Institutional Appraisal Research Articles

Institutional Appraisal of Economic Reforms in Algeria

This Paper argues that the institutional framework is as much important as the economic factors in explaining the economic and investment outcomes in Algeria. Moreover, the paper discusses the failure of many informal institutions to follow the path of the formal institutions' change, which resulted in poor performance of the reform policies. The paper argues that the Algerian authorities have to put more efforts into changing informal constraints if the reform policies are to lead significantly enhanced economic performance.

Rapid Institutional Appraisal

A week-long intensive process of staff development and induction called Rapid Institutional Appraisal (RIA) was conducted in November 2000 in the Systems Discipline, Centre for Complexity and Change (CCC), at the Open University. We report the systemic roots and characteristics of the RIA as designed from traditions of soft systems methodology and rapid rural appraisal. Our experiences arising from our own use of RIA are described and the wider implications for organizational learning in a complex organization discussed. While acknowledging limitations with this RIA event, we argue that RIA offers a potential model for staff development for adaptive use in different contexts and on varying scales. The process builds on principles of "conversation" and "multiple perspectives" as the touchstone for establishing a purposeful community of practice.

The Politics of Water in Hawaii: An Institutional Appraisal

The politics of water in Hawaii has its roots in a pattern of land ownership that is unique to the state: oligopoly. Approximately 25% of the land in Hawaii is owned by fewer than 10 large corporations. These big landowners have a vested interest in the control of Hawaii's waters, since they own most of the state's sugar and pineapple plantations, which use about 24% of the fresh water consumed in the state. Our study shows a clear link between Hawaii's oligopolistic landowners and the state's political machinery responsible for deciding crucial issues of water ownership, control and appropriation. This 'alliance of convenience' has resulted in a number of disquieting consequences. This paper examines and appraises these and their impact on Hawaii's water development and suggests future directions.

Agonistic Liberalism

In all of its varieties, traditional liberalism is a universalist political theory. Its content is a set of principles which prescribe the best regime, the ideally best institutions, for all mankind. It may be acknowledged — as it is, by a proto-liberal such as Spinoza — that the best regime can be attained only rarely, and cannot be expected to endure for long; and that the forms its central institutions will assume in different historical and cultural milieux may vary significantly. It will then be accepted that the liberal regime's role in political thought is as a regulative ideal, which political practice can hope only to approximate, subject to all the vagaries and exigencies of circumstance. Nonetheless, the content of traditional liberalism is a system of principles which function as universal norms for the critical appraisal of human institutions. In this regard, traditional liberalism — the liberalism of Locke and Kant, for example — represents a continuation of classical political rationalism, as it is found in Aristotle and Aquinas, where it also issues in principles having the attribute of universality, in that they apply ideally to all human beings.

Markets, bureaucracies and groups in the information society: An institutional appraisal of the impacts of information technology

The issue regarding the impact of information technology on organizations is here reconsidered by applying a new analytical framework. Information technology affects the cost of transactions which take place under alternative institutional arrangements, such as markets, bureaucracies and groups; technology can affect the efficiency of the organizations which apply it and the organizational behaviour of their members. Empirical data show how computerization changes organizational patterns according to efficiency considerations. An enlargement of the framework to take into account alternative mechanisms for organizational participation, such as exit, voice and loyalty, allows to examine the impacts of information technology on participation possibilities within organizations.

An institutional appraisal of Nigeria's agricultural credit guarantee scheme

In this paper we analyse the legal instrument establishing the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund and the Fund's operation in 1978. The Fund is directed at increasing the productive capacity of the agricultural sector and the public share of the social costs of agricultural development in Nigeria. However, the legal instrument discriminates against small-scale traditional farmers since such farmers cannot meet the collateral requirements of the Fund unless they are members of group or co-operative farms. By implication, therefore, the Fund aims at re-organising the agricultural sector in favour of large-scale farms. Despite the financial incentives given to the banks, they have not found agricultural loans attractive enough to meet that sector's loan ratio as prescribed by the Central Bank. It is suggested that a village guarantee system be introduced for traditional farms and that loans granted under such a system should carry higher guarantees from the Fund.

United Nations General Assembly Resolutions as Expressions of Human Values

In order to generate interest in the 1977 ISA Annual Convention, whose theme is World-Wide Appraisal of Institutions: Towards Realizing Human Dignity, the June 1976 issue of International Studies Quarterly published an article by Richard C. Snyder, Charles F. Hermann, and Harold D. Lasswell entitled A Global Monitoring System: Appraising the Effects of Government on Human Dignity. The authors envisaged that such a system would be designed to appraise policy formulation and execution by major governmental actors on a worldwide basis. In this context it may be of interest to review some of the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly' at its thirtieth session

Institutional Appraisal and Planning for Equal Educational Opportunity

The many problems surrounding adequate planning for the future in institutions of higher education happen to show up in the development of programs. There is no doubt that adequate institutional planning must be at the pinnacle of any institution's forward thinking if it is to proceed for the type of competitive grantsmanship evidenced in the more sophisticated institutions. This type of problem is particularly germane to predominantly Negro institutions. In an effort to set forth some of the peculiarities of this problem, I wish to proceed with two fundamental issues which face predominantly Negro institutions in these times. About eight months ago, several prominent periodicals again noted a disturbing trend in higher education; that is, more and more small private and state colleges cannot find enough students to fill their classes. This trend appeared several years ago much to the disbelief of many colleges and it will no doubt continue for many years to comne. It is a crisis of the first order. To pass it off as temporary is foolish, to say it is irrelevant to traditionally Negro colleges is reckless. It is both permanent and relevant and it may well mark the beginning of the end of the small colleges as we know them today. To ignore it now is to assure disaster tomorrow.

Rating Scales, Score-Cards, and Checklists

THE PURPOSE of rating scales, score cards, and checklists in educational research is to provide criteria useful in describing and evaluating some phase or element in the total learning situation. The following sections discuss a number of areas in which these instruments have been applied, including the appraisal of educational institutions and programs, descriptions of instructional practices, technics for evaluating curriculums and courses of study, methods of rating the staff and pupils, procedures for appraising materials of instruction, and methods of rating schoolbuildings. The materials reviewed are drawn largely from studies published within the last five years. References to summaries of earlier research are included when available.