Walter Rohrbach
Ph.D. Student

Subproject 1: Factors Influencing the Evaluation Culture within Policy Sectors

Organisational evaluation culture and its conditions: An analysis for the administrative units in Switzerland

Existing studies indicate that evaluation activity varies across countries, regions, policy sectors and administration.

Furthermore, for Switzerland differences in the use and activity of evaluation can be found. An in-depth analysis of the reasons for these differences is missing. This examination aims at closing this gap by systematically analysing the determinants for the organisational evaluation culture in the administrative units in Switzerland. This will be done in two steps: Firstly, by measuring the organisational evaluation culture in different administrative units in eight cantons and at the federal level in different policy fields. Secondly, by analysing the conditions for these differences between administrative units and policy fields.

In this examination a broader concept of the dealing with evaluation in organisations is used: it's called organisational evaluation culture and refers to different aspects, including evaluation activities, evaluation capacity and professionalization, evaluative information, evaluation quality and values and beliefs towards evaluation. Four conditions are considered to be important for the explanations of the differences (content of the policy, changes in policy, resources available, NPM-reforms within the policy sector). We hypothesise that these are determinants for the organisational evaluation culture. Using a comparative qualitative analysis (QCA), the stated conditions will be tested.

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University of Lucerne
Political Science Department
Frohburgstrasse 3
CH-6002 Lucerne