Attempts to distinguish between an evaluative organization and a learning organization are in their infancy today. The tendency for evaluation scholars to blend the two concepts or to refer to evaluation as learning and learning as evaluation limits the explication of both concepts. The following is an excerpt from Evaluating Organizational Effectiveness (Martz, 2008) and presents my current thinking on the differences between evaluative and learning organizations.
A learning organization is commonly defined as one that has the capacity and processes in place to detect and correct error or improve performance based on experience or knowledge acquired (DiBella & Nevis, 1998). Being a learning organization implies that the organization is actually learning (i.e., acquiring knowledge and implementing behavioral change) as a result of its learning processes and not simply supporting staff to attend seminars or conducting internal training for the sake of training.
Although a learning organization actively captures, transfers, and utilizes relevant knowledge to adapt to its changing environment, it does not necessarily collect information to determine the extent to which its changes are contributing or have contributed to the improvement of organizational performance. In other words, a learning organization does not specifically attempt to determine the merit, worth, or significance of a strategic initiative or business process and its contribution toward improved organizational effectiveness. To arrive at this evaluative conclusion, something more is required beyond pure learning.
In contrast to a pure learning organization, the evaluative organization fully integrates the evaluative attitude and culture into its business processes and utilizes information that has been specifically collected to determine the effectiveness of a particular process or activity and its contribution to organizational performance. What’s more, an evaluative organization recognizes that learning enables the organization to adapt to its environment and enhances organizational learning by assessing the merit of initiatives resulting from the learning process and their contributions toward improved organizational performance.
Although an evaluative organization is a learning organization, a learning organization is not always evaluative. The evaluative organization “adds value” to the learning organization concept by assessing the extent to which the knowledge acquired by or integrated into the organization is worthwhile and used to improve organizational effectiveness. Hence, an evaluative organization is a learning organization that instinctually reflects on its actions and external environment and continuously improves as a result of those reflections. The nature of the evaluative organization is such that its evaluative actions are not simply rule-following, but a component of the organization’s value system (Scriven, 2008). In other words, the modus operandi of an evaluative organization is its incorporation of the evaluative attitude as an implicit element of organizational culture, moving well beyond the explicit acknowledgement of a commitment to evaluation or simply doing evaluations. The evaluative organization is one that reaches beyond performance measurement and monitoring to embrace the relentless pursuit of quality and value by thinking and acting evaluatively to improve organizational performance.
Email critical feedback to wes.martz@wmich.edu
References
DiBella, A. J., & Nevis, E. C. (1998). How organizations learn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Martz, W. (2008). Evaluating organizational effectiveness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.
Scriven, M. (2008). The evaluative organization. Unpublished manuscript, Claremont Graduate University.
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