Evaluating commodification and commodifying evaluation

IMPACT

This article highlights the importance of those conducting evaluations, whether policy-makers or evaluators, being explicit about the purpose and use of an evaluation. Evaluation designs will affect the nature of the findings and these, in turn, can feed back into the policy process. The inherent political nature of evaluations highlights the need for the full publication of evaluation results. The public, policy-makers and other stakeholders can then have some degree of confidence in the legitimacy of the findings.

ABSTRACT

The article considers the evaluation of commodified services and the commodification of evaluations. The former distinguishes between evaluating a decision on whether to commodify a service and evaluations of commodified services. The latter explores the implications of commodifying evaluations using Weiss’ models of research use. Six themes are identified: how well the models reflect policy-making and evaluation practice; the role assigned to politics in policy evaluations; the importance of agenda setting and power in determining who and what gets evaluated; the legitimacy of the evaluations; the degree of accountability of the evaluator; and the nature of the evaluation output.

KEYWORDS:

• Carol Weiss
• commodification
• evaluation
• models of research use
• policy-making
• public service
• winners and losers
• UK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce Stafford

Bruce Stafford is Emeritus Professor of public policy at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, UK. He has extensive experience of leading and conducting commissioned evaluation and research studies for government, notably on social security, disability and employment policies.

Simon Roberts

Simon Roberts is Associate Professor of Public and Social Policy at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, UK. He has wide experience of leading UK and international research including several national evaluations for UK government on social security, disability and discrimination.

Pauline Jas

Pauline Jas is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, UK. Pauline lectures on public administration, including procurement policies and practices, and researched the performance of local government in the UK.