A Norm of Evidence and Research in Decision-making (NERD): Scale Development, Reliability, and Validity

Evidence-based management is on the rise as a strategy to promote more rational decision-making and effectiveness in governance and public service delivery. To understand how widespread the use of evidence is among managers in various settings, and why evidence is emphasized more in some settings than others, it is necessary to have a good measure of the use of research and evidence in management decision-making. This article reports on the development and testing of a new multi-item scale, Norm of Evidence and Research in Decision-making (NERD), that can be used across organizational and functional settings to assess evidence-based management practices within an agency. The results indicate that the scale is internally consistent (reliable) and that it correlates with criteria of the underlying construct (valid). The article concludes with a discussion of the potential utility of the scale for advancing research and understanding about the use of evidence by public and nonprofit managers.