Understanding evaluation influence within public sector partnerships: a conceptual model

The importance of evaluation use has led to a large amount of theoretical and empirical study. Evaluation use, however, is still not well understood. There is a need to capture the complexity of this phenomenon across a diverse range of contexts. In response to such complexities, the notion of ‘‘evaluation influence’ ’ emerged. This article presents a theory of evaluation influence within public sector partnerships. An analysis of key concepts is used to develop propositions about the rela-tionships between evaluation attributes, partnership functioning and characteristics, partnership evaluation behavior, individual characteristics, contextual factors, and evaluation influence. The model highlights the complexities of evaluation influence and identifies a range of factors that eva-luators can consider in practice. The model also extends on existing theories of evaluation influence in considering the role of individual characteristics, stakeholder evaluation behavior, and partnership contexts. Keywords evaluation use, evaluation influence, partnership functioning, evaluation context Evaluation as a discipline has had a long interest in its use. Initially, concern over use was driven by the desire to maximize the positive social impacts of evaluation (Ciarlo, 1981), a theme that remains in the more recent literature (Mark & Henry, 2004). Equally, those commissioning evaluation want to benefit from its potential to inform practice. The importance of evaluation use has led to a large amount of theoretical and empirical study over the past 30 years (Caracelli & Preskill, 2000; Cousin