied the syllabi of more than 800 management courses in 333 U.S.-based MBA programs. They found that only 26 percent used the language of EBM. Only two actually used the term "evidence-based management." The researchers also found that schools with highly ranked programs were more likely to incorporate EBM. Ken Brown The goal of this study is to encour- age more schools to incorporate EBM into their curricula, says Brown, so that their graduates will be more likely to apply research to their prac- tice of management. "Teaching Evidence-Based Manage- ment in MBA Programs: What Evi- dence is There?" was published in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education. Sara Rynes