Evaluative Inquiry

Evaluative inquiry for learning in organizations is an approach to evaluation that underscores the importance of individual, team, and organizational learning as a result of engaging in evaluation processes. As such, it strives to integrate evaluation into normal organizational operations, supports organization members' interest and ability to explore critical issues using evaluation logic, relies heavily on stakeholder involvement throughout the evaluation, and values the diversity of the perspectives, values, and knowledge of those involved in the evaluation process. Evaluative inquiry for learning in organizations is based on the following assumptions:

• Stakeholders' learning occurs through social interactions during the evaluation (e.g., process use). This learning may be transformative in that stakeholders develop new perceptions and understandings of the evaluand, the organization, organization members, evaluation practice, and, ultimately, ...