Fundamental to the theoretical contribution of organisational institutionalism is the distinction between organisational efficiency and organisational legitimacy. One famous contribution that spelled out this dichotomy was Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) distinction between output legitimacy and normative legitimacy. They wrote: ‘Some organizations use routine, clearly defined technologies to produce
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outputs. When output can be easily evaluated… . …efficiency often determines success.’ (Meyer and Rowan, 1977: 353-54). They continued: ‘Increasingly, such organizations as schools, R&D units, and governmental bureaucracies use variable, ambiguous technologies to produce outputs that are difficult to appraise’
(ibid). What Meyer and Rowan allude to in their ground-breaking article is that some organisations (such as public organisations) seek legitimacy rather than efficiency. Thus Meyer and Rowan laid the foundation for organisational
institutionalism by adopting the view that allows us to understand organisations as legitimacy-maximising rather than efficiency- or output-maximising.
While organisational theory for several decades has been dominated by
organisational institutionalism (especially in Scandinavia), the field of evaluation has not taken serious note of these theoretical developments (Højlund, 2014b). A few evaluation studies use institutional theory and consider adoption of evaluation practices in organisations and countries (Hansen and Borum, 1999; Borum and Hansen, 2000; Radaelli, 2009; Sager and Rissi, 2011; Varone et al., 2005;
Benjamin, 2012). Linked to the use of knowledge, Boswell (2008: 485-6) uncovers evidence that an organisation uses knowledge to legitimise itself in an unstable and uncertain environment, as predicted by institutional theory. Dahler-Larsen argues that ‘institutional theory can contribute to describe the relatively mechanical diffusion of a phenomenon like evaluation, where the adopted standard in the respective organisation, however, remains a symbolic facade, which does not affect the organisation’s core activities significantly.’ (Dahler-Larsen and Krogstrup, 2006: 297; Meyer and Rowan, 1977). However, the theory has not been linked explicitly with evaluation systems and their use of evaluation.
By developing a broader theory of organisational behaviour, organisational institutionalism is probably the organisational theory that focuses most directly on accountability. Early on, Selznik (1949) discovered that organisations act contrary to the rational utility-maximising behaviour that was expected from organisations in classic organisational theory. He discovered that organisational behaviour often worked contrary to the objectives organisations set for themselves. Instead he found that organisations mostly act according to norms and values in their environment and with the aim of legitimising themselves (Zald and Denton, 1963;
Scott and Meyer, 1994). An interesting conclusion from these early studies was
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that organisations adapt to the practices that are legitimised by the organisational environment (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). This is particularly the case if the organisation perceives itself to be operating in an unstable environment, where there is uncertainty about the distribution of resources between itself and rival organisations (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991: 30-31). Meyer and Rowan (1991:
190) argue that organisations are concerned with reducing uncertainty and stabilizing social relations (exemplified in Selznik (1984) and thus not primarily with maximising either power or outputs.
At the heart of institutional theory is the definition of institution. First, institutions should not be confused with organisations. Rather, they are the frames for action of organisations, or, simply put, the taken-for-granted formal and informal rules of the game. Scott (1995: 49) writes: ‘…institutions are multifaceted, durable, social structures, made up of symbolic elements, social activities, and material
resources’. From this definition, it is important to stress that institutions are resilient to change and that they consist of cultured-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that provide meaning to social life (Scott (1995: 48). Thus, formal and informal rules shape social action, constraining actors and limiting their choice of action, and might be the subject of conflict between competing interests (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). An institution requires a clear typification (e.g., ‘evaluation’), social knowledge or sedimentation.
The institution of evaluation is taken for granted in many organisations. A number of relatively stable interpretations of concepts, practices, principles, norms, ethics, values and artefacts are associated with evaluation. In other words, evaluation fits well with Scott’s previously mentioned definition of an institution. Dahler-Larsen and Krogstrup (2006) argue that evaluation has become a protected discourse and that ‘Evaluation has stepped into character as a mandatory political and
administrative ritual, which priorities and decisions need to adhere to in order to be socially valid’ [my translation]. Schwandt (2009) refers to the ‘evaluation imaginary’. In other words, evaluation has become a de facto legitimising institution – in many cases a practice we accept without question.
The notion of ‘organisational field’ is also important in institutional theory. Scott (1995: 207-208) defines it in the following way: ‘... the notion of field connotes
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the existence of a community of organizations that partakes of a common meaning system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside of the field.’ The most important actors in the field of evaluation are arguably the World Bank, OECD, UN, the American Evaluation Association and the European Evaluation Society, as well as regional supranational political organisations such as the EU and some national donor agencies. (Furubo et al., 2002; Varone et al., 2005; Stern, 2006). They mutually reinforce and constantly negotiate the evaluation institution through their production of guidelines and practices, as well as through exchanges of opinions in public debates and at evaluation seminars, courses and conferences. The field is an important concept, because this is what an organisation adapts to.
In this thesis, I argue that the notion of field is too broad to enrich the debate in the evaluation literature on evaluation use. However, it contains assumptions that are nonetheless useful. These assumptions will be developed further in the next section. Also, while organisational institutionalism is concerned with legitimacy in a large organisational field, evaluation systems are smaller clusters of
interdependent public organisations where legitimacy is gained through
accountability. Thus, the evaluation system is a community of organisations that reinforce shared evaluation practices put in place to secure accountability. The evaluation system is what the organisation adapts to, in order to seek legitimacy and accountability and survive in the long run.
Thereby, the concept of evaluation system is not as extended as ‘organisational field’ and therefore more operational and with a more easily defined scope in empirical terms. The translation from ‘field’ to ‘evaluation system’ is also important because of the existing debate on evaluation systems in the evaluation literature. By proposing to apply the assumptions of organisational institutionalism to evaluation systems, this thesis adds more theoretical depth to the concept of evaluation system. This follows from the key assumptions that are made in organisational institutionalism below.