Abstract:

This reflective essay revisits a period of institutional reform within a public sector institution in East Africa, during which evaluation capacity building (ECB) practices emerged and became progressively embedded within routine daily operations. Using Preskill and Boyle’s (2008) model as a lens, the essay reinterprets these embedded practices to make the implicit explicit. Three domains are highlighted: creating supportive structures and culture, peer learning and practice-based mechanisms for evaluation capacity, and integrating evaluation into planning and decision-making, all reinforced by leadership that modeled and sustained these evaluative practices. The reflection also surfaces tensions between theory and practice, illustrating how ECB unfolds within complex institutional realities where such tensions can create openings for learning and adaptation. Ultimately, the essay contributes to ECB scholarship by advancing an implicit-to-explicit four-stage pathway for ECB, illustrating how latent governance routines can be recognized, scaffolded through structures and feedback processes, and stabilized into a more sustained evaluative culture.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Organisational Studies

Keywords: Organisational research and practice: interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing the relationships that exist within and across sectors

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Dr. Krisanna Machtmes