A Delicate Balance: The role of evaluation in management

Evaluation policy and practice have always harboured a delicate motivational balance. On the one hand, the mission of quality assurance is clear: funding authorities, potential clients, and other stakeholders must all be able to count on the integrity of the process and of the judgements it renders. This, in turn, requires clear and understandable standards, rigorously applied in a manner that not only is but appears valid, with results communicated to the public in accessible ways. On the other hand, most evaluation practices, though owned and operated by external agencies, claim sincerely that the institutions under review will learn something of value that will help them improve. This requires a more flexible process of inquiry, applied rigorously to be sure, but with sensitivity to context as well. To preserve the confidence needed to inform action, moreover, it demands reviews that are conducted in camera and whose results are often communicated in 'code'. Recognising these embedded tensions leads to two critical questions. First, what specific features of our present evaluation practices in higher education render them capable of resolving this contradiction of purposes, that is, of discharging accountability while still 'adding value' to institutions? Second, what are some of the particular features of institution-level 'good practice' in the use of information that external quality-assurance agents should explicitly recognise and foster through their processes? This article assays some initial answers to these twin questions based on emerging US experience.