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Primary and Secondary Barriers to the Evaluation of Change

Evidence from Two Public Sector Organizations

Oxford Brookes University, UK, denise.skinner{at}brookes.ac.uk

For more than two decades it has been widely acknowledged within the management literature that the evaluation of change rarely takes place within organizations, yet little coherent explanation has been offered as to why this should be so. This article reports on research undertaken in two UK public sector organizations, to explore the reality of evaluation in the context of change, with the intention of identifying the barriers to evaluation that existed and the factors that created them. The analysis of the empirical evidence led to the identification of two distinct types of barrier to evaluation, labelled primary (factors that act against an evaluation being undertaken) and secondary (factors that arise during an evaluation process). Primary barriers were rooted in contextual factors contained in the organization’s history and culture; the background against which the change initiative took place. Secondary barriers relate directly to the choices and decisions involved in the evaluation process itself and therefore only become significant once a decision to undertake an evaluation has been made. In combination, they offer an explanation for the exclusion of the evaluation stage in many change initiatives.

Key Words: barriers • change management • evaluation • organizational change • public sector

Evaluation, Vol. 10, No. 2, 135-154 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1356389004045078


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