Draws on interviews with 61 officials in 13 federal agencies to illustrate a framework showing many of the potential uses of evaluation in support of performance management. Suggests 10 actions as opportunities for agency administrators and evaluators to bridge the current gaps between potential and actual uses of evaluation. (Author/SLD)

Shows how evaluators can handle conflict and create, restore, and maintain conditions for an ongoing negotiation process using the example of a vocational rehabilitation project for psychiatric patients in which a conflict developed between management and therapists. (SLD)

Evaluation is often both conceptually and functionally separate from program planning and operations management. There are a number of potentially beneficial side effects to be realized from close collaboration between program administrators and evaluators: when the evaluation task is broadly defined and when both administrators recognize their…

Evaluation theory and practice in Australia are described. In Australia, evaluation is linked closely with government programs. Australia has benefited from the opportunity to observe evaluation in the rest of the world. However, development of a uniquely Australian perspective has been hampered by the imposition of cultural values of other…

Explores implications for evaluation practice of using five different perspectives on organizations, drawing on the four models of social program implementation developed by R. F. Elmore (1978). It is argued that evaluation will only really be effective when its focus, methods, and management reflect realistic assumptions about how organizations…

The current conceptualization in the mental retardation-developmental disability field regarding quality of life, quality enhancement, and quality assurance is summarized. Implications of these issues for program planning and evaluation are discussed, with attention to management and a framework for quality assurance. (SLD)