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Abstract
Interventions to improve organizations are common in both practice and research, but relatively little evaluation research has focused on the long-term effects of an intervention. This study opens a unique window into the longevity of an intervention’s outcomes and the factors that can help to sustain these. In this paper we report a long-term effect evaluation of a comprehensive intervention that focused on developing employeeship and that took place over six years in a University unit (the Intervention Unit, IU). A former evaluation showed that the intervention had been successful in achieving its outcomes in the first three years until 2015. In 2016, a major organizational merger was conducted. This provided a natural opportunity to evaluate the long-term sustainability of the intervention in terms of its effects on the psychosocial work environment. The present long-term effect evaluation is a multi-method study with contextual data from multiple sources and stakeholders. The final survey was administered one year after the merger. In addition to the survey, organizational records were examined and interviews with stakeholders were carried out to examine the contextual issues affecting the intervention. To evaluate the intervention, we used ARK, which is a systematic and validated tool. ANOVA analyses of the intervention- and control groups showed that the positive results were compromised in the follow-up survey (a further three years later). The contextual evaluation with ANCOVA pointed to main changes connected to the organizational merger and especially for the IU.
Highlights
Organizational interventions are common in both practice and research, but relatively little evaluation research has focused on the long-time effects of an intervention, for practical reasons
In 2012, the intervention unit (IU) at a large university initiated an intervention which was implemented because an internal survey showed that interpersonal conflicts were widespread and that the psychosocial work environment was in need of improvement
Between baseline and post-intervention, an interaction effect indicated that the levels of interpersonal conflict had decreased for the Intervention Unit (IU) over time, but increased for the rest of the university (F(1, 6,901) = 5.38, p
Summary
Organizational interventions are common in both practice and research, but relatively little evaluation research has focused on the long-time effects of an intervention, for practical reasons. We know little about the mechanisms underlying long-term sustainable intervention outcomes, especially when external change or other programmes threaten to undermine successful results. Such evaluation opportunities can offer invaluable learnings. The present study describes a long-term follow-up effect evaluation of the intervention, in light of major contextual changes in the form of an organizational merger that took place after the short-term evaluation had been completed. The present study supplements earlier evaluations of this intervention by examining its effects in the long run, while considering contextual challenges in the Intervention Unit (IU) compared to the rest of the organization. It helps us to explore the importance of building sustainability in organizational interventions and the usefulness of a systematic approach to intervention evaluation [4]
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