Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Evaluation
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Widmer, T.
Right arrow Articles by Neuenschwander, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Embedding Evaluation in the Swiss Federal Administration

Purpose, Institutional Design and Utilization

Thomas Widmer

University of Zurich, Switzerland, thow{at}pwi.unizh.ch

Peter Neuenschwander

University of Zurich, Switzerland, peneu{at}pwi.unizh.ch

Scholars have long addressed the question of how to improve the usefulness of evaluation in the public sector. This article describes the role of evaluation within the Swiss Federation in order to investigate the conditions of evaluation use. The article is based on an examination of several offices in the federal administration. Evaluation within the Swiss federal administration shows great variety among the different units with regard to both the general understanding and the implementation of evaluation. These provide good examples for studying the relationship of purpose, utilization and institutional design in evaluation. Furthermore, decisions are often taken in the absence of basic considerations regarding the purpose or utility of the evaluation, and this substantially affects the subsequent institutional design of the evaluation. The authors recommend a clearer functional differentiation between different forms of evaluations as means for improving the evaluation measures currently used in and by the Swiss federal administration.

Key Words: evaluation purpose • evaluation utilization • institutional design • Swiss federal administration • Switzerland

Evaluation, Vol. 10, No. 4, 388-409 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1356389004050283
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Eval RevHome page
A. Balthasar
Institutional Design and Utilization of Evaluation: A Contribution to a Theory of Evaluation Influence Based on Swiss Experience
Eval Rev, June 1, 2009; 33(3): 226 - 256.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 EvaluationHome page
A. Balthasar
The Effects of Institutional Design on the Utilization of Evaluation: Evidenced Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
Evaluation, July 1, 2006; 12(3): 353 - 371.
[Abstract] [PDF]