The road to integration. Reflections on the development of organizational evaluation theory and practice

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of organizational evaluation theory and practice. It is argued that the field of evaluation is following a similar pattern of development to that of organization theory. A model of the development of organization theory is taken as a structure and major works in evaluation ‘fitted’ into each of the different stages; the history of organizational evaluation is traced from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Having established that the third and, according to the model of development being used as a structure, final stage of development has been reached, the paper puts forth a critical evaluation of currently popular ‘integrated’ approaches.