Book Review: Title: Enhancing Evaluation Use: Insights from Internal Evaluation Units
| Author | AM Anona Armstrong |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X1401400106 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
43
The authors of this book, Marlène Läubli Loud and John
Mayne, are experienced evaluators recognised as experts
in the field of evaluation. Laud was formerly head of
the Research and Evaluation Unit at the Swiss Federal
Oce of Public Health and has provided consulltancy
services to several organisations located across the
globe, including the UN Evaluation Group. John Mayne
formerly led the evaluation team at the Canadian Auditor
General’s Oce and was responsible for introducing
evaluation and performance management in Canada. He
is well known to government departments in Australia
as he has visited Australia on several occasions. Läubli
Loud and Mayne have marshalled a formidable array
of experienced evaluators whose chapters reflect their
knowledge and experience.
The authors argue that while a great deal of advice
about evaluation utilisation has been written by
academics and others, there is a lack of information from
experienced ‘insiders’ who commission, manage or carry
out evaluations in organisations. This book aims to fill
this gap.
The theme of the book is therefore about using
evaluation. Drawing on both theory and rich examples
from the experience of the contributors, its objective is to
inform readers about best practice in ensuring its use. The
issues addressed are: how evaluation is institutionalised;
relationships between evaluators and stakeholders;
commissioning and managing evaluations; strategies to
enhance use; and the challenges faced and how best to
address them.
Mayne introduces the book with a discussion of the
purpose of evaluation, the key decisions in the design of
an evaluation, what is meant by use and utilisation, who
uses evaluations, and why they may end up not being
used. This is followed in a second theoretical chapter by
Bastiaan de Laat who takes up the perennial issues on
internal versus external evaluations and the consequences
for independence and power relationships. He presents an
analytical framework for understanding the relationships
between roles of the commissioner of an evaluation and
the roles of evaluators who perform an evaluation and the
evaluand (the entity being evaluated).
Chapters 3 to 7 present examples of internal
evaluations conducted in the public sector. Penny
Hawkins from New Zealand, (well known to AES
members), addresses management issues: the siting of
the evaluation unit, the balance between independence
■ Editors
Marlène Läubli Loud and John Mayne
■ Publisher/year
Sage, Los Angeles, 2014
■ Extent/type
279 pages, paperback
■ Price
A$78/NZ$80 from Footprint Books which oers a 15% discount
to AES members, phone 1300 260 090 (within Australia) or
+61 2 9997 3973 (from outside Australia), email
info@footprint.com.au
, website
http://www.footprint.com.au
for the latest prices
■ ISBN 978-1-4522-0547-2
and ensuring that evaluation sta are well connected
to the rest of the organisation; and adequate resources.
She concludes that successful adoption of evaluation
results depends on agreeing on the goals, objectives
and ownership of the evaluation prior to commencing,
the quality of the evaluation and its outputs, good
communication, and an organisation’s evaluation culture
and values.
Läubli Loud’s chapter also takes up the challenges
of building an evaluation culture. She argues for
the institutionalisation of evaluations, that is, that
‘evaluation has to be integrated into an organizational
framework or foundation that provides all the rules,
resources and communication mechanisms to support
its application’ (p. 57). Läubli Loud makes a distinction
between evaluation culture (which refers to a shared set
of ideas, values and beliefs at an organisational level
about the evaluation’s role, functions and practice) and
use of the knowledge generated through evaluations,
and evaluation capacity, which has more to do with the
measures and strategies used to establish good practices
for commissioning, doing and using the evaluation. She
then draws on these definitions to frame her discussion of
the challenges, strategies and indicators of the success in
institutionalising evaluation in the Health Department in
Switzerland.
A negative aspect of institutionalisation of evaluation
is that the use of ‘in-house’ language or jargon, when
Title: Enhancing Evaluation Use: Insights from Internal
Evaluation Units
BOOK REVIEW Evaluation Journal of Australasia Vol 14 | No 1 | 2014 | pp. 43–45
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