Everyday Methods for Assessing Organizational Effectiveness

Consistent with a growing interest among organizational sociologists and evaluation researchers, this paper examines effectiveness as a socially constructed phenomenon in a study of how providers and consumers in social programs decide that their programs are working. Through analysis of data collected as part of an evaluation of a program to integrate former mental patients into their local communities, five everyday evaluation methods are identified: (1) measuring “success” against personal trajectories, (2) interpreting acts in the context of relationships, (3) using the dramatic incident, (4) relying on appearances of involvement, and (5) scaling goals to meet shifting constraints. Analysis shows that participants use devices for maintaining and sustaining beliefs in effectiveness despite evidence to the contrary. The understanding of everyday evaluation methods suggests the need for new models and research strategies in the study of effectiveness. As organizational survival strategies designed to instill commitment to the labor process, everyday evaluation methods, no less than the more “scientific” ones, are significant forms of organizational behavior that merit further study.