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Abstract:
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What effect do evaluation systems have on the use of evaluation? This is the
research question guiding this PhD thesis. By answering this research question as
well as three sub-questions, the thesis addresses three important gaps in the
evaluation literature: the first gap is that evaluation theory does a poor job
explaining non-use and justificatory uses of evaluation. The second gap is that
evaluation theory does not account for the systemic context of evaluation in its
more general explanations of evaluation use. Finally, the literature does not
account empirically for the micro-level of evaluation use in evaluation systems.
The thesis draws inspiration from organisational theory and in particular
organisational institutionalism. Organisational institutionalism explains
organisational action and change to be driven by legitimacy-seeking organisational
behaviour. Organisations seek to legitimise themselves in order to survive in their
environment. This theory is applied to the concept ‘evaluation system’. Hence, the
assumption underlying this thesis is that organisations within an evaluation system
are using evaluations to appear accountable rather than improve policies.
The thesis investigates the European Union’s evaluation system with a particular
focus on the European Commission. This is done in four articles. The first article
is a theoretical article introducing organisational institutionalism to the evaluation
literature in order to explain non-use and justificatory uses of evaluations. The
second article is a historical analysis of the development of the European
Commissions evaluation practices. The third article is a case-based analysis of
evaluation use in the European Commission. The fourth article is also an empirical
article on policy learning from evaluations in three different Directorate-Generals
in the European Commission. The methodology used in the empirical articles is
qualitative content analysis and the data were more than a hundred Commission
documents and 58 interviews with Commission staff. |
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