ABSTRACT
In the 1960s Dwight Waldo urged public administration to become a profession similar to medicine rather than an academic discipline like biology or chemistry (Waldo 1968, p. 10). Professions are pragmatic-they take knowledge developed elsewhere and apply it to real-world problems; in this sense, public administration has become a profession. In all realms of professional practice, however, problems change, rules of thumb become outdated, and practitioners can become estranged from academics. The evidence-based movement in medicine seeks to refocus the practice of medicine on its scientific basis and systematically determine if existing standards of practice are effective. Over the past ten years, we have used the evidence-based movement in medicine as our guide to do systematic research on what works in public management and what does not.
