The Meaning Assigned to Evaluation by Project Staff

Abstract

The aim of the article is to explore the ways in which project staff and managers understand evaluation and the way it affects their work. Typically project/programme staff and management have been understood as one stakeholder group among the others. There has been little substantive research into the ways in which the project staff themselves give meaning to evaluation. This study found that interviewed managers tended to be relatively negative and critical toward evaluation, although they recognized its importance. The meaning that project staff give to evaluation should be taken more carefully into account in the evaluation field, because their understandings affect evaluation execution and utilization.