Evaluating communicative planning: A revised design for performance research

Abstract

This paper adds to the literature on the ‘performance’ rather than the ‘conformance’ of plans, relating the arguments to an issue that is under‐researched: the evaluation of communicative planning. With the ‘IOR‐School’, it argues that the purpose of planning is to improve the quality of decisions. To establish how plans can do that, the paper looks at the interaction between the maker of a plan and those responsible for subsequent decisions as a process of communication. Drawing inspiration from literature according an inalienable role to the reader of a text in interpreting it, the paper proposes a modified design for performance research.