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The Contribution of Evaluation to Organizational Learning

Exploding the Myth

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Systems for Sustainability
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Abstract

The notion of organizational learning is a popular theme in the evaluation literature (Van der Knaap, 1995; Owen and Lambert, 1995). Whilst, traditionally, this work has been based on a rational-objectivist view, Van der Knaap has recently documented a paradigm shift in evaluation to argumentative-subjectivism. In the light of a discussion of self-producing systems, the argument will be advanced that the shift to argumentative-subjectivism will not promote the effectiveness of evaluation practice. Following a summary review of Stacey’s (1992, 1996) work on chaos and creativity, it will be proposed that the roles of ‘evaluator as judge’, as per rational-objectivism, and ‘evaluator as critic’, as per argumentative-subjectivism, are redundant.

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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Gregory, A. (1997). The Contribution of Evaluation to Organizational Learning. In: Stowell, F.A., Ison, R.L., Armson, R., Holloway, J., Jackson, S., McRobb, S. (eds) Systems for Sustainability. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0265-8_38

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0265-8_38

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-0267-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-0265-8

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