Evaluative Inquiry for Learning in Organizations

How does evaluative inquiry contribute to organizational learning? How can we practice evaluative inquiry in ways that maximize individual and team learning? This book provides a data-based approach to organizational learning and change and focuses on the use of evaluative inquiry processes with organizations rather than across large-scale, multi-site programs. It contains four illustrative case studies, interview extracts, strategy plans and flow charts, diagrams and advice boxes that consultants can use for implementing their own training and development sessions.

How does evaluative inquiry contribute to organizational learning? How can we practice evaluative inquiry in ways that maximize individual and team learning? This book provides a data-based approach to organizational learning and change and focuses on the use of evaluative inquiry processes with organizations rather than across large-scale, multi-site programs. It contains four illustrative case studies, interview extracts, strategy plans and flow charts, diagrams and advice boxes that consultants can use for implementing their own training and development sessions.

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Provides a data-based approach to organizational learning and change, focusing on the use of evaluative inquiry processes within the organization rather than across large-scale, multisite programs. Illustrative cases demonstrate three phases of evaluative inquiry, from focusing the inquiry to developing action plans. Interviews with managers at four different types of organizations reveal how participants experienced these procedures. For evaluators, managers, consultants, and trainers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Rosalie T. Torres, Ph.D. is President of Torres Consulting Group, an evaluation and management consulting firm that specializes in the feedback-based development of programs and organizations.  Formerly, she was the Director of Research, Evaluation, and Organizational Learning at the Developmental Studies Center (DSC), an educational, nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California. She earned her Ph.D. in research and evaluation in 1989 from the University of Illinois.  Over the past 27 years, she has conducted more than 60 evaluations in education, business, health care, and nonprofit organizations, holding both internal and external evaluator positions.  She has authored/coauthored numerous books and articles articulating practice-based theories of evaluation use; the relationship between evaluation and individual, team, and organizational learning; and communicating and reporting evaluation findings.  Among them are Evaluative Inquiry for Learning in Organizations (Preskill & Torres, 1999) and Evaluation Strategies for Communicating and Reporting: Enhancing Learning in Organizations (Torres, Preskill, & Piontek, 1996).  She is a recent past Board Member of the American Evaluation Association, and served as the Staff Director for the 1994 revision of the Joint Committee's Program Evaluation Standards.  She has taught graduate level research and evaluation courses at Western Michigan University and the University of Colorado (Denver and Colorado Springs campuses), and routinely conducts workshops on various topics related to evaluation practice.