Can Governments Learn?

Frans L. Leeuw is director of the Division of Policy Evaluation Research at the Netherlands Court of Audit. He coedited What Has Dutch Sociology Achieved? and has written for the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation.Ray C. Rist is Evaluation Advisor at The Economic Development Institute of The World Bank. He has been director of the Case Studies Program at the United States General Accounting Office and has taught at major universities in the United States.Richard C. Sonnichsen is deputy assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in charge of the office of planning, evaluation, and audits. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Southern California, Washington Public Affairs Center. His evaluation interests are in the areas of internal organization, evaluation, and the utilization of evaluation results.

Introduction: Evaluations and Organizational Learning: International Perspectives Frans L. Leeuw and Richard C. Sonnichsen, Part I National Perspectives, 1 Utilizing Evaluation in Organizations: The Balancing Act John May ne (Canada), 2 Learning from Evaluations: The Swedish Experience Jan-Eric Furubo (Sweden), 3 Policy Evaluation and the Netherlands’s Government: Scope, Utilization, and Organizational Learning Frans L. Leeuw and Piet J. Rozendal (The Netherlands), Part II Institutional Perspectives, 4 Organizational Learning at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management John A. Leitch and Ray C. Rist (United States), 5 Formative Evaluation and Organizational Learning: The Case of the Belgium Postal System Philippe Spaey and Fabienne Leloup (Belgium), 6 Effective Internal Evaluation: An Approach to Organizational Learning Richard C. Sonnichsen (United States), Part III When Do Governments Learn?, 7 Facilitating Organizational Learning: Human Resource Management and Program Evaluation Marie Louise Bemelmans-Videc (The Netherlands) Bjarne Eriksen (Norway) Edie N. Goldenberg (United States), 8 The Preconditions for Learning: Lessons from the Public Sector Ray C. Rist (United States), Contributors, Index