November 2022 – Page 272 – Homework Handlers

Assignment 2 Planned Evaluation Approach

November 24, 2022/in Uncategorized /by SK

Continue the project plan by completing Part 2.

Write a three to five (3-5) page paper in which you:

Describe the planned approach as it applies to the object of the evaluation (selected from text, Chapters 5–8).
Explain your rationale and provide research support for the approach.
Describe three (3) major areas with a question for each and provide three (3) sub-sets of questions for each major question. There should be a total of 12 questions altogether.
Provide a rationale and research support (external references) for the question areas.
Describe the stakeholders, analyze reasons they should be involved, and ways to obtain their involvement.
Use at least three (3) peer-reviewed academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and many Websites do not qualify as academic resources. Peer-reviewed academic resources refer to articles and scholarly journals that are reviewed by a panel of experts or peers in the field. Review the video titled Research Starter: Finding Peer-Reviewed References for more information on obtaining peer-reviewed academic resources through your Blackboard course shell.
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:

Typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
Include a reference page. Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Analyze the different methods of evaluating school programs.
Explore the role of evaluators in the school evaluation process.
Develop a program evaluation plan for education.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in educational program evaluation.
Write clearly and concisely about educational program evaluation issues using proper writing mechanics.

Click here to view the grading rubric.

Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions

Orienting Questions

1. What is evaluation? Why is it important?

2. What is the difference between formal and informal evaluation?

3. What are some purposes of evaluation? What roles can the evaluator play?

4. What are the major differences between formative and summative evaluations?

5. What questions might an evaluator address in a needs assessment, a process evaluation, and an outcome evaluation?

6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of an internal evaluator? An external evaluator?

The challenges confronting our society in the twenty-first century are enormous. Few of them are really new. In the United States and many other countries, the public and nonprofit sectors are grappling with complex issues: educating children for the new century; reducing functional illiteracy; strengthening families; train- ing people to enter or return to the workforce; training employees who currently work in an organization; combating disease and mental illness; fighting discrimi- nation; and reducing crime, drug abuse, and child and spouse abuse. More recently, pursuing and balancing environmental and economic goals and working to ensure peace and economic growth in developing countries have become prominent concerns. As this book is written, the United States and many countries around

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Program Evaluation: Alternative Approaches and Practical Guidelines, Fourth Edition, by Jody L. Fitzpatrick, James R. Sanders, and Blaine R. Worthen. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.

4 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

the world are facing challenging economic problems that touch every aspect of so- ciety. The policies and programs created to address these problems will require evaluation to determine which solutions to pursue and which programs and poli- cies are working and which are not. Each new decade seems to add to the list of challenges, as society and the problems it confronts become increasingly complex.

As society’s concern over these pervasive and perplexing problems has intensified, so have its efforts to resolve them. Collectively, local, regional, national, and international agencies have initiated many programs aimed at eliminating these problems or their underlying causes. In some cases, specific programs judged to have been ineffective have been “mothballed” or sunk outright, often to be replaced by a new program designed to attack the problem in a different—and, hopefully, more effective—manner.

In more recent years, scarce resources and budget deficits have posed still more challenges as administrators and program managers have had to struggle to keep their most promising programs afloat. Increasingly, policymakers and man- agers have been faced with tough choices, being forced to cancel some programs or program components to provide sufficient funds to start new programs, to con- tinue others, or simply to keep within current budgetary limits.

To make such choices intelligently, policy makers need good information about the relative effectiveness of programs. Which programs are working well? Which are failing? What are the programs’ relative costs and benefits? Similarly, each program manager needs to know how well different parts of programs are working. What can be done to improve those parts of the program that are not working as well as they should? Have all aspects of the program been thought through carefully at the planning stage, or is more planning needed? What is the theory or logic model for the program’s effectiveness? What adaptations would make the program more effective?

Answering such questions is the major task of program evaluation. The ma- jor task of this book is to introduce you to evaluation and the vital role it plays in virtually every sector of modern society. However, before we can hope to convince you that good evaluation is an essential part of good programs, we must help you understand at least the basic concepts in each of the following areas:

• How we—and others—define evaluation • How formal and informal evaluation differ • The basic purposes—and various uses—of formal evaluation • The distinction between basic types of evaluation • The distinction between internal and external evaluators • Evaluation’s importance and its limitations

Covering all of those areas thoroughly could fill a whole book, not just one chapter of an introductory text. In this chapter, we provide only brief coverage of each of these topics to orient you to concepts and distinctions necessary to under- stand the content of later chapters.

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 5

Informal versus Formal Evaluation

Evaluation is not a new concept. In fact, people have been evaluating, or examin- ing and judging things, since the beginning of human history. Neanderthals prac- ticed it when determining which types of saplings made the best spears, as did Persian patriarchs in selecting the most suitable suitors for their daughters, and English yeomen who abandoned their own crossbows in favor of the Welsh longbow. They had observed that the longbow could send an arrow through the stoutest armor and was capable of launching three arrows while the crossbow sent only one. Al- though no formal evaluation reports on bow comparisons have been unearthed in English archives, it is clear that the English evaluated the longbow’s value for their purposes, deciding that its use would strengthen them in their struggles with the French. So the English armies relinquished their crossbows, perfected and improved on the Welsh longbow, and proved invincible during most of the Hundred Years’ War.

By contrast, French archers experimented briefly with the longbow, then went back to the crossbow—and continued to lose battles. Such are the perils of poor evaluation! Unfortunately, the faulty judgment that led the French to persist in us- ing an inferior weapon represents an informal evaluation pattern that has been re- peated too often throughout history.

As human beings, we evaluate every day. Practitioners, managers, and policymakers make judgments about students, clients, personnel, programs, and policies. These judgments lead to choices and decisions. They are a natural part of life. A school principal observes a teacher working in the classroom and forms some judgments about that teacher’s effectiveness. A program officer of a founda- tion visits a substance abuse program and forms a judgment about the program’s quality and effectiveness. A policymaker hears a speech about a new method for de- livering health care to uninsured children and draws some conclusions about whether that method would work in his state. Such judgments are made every day in our work. These judgments, however, are based on informal, or unsystematic, evaluations.

Informal evaluations can result in faulty or wise judgments. But, they are characterized by an absence of breadth and depth because they lack systematic procedures and formally collected evidence. As humans, we are limited in making judgments both by the lack of opportunity to observe many different settings, clients, or students and by our own past experience, which both informs and bi- ases our judgments. Informal evaluation does not occur in a vacuum. Experience, instinct, generalization, and reasoning can all influence the outcome of informal evaluations, and any or all of these may be the basis for sound, or faulty, judg- ments. Did we see the teacher on a good day or a bad one? How did our past ex- perience with similar students, course content, and methods influence our judgment? When we conduct informal evaluations, we are less cognizant of these limitations. However, when formal evaluations are not possible, informal evalua- tion carried out by knowledgeable, experienced, and fair people can be very use- ful indeed. It would be unrealistic to think any individual, group, or organization could formally evaluate everything it does. Often informal evaluation is the only

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6 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

practical approach. (In choosing an entrée from a dinner menu, only the most compulsive individual would conduct exit interviews with restaurant patrons to gather data to guide that choice.)

Informal and formal evaluation, however, form a continuum. Schwandt (2001a) acknowledges the importance and value of everyday judgments and argues that evaluation is not simply about methods and rules. He sees the evaluator as helping practitioners to “cultivate critical intelligence.” Evaluation, he notes, forms a middle ground “between overreliance on and over-application of method, general principles, and rules to making sense of ordinary life on one hand, and advocating trust in personal inspiration and sheer intuition on the other” (p. 86). Mark, Henry, and Julnes (2000) echo this concept when they describe evaluation as a form of assisted sense-making. Evaluation, they observe, “has been developed to assist and extend natural human abilities to observe, understand, and make judgments about policies, programs, and other objects in evaluation” (p. 179).

Evaluation, then, is a basic form of human behavior. Sometimes it is thorough, structured, and formal. More often it is impressionistic and private. Our focus is on the more formal, structured, and public evaluation. We want to inform readers of various approaches and methods for developing criteria and collecting information about alternatives. For those readers who aspire to become professional evaluators, we will be introducing you to the approaches and methods used in these formal studies. For all readers, practitioners and evaluators, we hope to cultivate that critical intelligence, to make you cognizant of the factors influencing your more informal judgments and decisions.

A Brief Definition of Evaluation and Other Key Terms

In the previous section, the perceptive reader will have noticed that the term “evaluation” has been used rather broadly without definition beyond what was implicit in context. But the rest of this chapter could be rather confusing if we did not stop briefly to define the term more precisely. Intuitively, it may not seem dif- ficult to define evaluation. For example, one typical dictionary definition of eval- uation is “to determine or fix the value of: to examine and judge.” Seems quite straightforward, doesn’t it? Yet among professional evaluators, there is no uni- formly agreed-upon definition of precisely what the term “evaluation” means. In fact, in considering the role of language in evaluation, Michael Scriven, one of the founders of evaluation, for an essay on the use of language in evaluation recently noted there are nearly 60 different terms for evaluation that apply to one context or another. These include adjudge, appraise, analyze, assess, critique, examine, grade, inspect, judge, rate, rank, review, score, study, test, and so on (cited in Patton, 2000, p. 7). While all these terms may appear confusing, Scriven notes that the variety of uses of the term evaluation “reflects not only the immense im- portance of the process of evaluation in practical life, but the explosion of a new area of study” (cited in Patton, 2000, p. 7). This chapter will introduce the reader

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 7

to the array of variations in application, but, at this point, we will focus on one definition that encompasses many others.

Early in the development of the field, Scriven (1967) defined evaluation as judging the worth or merit of something. Many recent definitions encompass this original definition of the term (Mark, Henry, & Julnes, 2000; Schwandt, 2008; Scriven, 1991a; Stake, 2000a; Stufflebeam, 2001b). We concur that evaluation is de- termining the worth or merit of an evaluation object (whatever is evaluated). More broadly, we define evaluation as the identification, clarification, and application of defensible criteria to determine an evaluation object’s value (worth or merit) in rela- tion to those criteria. Note that this definition requires identifying and clarifying de- fensible criteria. Often, in practice, our judgments of evaluation objects differ because we have failed to identify and clarify the means that we, as individuals, use to judge an object. One educator may value a reading curriculum because of the love it instills for reading; another may disparage the program because it does not move the child along as rapidly as other curricula in helping the student to recognize and interpret letters, words, or meaning. These educators differ in the value they assign to the cur- ricula because their criteria differ. One important role of an evaluator is to help stake- holders articulate their criteria and to stimulate dialogue about them. Our definition, then, emphasizes using those criteria to judge the merit or worth of the product.

Evaluation uses inquiry and judgment methods, including: (1) determining the criteria and standards for judging quality and deciding whether those stan- dards should be relative or absolute, (2) collecting relevant information, and (3) applying the standards to determine value, quality, utility, effectiveness, or sig- nificance. It leads to recommendations intended to optimize the evaluation object in relation to its intended purpose(s) or to help stakeholders determine whether the evaluation object is worthy of adoption, continuation, or expansion.

Programs, Policies, and Products

In the United States, we often use the term “program evaluation.” In Europe and some other countries, however, evaluators often use the term “policy evaluation.” This book is concerned with the evaluation of programs, policies, and products. We are not, however, concerned with evaluating personnel or the performance of indi- vidual people or employees. That is a different area, one more concerned with man- agement and personnel.1 (See Joint Committee. [1988]) But, at this point, it would be useful to briefly discuss what we mean by programs, policies, and products. “Program” is a term that can be defined in many ways. In its simplest sense, a pro- gram is a “standing arrangement that provides for a . . . service” (Cronbach et al., 1980, p. 14). The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (1994) defined program simply as “activities that are provided on a continuing basis” (p. 3). In their

1The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation has developed some standards for personnel evaluation that may be of interest to readers involved in evaluating the performance of teach- ers or other employees working in educational settings. These can be found at http://www.eval.org/ evaluationdocuments/perseval.html.

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8 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

new edition of the Standards (2010) the Joint Committee noted that a program is much more than a set of activities. They write:

Defined completely, a program is

• A set of planned systematic activities • Using managed resources • To achieve specified goals • Related to specific needs • Of specific, identified, participating human individuals or groups • In specific contexts • Resulting in documentable outputs, outcomes and impacts • Following assumed (explicit or implicit) systems of beliefs (diagnostic, causal, in-

tervention, and implementation theories about how the program works)

With specific, investigable costs and benefits. (Joint Committee, 2010, in press)

Note that their newer definition emphasizes programs achieving goals related to particular needs and the fact that programs are based on certain theories or as- sumptions. We will talk more about this later when we discuss program theory. We will simply summarize by saying that a program is an ongoing, planned intervention that seeks to achieve some particular outcome(s), in response to some perceived ed- ucational, social, or commercial problem. It typically includes a complex of people, organization, management, and resources to deliver the intervention or services.

In contrast, the word “policy” generally refers to a broader act of a public orga- nization or a branch of government. Organizations have policies—policies about re- cruiting and hiring employees, policies about compensation, policies concerning interactions with media and the clients or customers served by the organization. But, government bodies—legislatures, departments, executives, and others—also pass or develop policies. It might be a law or a regulation. Evaluators often conduct studies to judge the effectiveness of those policies just as they conduct studies to evaluate pro- grams. Sometimes, the line between a program and a policy is quite blurred. Like a program, a policy is designed to achieve some outcome or change, but, unlike a pro- gram, a policy does not provide a service or activity. Instead, it provides guidelines, regulations, or the like to achieve a change. Those who study public policy define policy even more broadly: “public policy is the sum of government activities, whether acting directly or through agents, as it has an influence on the life of citizens” (Peters, 1999, p. 4). Policy analysts study the effectiveness of public policies just as evaluators study the effectiveness of government programs. Sometimes, their work overlaps. What one person calls a policy, another might call a program. In practice, in the United States, policy analysts tend to be trained in political science and economics, and evaluators tend to be trained in psychology, sociology, education, and public administration. As the field of evaluation expands and clients want more information on government programs, evaluators study the effectiveness of programs and policies.

Finally, a “product” is a more concrete entity than either a policy or a pro- gram. It may be a textbook such as the one you are reading. It may be a piece of software. Scriven defines a product very broadly to refer to the output of some- thing. Thus, a product could be a student or a person who received training, the

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 9

work of a student, or a curricula which is “the product of a research and development effort” (1991a, p. 280).

Stakeholders

Another term used frequently in evaluation is “stakeholders.” Stakeholders are various individuals and groups who have a direct interest in and may be affected by the program being evaluated or the evaluation’s results. In the Encyclopedia of Evaluation, Greene (2005) identifies four types of stakeholders:

(a) People who have authority over the program including funders, policy makers, advisory boards;

(b) People who have direct responsibility for the program including program devel- opers, administrators, managers, and staff delivering the program;

(d) People who are damaged or disadvantaged by the program (those who lose fund- ing or are not served because of the program). (pp. 397–398)

Scriven (2007) has grouped stakeholders into groups based on how they are impacted by the program, and he includes more groups, often political groups, than does Greene. Thus, “upstream impactees” refer to taxpayers, political supporters, funders, and those who make policies that affect the program. “Midstream impactees,” also called primary stakeholders by Alkin (1991), are program managers and staff. “Down- stream impactees” are those who receive the services or products of the program.

All of these groups hold a stake in the future direction of that program even though they are sometimes unaware of their stake. Evaluators typically involve at least some stakeholders in the planning and conduct of the evaluation. Their par- ticipation can help the evaluator to better understand the program and the infor- mation needs of those who will use it.

Differences in Evaluation and Research

It is important to distinguish between evaluation and research, because these dif- ferences help us to understand the distinctive nature of evaluation. While some methods of evaluation emerged from social science research traditions, there are important distinctions between evaluation and research. One of those distinctions is purpose. Research and evaluation seek different ends. The primary purpose of research is to add to knowledge in a field, to contribute to the growth of theory. A good research study is intended to advance knowledge. While the results of an evaluation study may contribute to knowledge development (Mark, Henry, & Julnes, 2000), that is a secondary concern in evaluation. Evaluation’s primary pur- pose is to provide useful information to those who hold a stake in whatever is be- ing evaluated (stakeholders), often helping them to make a judgment or decision.

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10 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

Research seeks conclusions; evaluation leads to judgments. Valuing is the sine qua non of evaluation. A touchstone for discriminating between an evaluator and a researcher is to ask whether the inquiry being conducted would be regarded as a failure if it produced no data on the value of the thing being studied. A researcher answering strictly as a researcher will probably say no.

These differing purposes have implications for the approaches one takes. Research is the quest for laws and the development of theory—statements of re- lationships among two or more variables. Thus, the purpose of research is typically to explore and establish causal relationships. Evaluation, instead, seeks to exam- ine and describe a particular thing and, ultimately, to consider its value. Some- times, describing that thing involves examining causal relationships; often, it does not. Whether the evaluation focuses on a causal issue depends on the information needs of the stakeholders.

This highlights another difference in evaluation and research—who sets the agenda. In research, the hypotheses to be investigated are chosen by the researcher based on the researcher’s assessment of the appropriate next steps in developing theory in the discipline or field of knowledge. In evaluation, the questions to be answered are not those of the evaluator, but rather come from many sources, including those of significant stakeholders. An evaluator might suggest questions, but would never determine the focus of the study without consultation with stakeholders. Such actions, in fact, would be unethical in evaluation. Unlike re- search, good evaluation always involves the inclusion of stakeholders—often a wide variety of stakeholders—in the planning and conduct of the evaluation for many reasons: to ensure that the evaluation addresses the needs of stakeholders, to improve the validity of results, and to enhance use.

Another difference between evaluation and research concerns generalizabil- ity of results. Given evaluation’s purpose of making judgments about a particular thing, good evaluation is quite specific to the context in which the evaluation object rests. Stakeholders are making judgments about a particular evaluation object, a program or a policy, and are not as concerned with generalizing to other settings as researchers would be. In fact, the evaluator should be concerned with the par- ticulars of that setting, with noting them and attending to the factors that are rel- evant to program success or failure in that setting. (Note that the setting or context may be a large, national program with many sites, or a small program in one school.) In contrast, because the purpose of research is to add to general knowledge, the methods are often designed to maximize generalizability to many different settings.

As suggested previously, another difference between research and evaluation concerns the intended use of their results. Later in the book, we will discuss the many different types of use that may occur in evaluation, but, ultimately, evalua- tion is intended to have some relatively immediate impact. That impact may be on immediate decisions, on decisions in the not-too-distant future, or on perspectives that one or more stakeholder groups or stakeholders have about the object of the evaluation or evaluation itself. Whatever the impact, the evaluation is designed to be used. Good research may or may not be used right away. In fact, research that adds in important ways to some theory may not be immediately noticed, and

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 11

connections to a theory may not be made until some years after the research is conducted.2 Nevertheless, the research stands alone as good research if it meets the standards for research in that discipline or field. If one’s findings are to add to knowl- edge in a field, ideally, the results should transcend the particulars of time and setting.

Thus, research and evaluation differ in the standards used to judge their adequacy (Mathison, 2007). Two important criteria for judging the adequacy of research are internal validity, the study’s success at establishing causality, and external validity, the study’s generalizability to other settings and other times. These crite- ria, however, are not sufficient, or appropriate, for judging the quality of an eval- uation. As noted previously, generalizability, or external validity, is less important for an evaluation because the focus is on the specific characteristics of the program or policy being evaluated. Instead, evaluations are typically judged by their accuracy (the extent to which the information obtained is an accurate reflection—a one-to- one correspondence—with reality), utility (the extent to which the results serve the practical information needs of intended users), feasibility (the extent to which the evaluation is realistic, prudent, diplomatic, and frugal), and propriety (the extent to which the evaluation is done legally and ethically, protecting the rights of those involved). These standards and a new standard concerning evaluation accountabil- ity were developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Evaluation to help both users of evaluation and evaluators themselves to understand what evalua- tions should do (Joint Committee, 2010). (See Chapter 3 for more on the Standards.)

Researchers and evaluators also differ in the knowledge and skills required to perform their work. Researchers are trained in depth in a single discipline—their field of inquiry. This approach is appropriate because a researcher’s work, in almost all cases, will remain within a single discipline or field. The methods he or she uses will remain relatively constant, as compared with the methods that evaluators use, because a researcher’s focus remains on similar problems that lend themselves to certain methods of study. Evaluators, by contrast, are evaluating many different types of programs or policies and are responding to the needs of clients and stakehold- ers with many different information needs. Therefore, evaluators’ methodological training must be broad and their focus may transcend several disciplines. Their edu- cation must help them to become sensitive to the wide range of phenomena to which they must attend if they are to properly assess the worth of a program or policy. Evaluators must be broadly familiar with a wide variety of methods and techniques so they can choose those most appropriate for the particular program and the needs of its stakeholders. In addition, evaluation has developed some of its own specific methods, such as using logic models to understand program theory and metaevalua- tion. Mathison writes that “evaluation as a practice shamelessly borrows from all disciplines and ways of thinking to get at both facts and values” (2007, p. 20). Her statement illustrates both the methodological breadth required of an evaluator and

2A notable example concerns Darwin’s work on evolution. Elements of his book, The Origin of the Species, were rejected by scientists some years ago and are only recently being reconsidered as new research sug- gests that some of these elements were correct. Thus, research conducted more than 100 years ago emerges as useful because new techniques and discoveries prompt scientists to reconsider the findings.

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12 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

the fact that evaluators’ methods must serve the purpose of valuing or establishing merit and worth, as well as establishing facts.

Finally, evaluators differ from researchers in that they must establish personal working relationships with clients. As a result, studies of the competencies required of evaluators often cite the need for training in interpersonal and communication skills (Fitzpatrick, 1994; King, Stevahn, Ghere, & Minnema, 2001; Stufflebeam & Wingate, 2005).

In summary, research and evaluation differ in their purposes and, as a result, in the roles of the evaluator and researcher in their work, their preparation, and the criteria used to judge the work. (See Table 1.1 for a summary of these differ- ences.) These distinctions lead to many differences in the manner in which research and evaluation are conducted.

Of course, evaluation and research sometimes overlap. An evaluation study may add to our knowledge of laws or theories in a discipline. Research can inform our judgments and decisions regarding a program or policy. Yet, fundamental distinctions remain. Our earlier discussion highlights these differences to help those who are new to evaluation to see the ways in which evaluators behave differently than researchers. Evaluations may add to knowledge in a field, contribute to theory development, establish causal relationships, and provide explanations for the relationship between phenomena, but that is not its primary purpose. Its primary purpose is to assist stake- holders in making value judgments and decisions about whatever is being evaluated.

Action Research

A different type of research altogether is action research. Action research, origi- nally conceptualized by Kurt Lewin (1946) and more recently developed by Emily Calhoun (1994, 2002), is research conducted collaboratively by professionals to

TABLE 1.1 Differences in Research and Evaluation

Factor Research Evaluation

Purpose Add to knowledge in a field, develop laws and theories

Make judgments, provide information for decision making

Who sets the agenda or focus?

Researchers Stakeholders and evaluator jointly

Generalizability of results

Important to add to theory Less important, focus is on particulars of program or policy and context

Intended use of results

Not important An important standard

Criteria to judge adequacy

Internal and external validity Accuracy, utility, feasibility, propriety, evaluation accountability

Preparation of those who work in area

Depth in subject matter, fewer methodological tools and approaches

Interdisciplinary, many methodological tools, interpersonal skills

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 13

improve their practice. Such professionals might be social workers, teachers, or accountants who are using research methods and means of thinking to develop their practice. As Elliott (2005) notes, action research always has a developmental aim. Calhoun, who writes of action research in the context of education, gives exam- ples of teachers working together to conceptualize their focus; to collect, analyze, and interpret data on the issue; and to make decisions about how to improve their practice as teachers and/or a program or curriculum they are implementing. The data collection processes may overlap with program evaluation activities, but there are key differences: Action research is conducted by professionals about their own work with a goal of improving their practice. Action research is also considered to be a strategy to change the culture of organizations to one in which professionals work collaboratively to learn, examine, and research their own practices. Thus, action research produces information akin to that in formative evaluations— information to be used for program improvement. The research is conducted by those delivering the program and, in addition to improving the element under study, has major goals concerning professional development and organizational change.

The Purposes of Evaluation

Consistent with our earlier definition of evaluation, we believe that the primary purpose of evaluation is to render judgments about the value of whatever is being evaluated. This view parallels that of Scriven (1967), who was one of the earliest to outline the purpose of formal evaluation. In his seminal paper, “The Methodol- ogy of Evaluation,” he argued that evaluation has a single goal or purpose: to determine the worth or merit of whatever is evaluated. In more recent writings, Scriven has continued his emphasis on the primary purpose of evaluation being to judge the merit or worth of an object (Scriven, 1996).

Yet, as evaluation has grown and evolved, other purposes have emerged. A discussion of these purposes sheds light on the practice of evaluation in today’s world. For the reader new to evaluation, these purposes illustrate the many facets of evaluation and its uses. Although we agree with Scriven’s historical emphasis on the purpose of evaluation, to judge the merit or worth of a program, policy, process, or product, we see these other purposes of evaluation at play as well.

Some years ago, Talmage (1982) argued that an important purpose of eval- uation was “to assist decision makers responsible for making policy” (p. 594). And, in fact, providing information that will improve the quality of decisions made by policymakers continues to be a major purpose of program evaluation. Indeed, the rationale given for collecting much evaluation data today—by schools, by state and local governments, by the federal government, and by nonprofit organizations— is to help policymakers in these organizations make decisions about whether to continue programs, to initiate new programs, or, in other major ways, to change the funding or structure of a program. In addition to decisions made by policymakers, evaluation is intended to inform the decisions of many others, including program managers (principals, department heads), program staff (teachers, counselors,

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14 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

health care providers, and others delivering the services offered by a program), and program consumers (clients, parents, citizens). A group of teachers may use evaluations of student performance to make decisions on program curricula or materials. Parents make decisions concerning where to send their children to school based on information on school performance. Students choose institutions of higher education based on evaluative information. The evaluative information or data provided may or may not be the most useful for making a particular deci- sion, but, nevertheless, evaluation clearly serves this purpose.

For many years, evaluation has been used for program improvement. As we will discuss later in this chapter, Michael Scriven long ago identified program im- provement as one of the roles of evaluation, though he saw that role being achieved through the initial purpose of judging merit and worth. Today, many see organizational and program improvement as a major, direct purpose of evaluation (Mark, Henry, & Julnes, 2000; Patton, 2008a; Preskill & Torres, 1998).

Program managers or those who deliver a program can make changes to im- prove the program based on the evaluation results. In fact, this is one of the most frequent uses of evaluation. There are many such examples: teachers using the re- sults of student assessments to revise their curricula or pedagogical methods, health care providers using evaluations of patients’ use of medication to revise their means of communicating with patients about dosage and use, and trainers us- ing feedback from trainees to change training to improve its application on the job. These are all ways that evaluation serves the purpose of program improvement.

Today, many evaluators see evaluation being used for program and organi- zational improvement in new ways. As we will describe in later chapters, Michael Patton often works today in what he calls “developmental evaluation,” working to assist organizations that do not have specific, measurable goals, but, instead, need evaluation to help them with ongoing progress, adaptation, and learning (Patton, 1994, 2005b). Hallie Preskill (Preskill, 2008; Preskill & Torres, 2000) and others (King, 2002; Baker & Bruner, 2006) have written about the role of evaluation in improving overall organizational performance by instilling new ways of thinking. In itself, the process of participating in an evaluation can begin to influence the ways that those who work in the organization approach problems. For example, an evaluation that involves employees in developing a logic model for the program to be evaluated or in examining data to draw some conclusions about program progress may prompt those employees to use such procedures or these ways of approaching a problem in the future and, thus, lead to organizational improvement.

The purpose of program or organizational improvement, of course, overlaps with others. When an evaluation is designed for program improvement, the eval- uator must consider the decisions that those managing and delivering the program will make in using the study’s results for program improvement. So the purpose of the evaluation is to provide both decision making and program improvement. We will not split hairs to distinguish between the two purposes, but will simply acknowledge that evaluation can serve both purposes. Our goal is to expand your view of the various purposes for evaluation and to help you consider the purpose in your own situation or organization.

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 15

Some recent discussions of the purposes of evaluation move beyond these more immediate purposes to evaluation’s ultimate impact on society. Some evalu- ators point out that one important purpose of evaluation is helping give voice to groups who are not often heard in policy making or planning programs. Thus, House and Howe (1999) argue that the goal of evaluation is to foster deliberative democracy. They encourage the evaluator to work to help less powerful stakehold- ers gain a voice and to stimulate dialogue among stakeholders in a democratic fash- ion. Others highlight the role of the evaluator in helping bring about greater social justice and equality. Greene, for example, notes that values inevitably influence the practice of evaluation and, therefore, evaluators can never remain neutral. Instead, they should recognize the diversity of values that emerge and arise in an evaluation and work to achieve desirable values of social justice and equity (Greene, 2006).

Carol Weiss (1998b) and Gary Henry (2000) have argued that the purpose of evaluation is to bring about social betterment. Mark, Henry, and Julnes (2000) de- fine achieving social betterment as “the alleviation of social problems, meeting of hu- man needs” (p. 190). And, in fact, evaluation’s purpose of social betterment is at least partly reflected in the Guiding Principles, or ethical code, adopted by the American Evaluation Association. One of those principles concerns the evaluator’s responsibil- ities for the general and public welfare. Specifically, Principle E5 states the following:

Evaluators have obligations that encompass the public interest and good. Because the public interest and good are rarely the same as the interests of any particular group (including those of the client or funder) evaluators will usually have to go beyond analysis of particular stakeholder interests and consider the welfare of society as a whole. (American Evaluation Association, 2004)

This principle has been the subject of more discussion among evaluators than other principles, and deservedly so. Nevertheless, it illustrates one important pur- pose of evaluation. Evaluations are concerned with programs and policies that are intended to improve society. Their results provide information on the choices that policymakers, program managers, and others make in regard to these programs. As a result, evaluators must be concerned with their purposes in achieving the so- cial betterment of society. Writing in 1997 about the coming twenty-first century, Chelimsky and Shadish emphasized the global perspective of evaluation in achiev- ing social betterment, extending evaluation’s context in the new century to world- wide challenges. These include new technologies, demographic imbalances across nations, environmental protection, sustainable development, terrorism, human rights, and other issues that extend beyond one program or even one country (Chelimsky & Shadish, 1997).

Finally, many evaluators continue to acknowledge the purpose of evaluation in extending knowledge (Donaldson, 2007; Mark, Henry, & Julnes, 2000). Although adding to knowledge is the primary purpose of research, evaluation studies can add to our knowledge of social science theories and laws. They provide an opportunity to test theories in real-world settings or to test existing theories or laws with new groups by examining whether those theories hold true in new

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16 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

settings with different groups. Programs or policies are often, though certainly not always, based on some theory or social science principles.3 Evaluations provide the opportunity to test those theories. Evaluations collect many kinds of information that can add to our knowledge: information describing client groups or problems, information on causes or consequences of problems, tests of theories concerning impact. For example, Debra Rog conducted an evaluation of a large intervention program to help homeless families in the early 1990s (Rog, 1994; Rog, Holupka, McCombs-Thornton, Brito, & Hambrick, 1997). At the time, not much was known about homeless families and some of the initial assumptions in planning were in- correct. Rog adapted her evaluation design to learn more about the circumstances of homeless families. Her results helped to better plan the program, but also added to our knowledge about homeless families, their health needs, and their circum- stances. In our discussion of the differences between research and evaluation, we emphasized that the primary purpose of research is to add to knowledge in a field and that this is not the primary purpose of evaluation. We continue to maintain that distinction. However, the results of some evaluations can add to our knowl- edge of social science theories and laws. This is not a primary purpose, but simply one purpose that an evaluation may serve.

In closing, we see that evaluation serves many different purposes. Its primary purpose is to determine merit or worth, but it serves many other valuable pur- poses as well. These include assisting in decision making; improving programs, or- ganizations, and society as a whole; enhancing democracy by giving voice to those with less power; and adding to our base of knowledge.

Roles and Activities of Professional Evaluators

Evaluators as practitioners play numerous roles and conduct multiple activities in performing evaluation. Just as discussions on the purposes of evaluation help us to better understand what we mean by determining merit and worth, a brief dis- cussion of the roles and activities pursued by evaluators will acquaint the reader with the full scope of activities that professionals in the field pursue.

A major role of the evaluator that many in the field emphasize and discuss is that of encouraging the use of evaluation results (Patton, 2008a; Shadish, 1994). While the means for encouraging use and the anticipated type of use may differ, considering use of results is a major role of the evaluator. In Chapter 17, we will discuss the different types of use that have been identified for evaluation and var- ious means for increasing that use. Henry (2000), however, has cautioned that fo- cusing primarily on use can lead to evaluations focused solely on program and organizational improvement and, ultimately, avoiding final decisions about merit and worth. His concern is appropriate; however, if the audience for the evaluation

3The term “evidence-based practice” emerges from the view that programs should be designed around social science research findings when basic research, applied research, or evaluation studies have found that a given program practice or action leads to the desired, intended outcomes.

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 17

is one that is making decisions about the program’s merit and worth, this problem may be avoided. (See discussion of formative and summative evaluation in this chapter.) Use is certainly central to evaluation, as demonstrated by the prominent role it plays in the professional standards and codes of evaluation. (See Chapter 3.)

Others’ discussions of the role of the evaluator illuminate the ways in which evaluators might interact with stakeholders and other users. Rallis and Rossman (2000) see the role of the evaluator as that of a critical friend. They view the pri- mary purpose of evaluation as learning and argue that, for learning to occur, the evaluator has to be a trusted person, “someone the emperor knows and can listen to. She is more friend than judge, although she is not afraid to offer judgments” (p. 83). Schwandt (2001a) describes the evaluator in the role of a teacher, helping practitioners develop critical judgment. Patton (2008a) envisions evaluators in many different roles including facilitator, collaborator, teacher, management con- sultant, organizational development (OD) specialist, and social-change agent. These roles reflect his approach to working with organizations to bring about develop- mental change. Preskill and Torres (1998) stress the role of the evaluator in bring- ing about organizational learning and instilling a learning environment. Mertens (1999), Chelimsky (1998), and Greene (1997) emphasize the important role of in- cluding stakeholders, who often have been ignored by evaluation. House and Howe (1999) argue that a critical role of the evaluator is stimulating dialogue among various groups. The evaluator does not merely report information, or pro- vide it to a limited or designated key stakeholder who may be most likely to use the information, but instead stimulates dialogue, often bringing in disenfranchised groups to encourage democratic decision making.

Evaluators also have a role in program planning. Bickman (2002), Chen (1990), and Donaldson (2007) emphasize the important role that evaluators play in helping articulate program theories or logic models. Wholey (1996) argues that a critical role for evaluators in performance measurement is helping policymakers and managers select the performance dimensions to be measured as well as the tools to use in measuring those dimensions.

Certainly, too, evaluators can play the role of the scientific expert. As Lipsey (2000) notes, practitioners want and often need evaluators with the “expertise to track things down, systematically observe and measure them, and compare, ana- lyze, and interpret with a good faith attempt at objectivity” (p. 222). Evaluation emerged from social science research. While we will describe the growth and emergence of new approaches and paradigms, and the role of evaluators in edu- cating users to our purposes, stakeholders typically contract with evaluators to provide technical or “scientific” expertise and/or an outside “objective” opinion. Evaluators can occasionally play an important role in making program stakehold- ers aware of research on other similar programs. Sometimes, the people manag- ing or operating programs or the people making legislative or policy decisions on programs are so busy fulfilling their primary responsibilities that they are not aware of other programs or agencies that are doing similar things and the research conducted on these activities. Evaluators, who typically explore existing research on similar programs to identify potential designs and measures, can play the role

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18 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

of scientific expert in making stakeholders aware of research. (See, for example, Fitzpatrick and Bledsoe [2007] for a discussion of Bledsoe’s role in informing stakeholders of existing research on other programs.)

Thus, the evaluator takes on many roles. In noting the tension between advocacy and neutrality, Weiss (1998b) writes that the role(s) evaluators play will depend heavily on the context of the evaluation. The evaluator may serve as a teacher or critical friend in an evaluation designed to improve the early stages of a new reading program. The evaluator may act as a facilitator or collaborator with a community group appointed to explore solutions to problems of unemployment in the region. In conducting an evaluation on the employability of new immigrant groups in a state, the evaluator may act to stimulate dialogue among immigrants, policymakers, and nonimmigrant groups competing for employment. Finally, the evaluator may serve as an outside expert in designing and conducting a study for Congress on the effectiveness of annual testing in improving student learning.

In carrying out these roles, evaluators undertake many activities. These include negotiating with stakeholder groups to define the purpose of evaluation, developing contracts, hiring and overseeing staff, managing budgets, identifying disenfranchised or underrepresented groups, working with advisory panels, collecting and analyzing and interpreting qualitative and quantitative information, commu- nicating frequently with various stakeholders to seek input into the evaluation and to report results, writing reports, considering effective ways to disseminate information, meeting with the press and other representatives to report on progress and results, and recruiting others to evaluate the evaluation (metaevalu- ation). These, and many other activities, constitute the work of evaluators. Today, in many organizations, that work might be conducted by people who are formally trained and educated as evaluators, attend professional conferences and read widely in the field, and identify their professional role as an evaluator, or by staff who have many other responsibilities—some managerial, some working directly with students or clients—but with some evaluation tasks thrown into the mix. Each of these will assume some of the roles described previously and will conduct many of the tasks listed.

Uses and Objects of Evaluation

At this point, it might be useful to describe some of the ways in which evaluation can be used. An exhaustive list would be prohibitive, filling the rest of this book and more. Here we provide only a few representative examples of uses made of evaluation in selected sectors of society.

Examples of Evaluation Use in Education 1. To empower teachers to have more say in how school budgets are allocated 2. To judge the quality of school curricula in specific content areas 3. To accredit schools that meet or exceed minimum accreditation standards

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 19

4. To determine the value of a middle school’s block scheduling 5. To satisfy an external funding agency’s demands for reports on effectiveness

of school programs it supports 6. To assist parents and students in selecting schools in a district with school

choice 7. To help teachers improve their reading program to encourage more volun-

tary reading

Examples of Evaluation Use in Other Public and Nonprofit Sectors 1. To decide whether to expand an urban transit program and where it should

be expanded 2. To establish the value of a job training program 3. To decide whether to modify a low-cost housing project’s rental policies 4. To improve a recruitment program for blood donors 5. To determine the impact of a prison’s early-release program on recidivism 6. To gauge community reaction to proposed fire-burning restrictions to im-

prove air quality 7. To determine the effect of an outreach program on the immunization of in-

fants and children

Examples of Evaluation Use in Business and Industry 1. To improve a commercial product 2. To judge the effectiveness of a corporate training program on teamwork 3. To determine the effect of a new flextime policy on productivity, recruitment,

and retention 4. To identify the contributions of specific programs to corporate profits 5. To determine the public’s perception of a corporation’s environmental image 6. To recommend ways to improve retention among younger employees 7. To study the quality of performance appraisal feedback

One additional comment about the use of evaluation in business and indus- try may be warranted. Evaluators unfamiliar with the private sector are sometimes unaware that personnel evaluation is not the only use made of evaluation in business and industry settings. Perhaps that is because the term “evaluation” has been absent from the descriptors for many corporate activities and programs that, when examined, are decidedly evaluative. Activities labeled as quality assurance, quality control, research and development, Total Quality Management (TQM), or Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) turn out, on closer inspection, to possess many characteristics of program evaluation.

Uses of Evaluation Are Generally Applicable

As should be obvious by now, evaluation methods are clearly portable from one arena to another. The use of evaluation may remain constant, but the entity it is ap- plied to—that is, the object of the evaluation—may vary widely. Thus, evaluation

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20 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

may be used to improve a commercial product, a community training program, or a school district’s student assessment system. It could be used to build organizational capacity in the Xerox Corporation, the E. F. Lilly Foundation, the Minnesota Department of Education, or the Utah Division of Family Services. Evaluation can be used to empower parents in the San Juan County Migrant Education Program, workers in the U.S. Postal Service, employees of Barclays Bank of England, or residents in east Los Angeles. Evaluation can be used to provide information for decisions about programs in vocational education centers, community mental health clinics, university medical schools, or county cooperative extension offices. Such examples could be multiplied ad infinitum, but these should suffice to make our point.

In some instances, so many evaluations are conducted of the same type of object that it prompts suggestions for techniques found to be particularly helpful in evalu- ating something of that particular type. An example would be Kirkpatrick’s (1977; 1983; 2006) model for evaluating training efforts. In several areas, concern about how to evaluate broad categories of objects effectively has led to the development of various subareas within the field of evaluation, such as product evaluation, personnel evaluation, program evaluation, policy evaluation, and performance evaluation.

Some Basic Types of Evaluation

Formative and Summative Evaluation

Scriven (1967) first distinguished between the formative and summative roles of evaluation. Since then, the terms have become almost universally accepted in the field. In practice, distinctions between these two types of evaluation may blur somewhat, but the terms serve an important function in highlighting the types of decisions or choices that evaluation can serve. The terms, in fact, contrast two different types of actions that stakeholders might take as a result of evaluation.

An evaluation is considered to be formative if the primary purpose is to pro- vide information for program improvement. Often, such evaluations provide infor- mation to judge the merit or worth of one part of a program. Three examples follow:

1. Planning personnel in the central office of Perrymount School District have been asked by the school board to plan a new, and later, school day for the local high schools. This is based on research showing that adolescents’ biological clocks cause them to be more groggy in the early morning hours and on parental con- cerns about teenagers being released from school as early as 2:30 P.M. A forma- tive evaluation will collect information (surveys, interviews, focus groups) from parents, teachers and school staff, and students regarding their views on the cur- rent school schedule calendar and ways to change and improve it. The planning staff will visit other schools using different schedules to observe these schedules and to interview school staff on their perceived effects. The planning staff will then give the information to the Late Schedule Advisory Group, which will make final recommendations for changing the existing schedule.

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 21

2. Staff with supervisory responsibilities at the Akron County Human Resources Department have been trained in a new method for conducting performance appraisals. One of the purposes of the training is to improve the performance appraisal interview so that employees receiving the appraisal feel motivated to improve their performance. The trainers would like to know if the information they are providing on conducting interviews is being used by those supervisors who com- plete the program. They plan to use the results to revise this portion of the training program. A formative evaluation might include observing supervisors conducting actual, or mock, interviews, as well as interviewing or conducting focus groups with both supervisors who have been trained and employees who have been re- ceiving feedback. Feedback for the formative evaluation might also be collected from participants in the training through a reaction survey delivered either at the conclusion of the training or a few weeks after the training ends, when trainees have had a chance to practice the interview.

3. A mentoring program has been developed and implemented to help new teachers in the classroom. New teachers are assigned a mentor, a senior teacher who will provide them with individualized assistance on issues ranging from dis- cipline to time management. The focus of the program is on helping mentors learn more about the problems new teachers are encountering and helping them find solutions. Because the program is so individualized, the assistant principal responsible for overseeing the program is concerned with learning whether it is being implemented as planned. Are mentors developing a trusting relationship with the new teachers and learning about the problems they encounter? What are the typical problems encountered? The array of problems? For what types of prob- lems are mentors less likely to be able to provide effective assistance? Interviews, logs or diaries, and observations of meetings between new teachers and their men- tors will be used to collect data to address these issues. The assistant principal will use the results to consider how to better train and lead the mentors.

In contrast to formative evaluations, which focus on program improvement, summative evaluations are concerned with providing information to serve decisions or assist in making judgments about program adoption, continuation, or expansion. They assist with judgments about a program’s overall worth or merit in relation to important criteria. Scriven (1991a) has defined summative evaluation as “evaluation done for, or by, any observers or decision makers (by contrast with developers) who need valuative conclusions for any other reasons besides development” (p. 20). Robert Stake has memorably described the distinction between the two in this way: “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative evaluation; when the guest tastes it, that’s summative evaluation” (cited by Scriven, 1991a, p. 19). In the following examples we extend the earlier formative evaluations into summative evaluations.

1. After the new schedule is developed and implemented, a summative evalu- ation might be conducted to determine whether the schedule should be contin- ued and expanded to other high schools in the district. The school board might be

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22 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

the primary audience for this information because it is typically in a position to make the judgments concerning continuation and expansion or termination, but others—central office administrators, principals, parents, students, and the public at large—might be interested stakeholders as well. The study might collect infor- mation on attendance, grades, and participation in after-school activities. Other unintended side effects might be examined, such as the impact of the schedule on delinquency, opportunities for students to work after school, and other afternoon activities.

2. To determine whether the performance appraisal program should be contin- ued, the director of the Human Resource Department and his staff might ask for an evaluation of the impact of the new performance appraisal on job satisfaction and performance. Surveys of employees and existing records on performance might serve as key methods of data collection.

3. Now that the mentoring program for new teachers has been tinkered with for a couple of years using the results of the formative evaluation, the principal wants to know whether the program should be continued. The summative eval- uation will focus on turnover, satisfaction, and performance of new teachers.

Note that the audiences for formative and summative evaluation are very different. In formative evaluation, the audience is generally the people delivering the program or those close to it. In our examples, they were those responsible for developing the new schedule, delivering the training program, or managing the mentoring program. Because formative evaluations are designed to improve pro- grams, it is critical that the primary audience be people who are in a position to make changes in the program and its day-to-day operations. Summative evalua- tion audiences include potential consumers (students, teachers, employees, man- agers, or officials in agencies that could adopt the program), funding sources, and supervisors and other officials, as well as program personnel. The audiences for summative evaluations are often policymakers or administrators, but can, in fact, be any audience with the ability to make a “go–no go” decision. Teachers make such decisions with curricula. Consumers (clients, parents, and students) make decisions about whether to participate in a program based on summative infor- mation or their judgments about the overall merit or worth of a program.

A Balance between Formative and Summative. It should be apparent that both formative and summative evaluation are essential because decisions are needed during the developmental stages of a program to improve and strengthen it, and again, when it has stabilized, to judge its final worth or determine its future. Unfortunately, some organizations focus too much of their work on summative evaluations. This trend is noted in the emphases of many funders today on impact or outcome assessment from the beginning of a program or policy. An undue emphasis on summative evaluation can be unfortunate because the development process, without formative evaluation, is incomplete and inefficient. Consider the foolishness of developing a new aircraft design and submitting it to a summative

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 23

test flight without first testing it in the formative wind tunnel. Program test flights can be expensive, too, especially when we haven’t a clue about the probability of success.

Formative data collected during the early stages of a program can help identify problems in the program model or theory or in the early delivery of the program that can then be modified or corrected. People delivering the program may need more training or resources to effectively implement the model. The model may have to be adapted because the students or clients being served are not exactly as program developers anticipated. Perhaps they have different learning strategies or less knowledge, skills, or motivation than anticipated; therefore, the training program or class curriculum should be expanded or changed. In other cases, students or clients who participate in a program may have more, or different, skills or problems than program planners anticipated. The program, then, must be adapted to address those.4 So, a formative evalua- tion can be very useful at the beginning of a program to help it succeed in achieving its intended outcomes.

Conversely, some organizations may avoid summative evaluations. Evaluat- ing for improvement is critical, but, ultimately, many products and programs should be judged for their overall merit and worth. Henry (2000) has noted that evaluation’s emphasis on encouraging use of results can lead us to serving incre- mental, often formative, decisions and may steer us away from the primary pur- pose of evaluation—determining merit and worth.

Although formative evaluations more often occur in the early stages of a program’s development and summative evaluations more often occur in its later stages, it would be an error to think they are limited to those time frames. Well- established programs can benefit from formative evaluations. Some new pro- grams are so problematic that summative decisions are made to discontinue. However, the relative emphasis on formative and summative evaluation changes throughout the life of a program, as suggested in Figure 1.1, although this generalized concept obviously may not precisely fit the evolution of any particu- lar program.

An effort to distinguish between formative and summative evaluation on several dimensions appears in Table 1.2. As with most conceptual distinctions, formative and summative evaluation are often not as easy to distinguish in the real world as they seem in these pages. Scriven (1991a) has acknowledged that the two are often profoundly intertwined. For example, if a program continues beyond a summative evaluation study, the results of that study may be used for both sum- mative and, later, formative evaluation purposes. In practice, the line between formative and summative is often rather fuzzy.

4See the interview with Stewart Donaldson about his evaluation of a work-training program (Fitzpatrick & Donaldson, 2002) in which he discusses his evaluation of a program that had been suc- cessful in Michigan, but was not adapted to the circumstances of California sites, which differed in the reasons why people were struggling with returning to the workforce. The program was designed an- ticipating that clients would have problems that these clients did not have.

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24 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

FIGURE 1.1 Relationship between Formative and Summative Evaluation

Formative Evaluation

Summative Evaluation

Program Life

R el

at iv

e Em

ph as

TABLE 1.2 Differences between Formative and Summative Evaluation

Formative Evaluation Summative Evaluation

Use To improve the program To make decisions about the program’s future or adoption

Audience Program managers and staff Administrators, policymakers, and/or potential consumers or funding agencies

By Whom Often internal evaluators supported by external evaluators

Often external evaluators, supported by internal evaluators

Major Characteristics Provides feedback so program personnel can improve it

Provides information to enable decision makers to decide whether to continue it, or consumers to adopt it

Design Constraints What information is needed? When?

What standards or criteria will be used to make decisions?

Purpose of Data Collection

Diagnostic Judgmental

Frequency of Data Collection

Frequent Infrequent

Sample Size Often small Usually large

Questions Asked What is working? What needs to be improved? How can it be improved?

What results occur? With whom? Under what conditions? With what training? At what cost?

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 25

Beyond Formative and Summative. Our discussion of the purposes of evaluation reflects the changes and expansions that have occurred in the practice of evalua- tion over the decades. Michael Patton (1996) has described three purposes of eval- uation that do not fall within the formative or summative dimension. These include the following:

1. The contribution of evaluation to conceptual thinking, rather than immediate or instrumental decisions or judgments, about an object. As evaluation practice has expanded and research has been conducted on how evaluation is used, eval- uators have found that evaluation results are often not used immediately, but, rather, are used gradually—conceptually—to change stakeholders’ thinking about the clients or students they serve, about the logic models or theories for programs, or about the ways desired outcomes can be achieved.

2. Evaluation for broad, long-term organizational learning and continuous im- provement. Patton’s developmental evaluation falls within this category. Results from such evaluations are not used for direct program improvement (formative purposes), but to help organizations consider future directions, changes, and adap- tations that should be made because of new research findings or changes in the context of the program and its environment. (See Preskill [2008]; Preskill and Torres [2000].)

3. Evaluations in which the process of the evaluation may have more import than the use of the results. As we will discuss in Chapter 17, research on the use of evaluation has found that participation in the evaluation process itself, not just the results of the evaluation, can have important impacts. Such participation can change the way people plan programs in the future by providing them with skills in developing logic models for programs or by empowering them to participate in program planning and development in different ways. As we discussed, one pur- pose of evaluation is to improve democracy. Some evaluations empower the pub- lic or disenfranchised stakeholder groups to participate further in decision making by providing them with information or giving them a voice through the evalua- tion to make their needs or circumstances known to policymakers.

The distinction between formative and summative evaluations remains a pri- mary one when considering the types of decisions the evaluation will serve. How- ever, it is important to remember the other purposes of evaluation and, in so doing, to recognize and consider these purposes when planning an evaluation so that each evaluation may reach its full potential.

Needs Assessment, Process, and Outcome Evaluations

The distinctions between formative and summative evaluation are concerned pri- marily with the kinds of decisions or judgments to be made with the evaluation results. The distinction between the relative emphasis on formative or summative evaluation is an important one to make at the beginning of a study because it

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26 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

informs the evaluator about the context, intention, and potential use of the study and has implications for the most appropriate audiences for the study. However, the terms do not dictate the nature of the questions the study will address. Chen (1996) has proposed a typology to permit consideration of process and outcome along with the formative and summative dimension. We will discuss that typology here, adding needs assessment to the mix.

Some evaluators use the terms “needs assessment,” “process,” and “out- come” to refer to the types of questions the evaluation study will address or the fo- cus of the evaluation. These terms also help make the reader aware of the full array of issues that evaluators examine. Needs assessment questions are concerned with (a) establishing whether a problem or need exists and describing that problem, and (b) making recommendations for ways to reduce the problem; that is, the poten- tial effectiveness of various interventions. Process, or monitoring studies, typically describe how the program is delivered. Such studies may focus on whether the program is being delivered according to some delineated plan or model or may be more open-ended, simply describing the nature of delivery and the successes and problems encountered. Process studies can examine a variety of different issues, including characteristics of the clients or students served, qualifications of the de- liverers of the program, characteristics of the delivery environment (equipment, printed materials, physical plant, and other elements of the context of delivery), or the actual nature of the activities themselves. Outcome or impact studies are concerned with describing, exploring, or determining changes that occur in pro- gram recipients, secondary audiences (families of recipients, coworkers, etc.), or communities as a result of a program. These outcomes can range from immediate impacts or outputs (for example, achieving immediate learning objectives in a les- son or course) to longer-term objectives, final goals, and unintended outcomes.

Note that these terms do not have implications for how the information will be used. The terms formative and summative help us distinguish between the ways in which the results of the evaluation may be used for immediate decision making. Needs assessment, process, and outcome evaluations refer to the nature of the issues or questions that will be examined. In the past, people have occasionally misused the term formative to be synonymous with process evaluation, and summative to be synonymous with outcome evaluation. However, Scriven (1996) himself notes that “formative evaluations are not a species of process evaluation. Conversely, sum- mative evaluation may be largely or entirely process evaluation” (p. 152).

Table 1.3 illustrates the application of these evaluation terms building on a typology proposed by Chen (1996); we add needs assessment to Chen’s typology. As Table 1.3 illustrates, an evaluation can be characterized by the action the eval- uation will serve (formative or summative) as well as by the nature of the issues it will address.

To illustrate, a needs assessment study can be summative (Should we adopt this new program or not?) or formative (How should we modify this program to deliver it in our school or agency?). A process study often serves formative purposes, providing information to program providers or managers about how to change activities to improve the quality of the program delivery to make it more likely that

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 27

TABLE 1.3 A Typology of Evaluation Studies

Judgment

What to Revise/Change Formative

What to Begin, Continue, Expand Summative

Needs Assessment How should we adapt the model we are considering?

Should we begin a program? Is there sufficient need?

Process Is more training of staff needed to deliver the program appropriately?

Are sufficient numbers of the target audience participating in the program to merit continuation?

Outcome How can we revise our curricula to better achieve desired outcomes?

Is this program achieving its goals to a sufficient degree that its funding should be continued?

objectives will be achieved, but a process study may also serve summative purposes. A process study may reveal that the program is too complex or expensive to deliver or that program recipients (students, trainees, clients) do not enroll as expected. In such cases, a process study that began as a formative evaluation for program improvement may lead to a summative decision to discontinue the program. Accountability studies often make use of process data to make summative decisions.

An outcome study can, and often does, serve formative or summative purposes. Formative purposes may be best served by examining more immediate outcomes be- cause program deliverers have greater control over the actions leading to these out- comes. For example, teachers and trainers often make use of immediate measures of student learning to make changes in their curriculum or methods. They may decide to spend more time on certain areas or to expand on the types of exercises or prob- lems students practice to better achieve certain learning goals, or they may spend less time on areas in which students have already achieved competency. Policymakers making summative decisions, however, are often more concerned with the pro- gram’s success at achieving other, more global outcomes, such as graduation rates or employment placement, because their responsibility is with these outcomes. Their decisions regarding funding concern whether programs achieve these ultimate out- comes. The fact that a study examines program outcomes, or effects, however, tells us nothing about whether the study serves formative or summative purposes.

Internal and External Evaluations

The adjectives “internal” and “external” distinguish between evaluations conducted by program employees and those conducted by outsiders. An experimental year- round education program in the San Francisco public schools might be evaluated by a member of the school district staff (internal) or by a site-visit team appointed by the California State Board of Education (external). A large health care organization with facilities in six communities might have a member of each facility’s staff evaluate the

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28 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

TABLE 1.4 Advantages of Internal and External Evaluators

Internal External

More familiar with organization & program history

Can bring greater credibility, perceived objectivity

Knows decision-making style of organization

Typically brings more breadth and depth of technical expertise for a particular evaluation

Is present to remind others of results now and in future

Has knowledge of how other similar organizations and programs work

Can communicate technical results more frequently and clearly

effectiveness of their outreach program in improving immunization rates for infants and children (internal), or the organization may hire a consulting firm or university research group to look at all six programs (external).

Seems pretty simple, right? Often it is, but how internal is the evaluation of the year-round school program if it is conducted by an evaluation unit at the cen- tral office, which is quite removed from the charter school implementing the pro- gram? Is that an internal or external evaluation? Actually, the correct answer is both, for such an evaluation is clearly external from the perspective of those in the charter school, yet might be considered an internal evaluation from the perspec- tive of the state board of education or parents in the district.

There are obvious advantages and disadvantages connected with both internal and external evaluation roles. Table 1.4 summarizes some of these. Internal evalu- ators are likely to know more about the program, its history, its staff, its clients, and its struggles than any outsider. They also know more about the organization and its culture and styles of decision making. They are familiar with the kinds of informa- tion and arguments that are persuasive, and know who is likely to take action and who is likely to be persuasive to others. These very advantages, however, are also disadvantages. They may be so close to the program that they cannot see it clearly. (Note, though, that each evaluator, internal and external, will bring his or her own history and biases to the evaluation, but the internal evaluators’ closeness may pre- vent them from seeing solutions or changes that those newer to the situation might see more readily.) While successful internal evaluators may overcome the hurdle of perspective, it can be much more difficult for them to overcome the barrier of posi- tion. If internal evaluators are not provided with sufficient decision-making power, autonomy, and protection, their evaluation will be hindered.

The strengths of external evaluators lie in their distance from the program and, if the right evaluators are hired, their expertise. External evaluators are perceived as more credible by the public and, often, by policymakers. In fact, external evaluators typically do have greater administrative and financial independence. Nevertheless, the objectivity of the external evaluator can be overestimated. (Note the role of the ex- ternal Arthur Andersen firm in the 2002 Enron bankruptcy and scandal. The lure of obtaining or keeping a large contract can prompt external parties to bend the rules to

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Chapter 1 • Evaluation’s Basic Purpose, Uses, and Conceptual Distinctions 29

keep the contract.) However, for programs with high visibility or cost or those sur- rounded by much controversy, an external evaluator can provide a desirable degree of autonomy from the program. External evaluators, if the search and hiring process are conducted appropriately, can also bring the specialized skills needed for a particu- lar project. In all but very large organizations, internal evaluators must be jacks-of-all- trades to permit them to address the ongoing evaluation needs of the organization. When seeking an external evaluator, however, an organization can pinpoint and seek the types of skills and expertise needed for that time-limited project.

Organizing Internal Evaluation for Maximum Effect. In recent years, evaluations conducted by people employed by the organization have grown exponentially as funders’ demands for accountability have increased. This growth is at least partly due to professional evaluators’ emphasis on building internal organizational capac- ity to conduct evaluation. (Capacity building and mainstreaming evaluation were the conference themes for the American Evaluation Association in 2000 and 2001, respectively, with the 2001 conference focusing on one of our co-authors’ themes, mainstreaming evaluation. See Leviton, [2001] and Sanders, [2002] for their pub- lished Presidential Addresses on the subjects.) We will discuss capacity building fur- ther in Chapter 9, but in this section we will discuss ways in which to structure internal evaluation to improve evaluation and the performance of the organization.

First, a comment on internal evaluators. For many years, large school districts had, and many continue to have, internal evaluation units. The economic con- straints on education have reduced the number of districts with strong internal evaluation units, but such units remain in many districts. (See, for example, Christie’s interview with Eric Barela, an internal evaluator with the Los Angeles Unified School District, Christie and Barela [2008]). In many nonprofit organiza- tions, internal evaluation capacity has increased in recent years. This growth has been spurred by United Way of America (UWA), a major funding source for many nonprofit, human service organizations, which encouraged these organizations to implement its evaluation strategy for measuring outcomes (Hendricks, Plantz, & Pritchard, 2008). Today, approximately 19,000 local agencies funded by United Way conduct internal evaluations, supplemented with training by United Way, to measure agency outcomes. Similarly, Cooperative Extensions and other organiza- tions are active in conducting internal evaluations (Lambur, 2008). State and local governments have been thrust into a more active evaluation role through federal performance-based management systems. All these efforts have prompted public and nonprofit organizations to train existing staff to, at minimum, report data on program outcomes and, often, to conduct evaluations to document those outcomes.

Given the growth in internal evaluation, it is appropriate to consider how internal evaluations can be conducted for the maximum effect. Evaluators have been writing about ways to enhance internal evaluation for some years (Chelimsky, 1994; Love, 1983, 1991; Scriven, 1975; Sonnichsen, 1987, 1999; Stufflebeam, 2002a). Probably the two most important conditions identified for successful internal evaluations are (a) active support for evaluation from top administrators within the organization and (b) clearly defined roles for internal

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30 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

evaluators. The strength of internal evaluators is their ongoing contribution to decision making within the organization. Without the active support of leaders within the organization, internal evaluators cannot fulfill that role.

Where evaluators should be located in a large organization is an area of some disagreement. Internal evaluators must be situated where they can understand organizational problems, initiate or plan evaluations to address those problems, and be in a position to frequently communicate results to the stakeholders who can use them. Some argue that internal evaluators should, therefore, be placed centrally within the organization where they can work closely with top decision makers. In this way, the internal evaluators can serve in an advisory function to top managers and are able to communicate information from a variety of evaluation studies as needed. Many, if not most, internal evaluation units are centrally located in the organization and, hence, have the potential to serve in that capacity. With proximity to top managers, the director of an internal evaluation unit can continue to demonstrate the value of evaluation to the organization.

Others (Lambur, 2008), however, have argued that internal evaluators should be dispersed among program units where they can provide useful, forma- tive evaluation for program improvement directly to people who are delivering the organization’s programs. In such positions, internal evaluators can build a more trusting relationship with program deliverers and increase the chances that the results of their evaluations will be used. Lambur, in interviews with internal evaluators in cooperative extension offices, found disadvantages to being “closely aligned with administration” (2008, p. 49). Staff who are delivering programs, such as teachers, social workers, trainers, and others, see evaluation in the central office as being more concerned with accountability and responding to federal gov- ernment demands and less concerned with improving programs. Lambur found evaluators who worked in program units were able to become closer to the pro- grams, and, as a result, they believed, knew how to conduct more useful evalua- tions. They recognized the potential for being less objective, but worked to make their evaluations more rigorous. In such positions, internal evaluators can serve in Rallis and Rossman’s role of critical friend (2000).

Patton (2008b) has also interviewed internal evaluators and has found that they face many challenges. They can be excluded from major decisions and asked to spend time on public relations functions rather than true evaluation. In addition, they do, in fact, spend much time gathering data for accountability requirements from external funding sources; this takes away time from developing relationships with administrators and people who deliver the program. Internal evaluators are often, but not always, full-time evaluators. Like many professionals in organiza- tions, they can have other responsibilities that conflict with their evaluation role.

Patton (2008b) and Lambur (2008) argue that internal evaluators face com- peting demands in evaluating for accountability and for program improvement. Both argue that the emphasis for internal evaluators should be on program improvement. Lambur writes,

“Through my personal experience [as an internal evaluator], I learned it was far more effective to promote evaluation as a tool for improving programs than helping the

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organization meet demands for accountability. If program staff view themselves as primary stakeholders for evaluation results, they are more apt to become engaged in the process of conducting high-quality evaluations. Results of such evaluations can be used first for program improvement, and then for accountability purposes.”

Those writing about the organization of internal evaluation acknowledge the difficulties an internal evaluator faces, but provide many useful suggestions. The solution, however, for an individual organization can depend on its mission and purpose. In some organizations, placing evaluation in a central location with top administrators can provide the distance from programs needed for credibility in important summative evaluations and can supply evaluators with avenues for affecting organizational learning and culture through educating key administrators about the role of evaluation. In other organizations, it can be important to place evaluators in program units where they can focus on the improvement of indi- vidual programs. In either case, internal evaluators require organizational support from top managers, mid-level managers, and supervisors. Internal evaluators can help create a true learning organization, where evaluation is looked to for valuable information to make decisions. To do so, though, requires careful planning and continuous communication and support from others in clarifying and supporting the role of evaluation in the organization.

Possible Role Combinations. Given the growth in internal evaluation capacity, considering how to combine internal and external evaluation is important. One way is to consider the purposes of evaluation. The dimensions of formative and summative evaluation can be combined with the dimensions of internal and external evaluation to form the two-by-two matrix shown in Figure 1.2. The most common roles in evaluation might be indicated by cells 1 and 4 in the matrix. For- mative evaluations are often conducted by internal evaluators, and there are clear merits in such an approach. Their knowledge of the program, its history, staff, and clients is of great value, and credibility is not nearly the problem it would be in a summative evaluation. Program personnel are often the primary audience, and the evaluator’s ongoing relationship with them can enhance the use of results in a good learning organization. Summative evaluations are probably best conducted

Internal

Formative

Summative

1 Internal

Formative

3 Internal

Summative

External

2 External

Formative

4 External

Summative FIGURE 1.2 Combination of Evaluation Roles

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32 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

by external evaluators. It is difficult, for example, to know how much credibility to attach to a Ford Motor Company evaluation that concludes that a particular Ford automobile is far better than its competitors in the same price range. The credibility accorded to an internal summative program evaluation (cell 3) in a school or nonprofit organization may be no better.

In some cases, though, funds are not available for external evaluators, or competent external evaluators cannot be identified. In many cases, summative evaluations are conducted internally and, in such cases, role combinations are possible to improve the credibility of the results. Patton (2008a) suggests using ex- ternal evaluators to review and comment on the quality of internal evaluations. In other cases, external evaluators can design critical elements of the evaluation, helping define the evaluation questions and developing evaluation designs and measures, perhaps working jointly with an internal evaluation team. Internal evaluators can then work to implement the evaluation and to develop effective means for communicating results to different stakeholder groups. Such role com- binations can save critical fiscal resources, improve internal capacity, and enhance the credibility of the results. (See, for example, Fitzpatrick’s interview with Debra Rog concerning her role as an external evaluator in a project for homeless fami- lies spanning several cities. She discusses the role of staff within each organization in helping conduct and plan the evaluation with her guidance [Fitzpatrick and Rog, 1999]). In any case, when a summative evaluation is conducted internally, man- agers within the organization need to attend to the position of the evaluators in the organization relative to the program being evaluated. They must work to ensure maximum independence and must not place evaluators in the untenable position of evaluating programs developed by their boss or colleagues.

Sonnichsen (1999) writes of the high impact that internal evaluation can have if the organization has established conditions that permit the internal evalu- ator to operate effectively. The factors that he cites as being associated with eval- uation offices that have a strong impact on the organization include operating as an independent entity, reporting to a top official, giving high rank to the head of the office, having the authority to self-initiate evaluations, making recommenda- tions and monitoring their implementation, and disseminating results widely throughout the organization. He envisions the promise of internal evaluation, writing, “The practice of internal evaluation can serve as the basis for organiza- tional learning, detecting and solving problems, acting as a self-correcting mecha- nism by stimulating debate and reflection among organizational actors, and seeking alternative solutions to persistent problems” (Sonnichsen, 1999, p. 78).

Evaluation’s Importance—and Its Limitations

Given its many uses, it may seem almost axiomatic to assert that evaluation is not only valuable but essential in any effective system or society. Citizens look to eval- uation for accountability. Policymakers and decision makers call on it and use it

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to make important decisions. Program staff can use evaluation to plan and improve programs to better meet clients’ and societal needs and to make decisions about how to stay within their budget. Consumers, such as parents, students, and voluntary clients, can make choices about schools for themselves or their children or the hospital, clinic, or agency they will contact for services. Evaluators can per- form many roles for those delivering programs. These include helping them develop good programs, helping them deliver the programs to changing clients for changing contexts, and helping them find interventions that are most successful in achieving their goals. Evaluators can help organizations as a whole through stimulating a learning culture, thereby helping those in the organization to ques- tion and consider their goals and their methods, their clients and their needs, and showing them how to use evaluative inquiry methods to meet their needs. As some evaluators note, evaluation plays an important continuing role in democ- racy. It informs citizens and, thus, empowers them to influence their schools, their government, and their nonprofit organizations. It can influence the power of stakeholders who have been absent from important decisions by giving them voice and power through evaluation. Scriven (1991b) said it well:

The process of disciplined evaluation permeates all areas of thought and practice. . . . It is found in scholarly book reviews, in engineering’s quality control procedures, in the Socratic dialogues, in serious social and moral criticism, in mathematics, and in the opinions handed down by appellate courts. . . . It is the process whose duty is the systematic and objective determination of merit, worth, or value. Without such a process, there is no way to distinguish the worthwhile from the worthless. (p. 4)

Scriven also argues the importance of evaluation in pragmatic terms (“bad products and services cost lives and health, destroy the quality of life, and waste the resources of those who cannot afford waste”), ethical terms (“evaluation is a key tool in the service of justice”), social and business terms (“evaluation directs effort where it is most needed, and endorses the ‘new and better way’ when it is better than the traditional way—and the traditional way where it’s better than the new high-tech way”), intellectual terms (“it refines the tools of thought”), and personal terms (“it provides the only basis for justifiable self-esteem”) (p. 43). Perhaps for these reasons, evaluation has increasingly been used as an instrument to pursue goals of organi- zations and agencies at local, regional, national, and international levels.

But, evaluation’s importance is not limited to the methods used, the stake- holder supplied with information, or the judgment of merit or worth that is made. Evaluation gives us a process to improve our ways of thinking and, therefore, our ways of developing, implementing, and changing programs and policies. Schwandt has argued that evaluators need to cultivate in themselves and others an intelligent belief in evaluation. He writes that “possessing (and acting on) an intelligent belief in evaluation is a special obligation of evaluators—those who claim to be well pre- pared in the science and art of making distinctions of worth” (2008, p. 139). He reminds us that evaluation is not simply the methods, or tools, that we use, but a way of thinking. Citing some problematic trends we see in society today, the political

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34 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

manipulation of science and the tendency to see or argue for all-or-nothing solutions that must be used in all settings in the same way, Schwandt calls for evaluators to help citizens and stakeholders use better means of reasoning. This better means of reasoning would draw on the kinds of thinking good evaluators should do. The characteristics of such reasoning include a tolerance for ambiguity, a recognition of multiple perspectives and a desire to learn from those different perspectives, a desire to experiment or to become what Don Campbell called an “experimenting society.” Describing this society and evaluation’s role in it, Schwandt writes:

This is a society in which we ask serious and important questions about what kind of society we should have and what directions we should take. This is a social environment indelibly marked by uncertainty, ambiguity, and interpretability. Evaluation in such an environment is a kind of social conscience; it involves serious questioning of social direction; and it is a risky undertaking in which we endeavor to find out not simply whether what we are doing is a good thing but also what we do not know about what we are doing. So we experiment—we see what we can learn from different ways of knowing. In evaluation, we try to work from the top down (so to speak) using what policy makers say they are trying to do as a guide, as well as from the bottom up, doing evaluation that is heavily participant oriented or user involved. All this unfolds in an atmosphere of questioning, of multiple visions of what it is good to do, of multiple interpretations of whether we as a society are doing the right thing. (2008, p. 143)

As others in evaluation have done, Schwandt is reminding us of what eval- uation should be. As evaluators, we learn how to use research methods from many disciplines to provide information and reach judgments about programs and policies, but our methods and theories underlie an approach to reasoning. This approach is its greatest promise.

Limitations of Evaluation. In addition to its potential for impact, evaluation has many limitations. Although the purpose of this book is to help the reader learn how to conduct good evaluations, we would be remiss if we did not discuss these limitations. The methods of evaluation are not perfect ones. No single study, even those using multiple methods, can provide a wholly accurate picture of the truth because truth is composed of multiple perspectives. Formal evaluation is more suc- cessful than informal evaluation, in part, because it is more cautious and more sys- tematic. Formal evaluation is guided by explicit questions and criteria. It considers multiple perspectives. Its methods allow one to follow the chain of reasoning, the evaluative argument, and to more carefully consider the accuracy, or the validity, of the results. But evaluations are constrained by realities, including some charac- teristics of the program and its context, the competencies of the evaluation staff, the budget, the timeframe, and the limits of what measures can tell us.

A more important limitation to evaluation than the methodological and fis- cal ones, however, are the political ones. We live in a democracy. That means that elected, and appointed, officials must attend to many issues. Results of evaluations

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are not their sole source of information by any means, nor should they be. Citi- zens’ input and expectations obviously play a role in decisions. Many stakeholder groups, experts, lawmakers, policymakers, and, yes, lobbyists, have information and experience that are important to consider. So, in the best of situations, evalu- ation is simply one piece of information, albeit an important piece, we hope, in the marble cake of sources used by decision makers in a democracy.

Finally, both evaluators and their clients may have been limited by a ten- dency to view evaluation as a series of discrete studies rather than a continuing system representing an approach to reasoning and personal and organizational growth. It can be difficult to question what you do and the activities that you be- lieve in, but evaluative inquiry must prompt us to do that, both in evaluating our evaluations (metaevaluation) and in evaluating programs. A few poorly planned, badly executed, or inappropriately ignored evaluations should not surprise us; such failings occur in every field of human endeavor. This book is intended to help evaluators, and the policymakers, managers, and all the other stakeholders who participate in and use evaluations, to improve their evaluative means of reason- ing and to improve the practice of evaluation.

Major Concepts and Theories

1. Evaluation is the identification, clarification, and application of defensible criteria to determine an evaluation object’s value, its merit or worth, in regard to those criteria. The specification and use of explicit criteria distinguish formal evaluation from the informal evaluations most of us make daily.

2. Evaluation differs from research in its purpose, the role of the evaluator and the researcher in determining the focus of the study, the criteria used to judge its quality, its involvement of stakeholders, and the competencies required of those who practice it.

3. The basic purpose of evaluation is to render judgments about the value of the object under evaluation. Other purposes include providing information for program and organizational improvement and to make decisions, working to better society and to improve and sustain democratic values, encouraging meaningful dialogue among many diverse stakeholders, as well as adding to our knowledge concerning the application of social science theory, and providing oversight and compliance for programs.

4. Evaluators play many roles including facilitator, planner, advocate, scientific expert, critical friend, collaborator, and aid to decision makers and other stakeholder groups.

5. Evaluations can serve formative or summative decisions as well as other purposes. Formative evaluations are designed for program improvement. The audience is, most typically, stakeholders close to the program. Summative evaluations serve decisions about program adoption, continuation, or expansion. Audiences for these evaluations must have the ability to make such “go-no go” decisions.

6. Evaluations can address needs assessment, process, or outcome questions. Any of these types of questions can serve formative or summative purposes.

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7. Evaluators may be internal or external to the organization. Internal evaluators know the organizational environment and can facilitate communication and use of re- sults. External evaluators can provide more credibility in high-profile evaluations and bring a fresh perspective and different skills to the evaluation.

8. Evaluation goes beyond particular methods and tools to include a way of thinking. Evaluators have a role in educating stakeholders and the public about the concept of evaluation as a way of thinking and reasoning. This way of thinking includes acknowl- edging, valuing, using, and exploring different perspectives and ways of knowing, and creating and encouraging an experimenting society—one that actively questions, con- siders, and creates policies, programs, interventions, and ideas.

36 Part I • Introduction to Evaluation

Discussion Questions

1. Consider a program in your organization. If it were to be evaluated, what might be the purpose of the evaluation at this point in time? Consider the stage of the pro- gram and the information needs of different stakeholder groups. What might be the role of evaluators in conducting the evaluation?

2. What kind of evaluation do you think is most useful—formative or summative? What kind of evaluation would be most useful to you in your work? To your school board or elected officials?

3. Which do you prefer, an external or internal evaluator? Why?

4. Describe a situation in which an internal evaluator would be more appropriate than an external evaluator. What is the rationale for your choice? Now describe a situation in which an external evaluator would be more appropriate.

Application Exercises

1. List the types of evaluation studies that have been conducted in an institution or agency of your acquaintance, noting in each instance whether the evaluator was internal or external to that institution. Determine whether each study was form- ative or summative and whether it was focused on needs assessment, process, or outcome questions. Did the evaluation address the appropriate questions? If not, what other types of questions or purposes might it have addressed?

2. Think back to any formal evaluation study you have seen conducted (or if you have never seen one conducted, find a written evaluation report of one). Identify three things that make it different from informal evaluations. Then list ten informal eval- uations you have performed so far today. (Oh, yes you have!)

3. Discuss the potential and limitations of program evaluation. Identify some things evaluation can and cannot do for programs in your field.

4. Within your own organization (if you are a university student, you might choose your university), identify several evaluation objects that you believe would be ap- propriate for study. For each, identify (a) the stakeholder groups and purposes the evaluation study would serve, and (b) the types of questions the evaluation might address.

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Case Studies

In this edition, we begin a new practice to ac- quaint readers with real evaluations in order to give them a better understanding of the prac- tice of evaluation. At the end of many chapters, we will recommend one or more interviews that Jody Fitzpatrick, one of our authors, or Christina Christie conducted with a well- known evaluator concerning one evaluation he or she completed. Each article begins with a brief summary of the evaluation. Fitzpatrick or Christie then interviews the evaluator about the choices he or she made in determining the purposes of the evaluation, involving stake- holders, selecting designs and data collection methods, collecting the data, reporting the re- sults, and facilitating use. Interested readers may refer to the book that collects and analyzes these interviews:

Fitzpatrick, J. L., Christie, C. A., & Mark, M. M. (2008). Evaluation in action: Interviews with expert evalua- tors. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Or, the reader may read individual interviews published in the American Journal of Evaluation.

For this chapter we recommend two inter- views to orient the reader to two quite different

types of evaluation in Evaluation in Action Chapters 1 (James Riccio) and 7 (Gary Henry).

In Chapter 1, James Riccio describes the choices he made in an evaluation designed to judge the merit and worth of a welfare reform program for the state of California as welfare re- form initiatives first began. His major stake- holder is the California legislature, and the study illustrates a traditional, mixed-methods evaluation with significant instrumental use. The journal source is as follows: Fitzpatrick, J. L. & Riccio, J. (1997). A dialogue about an award- winning evaluation of GAIN: A welfare-to-work program. Evaluation Practice, 18, 241–252.

In Chapter 7, Gary Henry describes the de- velopment of a school “report card” for schools in Georgia during the early stages of the performance monitoring emphasis for K–12 education. The evaluation provides descriptive information to help parents, citizens, and policymakers in Geor- gia learn more about the performance of individ- ual schools. The journal source is as follows: Fitzpatrick, J. L., & Henry, G. (2000). The Georgia Council for School Performance and its perfor- mance monitoring system: A dialogue with Gary Henry. American Journal of Evaluation, 21, 105–117.

Applying Ethical Frameworks

November 24, 2022/in Uncategorized /by SK

Critique your colleague’s solution by identifying two strengths and weaknesses of your colleague’s analysis.

Offer a suggestion to improve upon the weaknesses.

Please note that, for each response, you must include a minimum of one appropriately cited scholarly reference. use attached.

Applying Ethical Frameworks

Although the Ethics Resource Center conveyed, as of 2013, that 41% of employees reported having witnessed misconduct in the workplace—down from 45% in 2011—this percentage remains alarmingly significant (McGregor, 2014). In fact, these statistics seem to indicate an ongoing need to continue to strengthen commitment to ethical business practice. Business professionals and scholars need to know how to face ethical dilemmas and make sound ethical decisions. As a DBA independent scholar and global change agent, you should have a basic understanding of various ethical frameworks and understand how these frameworks influence real-world business decisions. Northouse (2016) stated, “Ethical theories that deal with the conduct of leaders are in turn divided into two kinds: theories that stress the consequences of leaders’ actions and those that emphasize the duty or rules governing leaders’ actions” (p. 333). Business leaders apply their ethical values daily for decision making in business. Understanding and analyzing various ethical frameworks can help you as you work to solve ethical dilemmas.

To prepare for this Discussion, consider Case 13.2, “How Safe Is Safe?” on pages 351–352 of Northouse (2016) and review the Albert, Reynolds, and Turan (2015), Lawton and Páez (2015), Hoover and Pepper (2015), and Gustafson (2013) articles provided in this week’s Learning Resources.

Attached are there discussion post.

In Defense of a Utilitarian Business Ethic

ANDREW GUSTAFSON

ABSTRACT

In this article, I suggest and support a utilitarian approach to business ethics. Utilitarianism is already widely used as a business ethic approach, although it is not well developed in the literature. Utilitarianism pro- vides a guiding framework of decision making rooted in social benefit which helps direct business toward more ethical behavior. It is the basis for much of our discus- sion regarding the failures of Enron, Worldcom, and even the subprime mess and Wall Street Meltdown. In short, the negative social consequences are constantly referred to as proof of the wrongness of these actions and events, and the positive social consequences of bailouts and other plans are used as ethical support for those plans to right the wrongs. I believe the main cause of the neglect of the utilitarian approach is because of misguided criticisms. Here, I defend utilitarianism as a basis for business ethics against many criticisms found in the business ethics literature, showing that a business ethics approach relying on John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism supports

Andrew Gustafson is an Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Society, College of Business Administration, Creighton University, Omaha, NE. E-mail: andrewgustafson @creighton.edu. http://www.andygustafson.net

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principles like justice, is not biased against the minority, and is more reasonable than other views such as a Kantian view when dealing with workers and making other decisions in business. I also explain utilitarian moral motivation and use satisficing theory to attempt to defend utilitarian business ethics from questions raised regarding utilitarian calculus.

1REVITALIZING A UTILITARIAN BUSINESS ETHIC FOR SOCIAL WELL-BEING

Let us . . . find ourselves, our places and our duties insociety, and then, gathering courage from this newand broader understanding of life in all its relations, address ourselves seriously to the problem of making our- selves and our neighbors useful, prosperous and happy. Such is the supreme object of utilitarian economics.

Phelps and Myrick (1922, p. 7)

[T]he utilitarian standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it might possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world is in general is immensely a gainer by it.

Mill (1998, ch. 2, para. 9, l. 4)

Utilitarianism provides a vision of ethical behavior which holds the common interests of humanity as of utmost importance when we make a moral decision. Utilitarianism fits business well if we conceive of business as a means of transforming culture and society, and utilitarianism is the ethical perspective which most easily helps us to address the ethical relationship and responsi- bilities between business and society. Surely, nothing is more powerful than business itself in shaping our cities, our work environments, our playing environments, our values, desires, hopes, and imagination. Business provides great goods for society through goods and services, jobs, tax revenue, and many common outcomes, but it also has wide-ranging effects on a broad spec- trum of stakeholders. The utilitarian in business asks, how can

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we do business in such a way that it contributes to the greater good? Drawing here on the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill, here I will first put forward some key features of a utilitarian business ethic—that the right actions are the ones which contribute to the greatest good for the most—and then in the latter part of the article, respond to some of the typical criticisms of utilitarianism in the business ethics literature in hopes of displaying utilitari- anism’s promise as a guiding vision for ethical business behavior.

Self-interested profit-maximization cost-benefit analysis is often labeled as “utilitarianism,” and that has often been the target of business ethicists, looking to get business to consider ethical inter- ests along with profit. These criticisms are useful and correct, so long as they are aimed at economic profit maximization, rather than the utilitarian ethics approach, but sometimes, the distinc- tion is not clearly drawn. Utilitarianism as an ethical theory is quite different than mere profit maximization, but the confusion is common. There is, actually, a severe gap in business ethics litera- ture regarding a utilitarian ethics approach to business ethics. Although there have been books in the field of business ethics written on Kantian business ethics (Bowie 1999), Social Contract business ethics (Donaldson and Dunfee 1997; Sacconi 2000), and Aristotelian business ethics (Hartman 1996; Morris 1997; Solomon 1993), no book has dealt with utilitarian ethics and business ethics per se. Although there has been some positive attention paid to the notion of “utilitarianism” as a basis for business ethics (Brady 1985; Elfstrom 1991; Snoeyenbos and Humber 2002; Starr 1983), mostly it has been critical (Audi 2005, 2007; Beauchamp and Bowie 2001; Bowie 1999; Bowie and Simon 1998; Desjardins 2011; Hartman 1996; McCracken and Shaw 1995; McGee 2008; McKay 2000; Velasquez 1995; Velasquez et al. 1989).

Ironically, all this criticism comes while we continue to use greatest good or common good analysis for most of our societal ethical issues. Considering societal benefit and harm is usually the basis for much of our discussion regarding the ethical failures of Enron, Worldcom, and the subprime mess and recent Wall Street Meltdown. Taxcheating, welfare or insurance fraud, racism, gender discrimination and harassment in the workplace, under- mining trust, stealing from the company, dishonest bookkeeping, and nearly any unethical business practice we can imagine are argued against and considered wrong in part, at least, because of

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the harm these activities do to the greater good. Utilitarianism in this sense is already widely used as an ethical appeal and busi- ness ethic approach, although it is seldom discussed in the lit- erature. The negative societal consequences (to investors, the market, homeowners, employees, the jobless, etc) are constantly referred to as proof of the wrongness of these actions and events, and the positive social consequences of bailouts and other plans are used as ethical support for those plans to right the wrongs. When we call on society to shared sacrifice, the reason given is almost always “for the greater good” which is to say, the greatest long-lasting happiness for the most—the prosperity of society into perpetuity. Yet, when discussed in business ethics litera- ture, utilitarianism is usually sketched, criticized, and then dismissed—usually because these “utilitarianisms” are quite dif- ferent than Mill’s classical utilitarianism. Here, I will attempt to provide a more intelligible view of how Mill’s classic utilitarianism can apply to business ethics and respond to a number of the key criticisms raised against utilitarianism in the business ethics literature, in hopes of bringing attention and support to the viability of a developed utilitarian business ethics.

What Mill’s Utilitarianism Is not

It is quite important from the start to realize that many views are criticized by the name “utilitarianism,” and we should first realize that the classical utilitarianism of Mill is not equivalent to a number of other theories referred to as utilitarianism—views which business ethicists are right to criticize. First, as mentioned, it is not mere profit maximization, which is from some business literature. Second, it is not preference utilitarianism—the view that the source of both morality and ethics in general is based upon subjective preference.2 (Rabinowicz and Österberg 1996). Third, it is not a “rational actor” model. (McCracken and Shaw 1995) The rational actor model “utilitarianism” is well defined by McCracken and Shaw as holding that (1) humans are rational, (2) rational behavior is characterized by preference or value maximi- zation, (3) businesses seek to be profit maximizing, (4) the moral good is utility, (so therefore) (5) ethical business practice consists of maximizing profits within a framework of enlightened, but not clearly defined, rules, rights, and obligations.

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This “rational actor model” is ethically problematic, and McCracken and Shaw are right to point out that “[t]o analyze business decisions using as a model an individual solely moti- vated by the maximization of value or of profits, without regard to his or her own character, is totally unrealistic. It does not speak to the role of ‘Nobility,’ ‘Sacrifice,’ ‘Sportsmanship,’ ‘heroism,’ and the like—” (McCracken and Shaw 1995, p. 301). Mill’s utilitari- anism, fortunately, does address such concepts as heroism, nobil- ity, and sacrifice, as we will see. The point here is simply that Mill’s utilitarianism model is quite different from a simple profit maximization model or a simplistic cost-benefit model which is often referred to as “utilitarian” in the literature.

Mill’s Utilitarianism

It is important to be clear about what Mill’s classic utilitarianism entails. When we seek common ethical principles, we really seek a common vision of the good, because we want a common vision for making decisions which provide at least semi-universal guid- ance. Although no ethical theory is without its difficulties, what an ethical theory provides is some shared common starting points from which to work out ethical decisions—as an individual and as a community. There is not a shared understanding of application in all cases, but the community shares the common starting point for making their case. There is, we might say, a hermeneutics of ethics, whereby the meaning of an ethic for a particular situation involves interpretation and so, dispute. The Bible and church tradition are to Christians a shared starting point—and obviously, not all agrees on the application of that text/tradition—but there is a shared assumption about where we should meet to try to come to conclusions. There are hermeneu- tical differences of interpretation of Scripture, as there are of the utilitarian principle, but utilitarians at least share a common vision for trying to work out ethical answers rooted in a shared assumption that what we all seek ultimately is to attain the greatest happiness for the most.

Three key aspects of Mill’s utilitarianism distinguish his ethics and so, a utilitarian business ethic: (1) it is consequentialist and has a shared goal of the common good at its heart; (2) it takes account of long-term consequences or the prosperity of society; (3)

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it entails nurturing moral education in culture by developing social concern in individuals.

First, Mill’s utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory: Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned about the welfare of the many, rather than just the individual, as he says, “[the utilitarian] stan- dard is not the agents own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 9, l. 4). It is not mere egoism and, in fact, calls on an individual to sacrifice one’s own happiness on occasion, if it is for the greater common good. For Mill’s utilitarianism according to this “Greatest Happiness Principle”—“the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable . . . is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 10, l. 1). Greatest happiness might come by a wide distribution of hap- piness to the most, or in some cases, the interests of the many might be served actually by affording something to the minority (such as providing fair trial to all, even those who are apparently guilty—which maintains a happier society than one which does not provide fair trials (Sadam’s Iraq, Syria, North Korea, etc).3

Utilitarianism fits business well, because business often thinks in terms of utility. However, utilitarianism is not concerned with the interest of the individual only, or even of the larger distribu- tive sum or aggregate of the happiness of individuals (Audi 2007). Rather, Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned with the happiness of humanity as a whole—his is a corporate narrative aimed at “cre- ating bonds between the individual and humanity at large” (Heydt 2006, p. 105). On this view, “[h]umanity begins to appear as a ‘corporate being’ rather than as a simple aggregate of individuals, when one begins to imagine it as having a destiny” (Heydt 2006, p. 105).4 The difficulty is trying to help people to start to think of social utility, not just personal or profit-maximization utility, and to realize that we must consider long-term social utility, not just social utility for this evening. This involves having a vision of the good of humanity in mind when making decisions. In the words of Mill, the utilitarian conceives of life this way:

So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does

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all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and neces- sarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 1, l. 30)

Such utilitarianism will not answer every single dilemma, but it does give direction in many situations. Mill believes humans have a fellow feeling toward other human beings, and that this feeling can be nurtured and trained as one develops a vision of oneself as a member of this society of humanity and as we integrate indi- viduals into a strong culture of concern for others (more of this on the succeeding paragraphs).

Second, Mill’s utilitarianism pursues long-term benefit and so has rules of morality following from the Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP) which provide moral guidance.5 Mill says, “Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality [the GHP], we require subordinate principles to apply it by” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 52), and he points out that such subordinate principles are both necessary for morality and ultimately grounded in the GHP. To those who think that we can have no intermediary principles and must always refer back to the GHP directly, Mill responds:

It is a strange notion that the acknowledgement of a first principle (GHP) is inconsistent with the admission of second- ary ones . . . The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another . . . Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated, and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 24, l. 36)

So for Mill, there are subordinate intermediate principles deriving from the GHP which are affirmed in light of their overall long-term

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happiness-producing benefit. In holding to principles of justice and other such virtues, utilitarianism focuses on the long-term or cumulative benefit, not merely the local, short-term, or immediate benefit.6 Mill is like a stock buyer with a long-term view of things, who rides out the ups and downs of the market. A company which follows this utilitarianism will be concerned with fair treatment of employees, honest habits with customers and suppliers, and just policies because acting with justice, fairness, and honesty will, in the end, produce the greatest happiness for the many—through increased productivity, a strong reputation, and customer loyalty all leading to a positive outcome. Fortunately, we have history and experience to turn to, to help us discover best practices and establish values worth pursuing grounded in precedent: “During all that time mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, is dependent” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 9). We have seen on Wall Street the negative conse- quences of not maintaining fairness, prudence, and honesty in the subprime meltdown, for example, and this is not news to us—we saw the same lessons in Enron, Worldcom, the savings and loan scandal, etc. The actions which led to the meltdown were committed in violation of principles which we know bring about societal stability and prosperity, and those acts were committed without regard to the long-term societal market consequences. Thinking we are an exception to the rule often gets us in trouble.

Overall historic tendencies, not particular exceptions, guide the decision. Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned not with static results but with dynamic trends.7 When Mill says “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness,” he is looking for derivative rules of action which only usually or more often than not promote the benefit of the many. This means it can stick to a principle in the face of possible exceptional circumstances.8 The utilitarian sticks to his tried and true principles in the face of pressure to change course. If, in general, an action (i.e., telling the truth) tends to promote happiness, we should do that even if in this particular instance it does not produce happiness, or we do not see how it will—because telling the truth tends overall to produce benefits to the many as we have seen from previous empirical observations. We can have quite intelligent guesses as to what actions tend to

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promote happiness for the many9—principles like “do not murder,” “do not cry wolf,” “do not lie,” and other such principles. These principles, by and large, tend to promote happiness for the many. Again, the utilitarian looks at decisions like a long-term investor looks at stock—a long-term investor does not sell when- ever the stock goes down and buy whenever it is going up—and a utilitarian does not reject the principles he knows from cumula- tive experiences from the past as it will provide the foundation of a happier society every time it becomes inconvenient or unclear if on this specific occasion the benefit will come.10

Third, moral education toward a culture of ethical–social concern is essential (Gustafson 2009; Heydt 2006). Mill’s utilitari- anism relies on education and the development of social ties to undergird our moral motivation so that we will act according to the GHP. This is the sort of corporate culture construction which we achieve through strategized ethical training and integrity development, not unlike the model Sharpe-Paine calls the integrity approach (in contrast to the compliance approach) (Paine 1994). Throughout his Utilitarianism and On Liberty, we find Mill arguing that without proper socialization and moral education, people will not be enabled to pursue the GHP because they will be oblivious to it and incapable of desiring it. But fortunately, because humans have fellow feelings, these can be nurtured and trained toward a strong culture of social concern:

[T]he smallest germs of the feeling are laid hold of an nour- ished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences of education; and a complete web of corroborative associations is woven round it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions. This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilization goes on, is felt to be more and more natural. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 1, l. 44)

The first means of encouraging utilitarianism is not legal, but cultural: “that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole” (Mill, Utilitarian- ism, 2.18). This is exactly the job of us in business ethics and the job of any corporation which really wants to ensure moral

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employees—to nurture this social sentiment, encourage the moral imagination so that our students or employees can realize the consequences of their acts on others, and to come to habitually think not in terms of immediate personal gain, but think of themselves in community. So, for example, Mill would say that training employees to be ethical should not simply be oriented around rules and enforcement but should center on nurturing a corporate culture which has implicit expectations of moral behav- ior and concern for others as human beings. Once they under- stand ethical behavior as “of course!—that’s just the way we do things around here,” then they have come to see ethics as a matter of course—expected without question; bloodstream beliefs as an esteemed businessman I know puts it.11

When speaking of external sanctions, Mill recommends “laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or . . . the interest of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 18). This we attempt to do through taxation, through equal opportunity legis- lation, tax-incentives for innovations, federal sentencing guide- lines, Sarbanes–Oxley Act, etc—we try to provide incentives for people and companies to do what is in the public interest through external sanctions. These can of course also be positive incen- tives, such as awards or ethical responsibility lists published by organizations or magazines such as Business Ethics Magazine. However, we know that codes and rules alone do not change personal or corporate character—culture formation is essential.

With these three principles in mind, we can better see the possibility of a utilitarian business ethic, and also, see how Mill can respond to typical criticisms of his position most commonly brought up in the business ethics literature.

Common Criticisms and Responses

One helpful way to understand the adequacy of a theory is to hear its responses to its critics—and there are plenty of opportunities with regard to this, as was mentioned, as most commentators on utilitarianism in the business ethics literature have had reserva- tions about utilizing utilitarianism. Here, I will provide five key typical criticisms of utilitarianism brought up in the business ethics literature and respond to each in turn. My goal is to initiate

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further development of utilitarian business ethics in the field—not by criticizing critics, but by distinguishing Mill’s utilitarianism from other forms of thought which might be criticized by that label. Common criticisms of utilitarianism found in the business ethics literature include the following:

1. The Convenience Objection: utilitarianism undermines prin- ciples such as justice and truth telling, which would make the keeping of contracts a matter of convenience at best.

2. The Supererogatory Objection: utilitarianism leads to irratio- nal and futile conclusions which are unworkable and unten- able in the business place because it asks too much of us.

3. The Majority-bias Objection. utilitarianism is biased against the minority viewpoint and so is unnecessarily blind both to the dignity of individuals and to innovation from dissenters.

4. The Motivation Objection: utilitarianism fails to provide moral motivation for this social concern it requires.

5. The Calculation Objection: utilitarianism is considered fatally flawed insofar as it cannot provide an adequate calculus system to do the utilitarian calculus, leaving it impotent to assist in making ethical business decisions.

Here, I aim to show that one can, on the basis of Mill’s utilitari- anism, respond to these criticisms and that a robust and fruitful utilitarian theory can be quite able to help us develop a vision of business ethics.

Convenience: Utilitarianism Has No Principles: Justice and Rights Go out the Window It is often said that utilitarianism cannot adequately provide an explanation for rights, duties, or justice because it will compro- mise these for expedient good of the greater happiness for the majority: “Perhaps the strongest criticism that can be made against a utilitarian approach is that it completely and totally ignores rights [of individuals]” (McGee 2008). Utilitarians are cari- catured at being willing to do anything, so long as the majority benefits. For example, it has been said that Oliver North’s decep- tive lying about the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980’s was a clear example of utilitarian reasoning:

North’s method of justifying his acts of deception is a form of moral reasoning that is called ‘utilitarianism.’ Stripped down

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to its essentials, utilitarianism is a moral principle that holds that the morally right course of action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected. So long as a course of action produces maximum benefits for everyone, utilitarianism does not care whether the benefits are produced by lies, manipu- lation, or coercion. (Velasquez et al. 1989)

Here, utilitarianism is characterized as justifying acts of deception through lies, manipulation, or coercion. If one considers happi- ness of the majority above all else, it is said, then a utilitarian will give up justice for expediency and will ignore principles and rights when it is beneficial to the majority. Hartman likewise claims that “[t]he determination always to perform whatever act, or even whatever sort of act, maximizes happiness will have unhappy consequences, not least as a result of the breakdown of rules and institutions that enable people to trust one another” (Hartman 1996, p. 46). This criticism actually makes the point for utilitari- anism! On Mill’s utilitarianism, if in fact an act would have unhappy consequences—including “the breakdown of rules and institutions that enable people to trust each other”—then a utili- tarian should not do that act. Lying and ignoring rights and otherwise undermining basic stabilizing foundations of society which make it a happy one are not in line with utilitarianism, but quite rejected by a utilitarian ethic.

However, there is still an apparently difficult dilemma for the utilitarian here: either Mill remains committed to the principle of utility when possible exceptions arise, in which case he acknowl- edges that sometimes one morally ought to violate such alleged rights as liberty and freedom, or else the utilitarian remains com- mitted to these rights even when they violate the principle of utility. Mill addresses such concerns when he says, “We are told that an utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see an utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 4). His response is, first, to admit that utilitarianism can be misused as a rationalizing excuse for doing evil—but all moral creeds can be misused. Second, he points out that there are often “conflicting situations” and that “[t]here is no ethical creed which does not temper the

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rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 19). In the recent scenario where a choice had to be made to break previous prom- ises to united auto workers and help General Motors (GM) survive or fulfill those promises and let them go bankrupt, a great many people agreed with utilitarian thinking that in such a difficult situation, survival will bring about greater benefit than fulfilling promises to the union (New York Times 2005). However, GM made those promises in good faith (we trust) not realizing the extraor- dinary possibility of extinction was coming. These decisions are quite difficult, with conflicting sides, and as Mill says, “Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all: . . . only in these cases of conflict between secondary prin- ciples is it requisite that first principles should be appealed to” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 28). In normal (nonextraordinary) situations, a utilitarian does not give up principles which support the well-being of society in the light of apparent short-term goals. In the literature, this is known as “rule utilitarianism” (Carson 1997; Starr 1983). A utilitarian would say that supporting higher pleasures of noble sentiments of fidelity and loyalty for the sake of the greater good would outweigh short-term benefits of breaking trust.12 Preserving rights, duties, and justice is essential to pro- viding the possibility for the greatest happiness for the many—and for maintaining trust in the markets.13 Mill says of justice, “Justice remains the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly more important, and therefore more absolute and impera- tive, than any others are as a class” (Mill 1998, p. 107). Honest business dealings, acting in good faith, fair trials, equality before the law, civil rights, etc are all social utilities on Mill’s view because they provide for a happier society overall, despite short- term costs (of keeping this contract, despite its liability). We can think of many examples of companies which have sacrificed integ- rity and trust for short-term benefits, and in the end, when such companies as Enron or others collapse, it is impossible to say that their breaking of trust led to a greater benefit for the majority involved, much less that as a general rule breaking trust or tossing aside principles of integrity leads to greater happiness.14

Mill’s utilitarianism sees that for society to maintain its happiness-producing capabilities long term, it must maintain

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respect for certain values such as justice, fairness, and civil (society-granted) rights which require some to sacrifice for the greater good. Obviously, these are values which a corporation must preserve to maintain a positive healthy workplace. In addi- tion, we know now more than ever that market stability requires a great deal of trust on the part of investors, which in turn requires upright honest behavior on the part of companies.

So, it is not as though the utilitarian regularly denies these values and principles for short-term expedient gain. To do so would be to undermine the most important values in society which ensure long-term happiness. Why is it wrong to break contracts? The utilitarian would argue that it is wrong in large part because breaking contracts tends to undermine faith in business as an institution, and this would undermine the happiness-producing capacity of our society at large. When can we? In extraordinary circumstances. It is obvious that GM’s deci- sion to not fulfill contracts with their workers was considered an extraordinary act—an anomaly, not one which forever under- mined trust in GM—because their workers made new contracts with GM and the financial institutions stepped up to loan to them once again after that extraordinary decision to break the contract. To say that utilitarians do not really stick to principles because in extraordinary circumstances they will sometimes make exceptions is like saying that the school superintendant does not care about the children’s education because he called off school due to inclement weather. Both require difficult judgment calls, and both, if done well, will be done in a principled and thoughtful manner. To characterize these extraordinary exceptions as random or capricious is quite untrue to classic utilitarianism.

Supererogatory: Utilitarianism When Followed Leads to Futile Actions The first criticism we addressed is the concern that the utilitarian will not stick to the GHP always, whereas this second criticism is concerned that if the utilitarian does, it will result in absurdity. Utilitarianism asks us to act for the benefit of the many, but sometimes, such actions seem futile if others are not correspond- ingly cooperating. In short, it seems irrational to act on a rule which assumes others are acting likewise, if they are in fact not doing so. Hartman provides a great example in which your

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department can finish the project due the next day if all 10 of you stay late, but everyone goes home at 5 except you. “Surely,” says Hartman, “you have no moral obligation to the organization to work alone all night if you know your effort will be futile” (Hartman 1996, p. 46). This is the principle Hartman later devel- ops as an “exit” principle—the notion that it is rational, at certain times, to exit previous agreements (Hartman 1996, p. 170). His point, as I understand it, is a good one: does not utilitarianism seem to lead to supererogatory acts and have no limit of obligation? Velasquez brings a similar criticism against utilitarianism when he says that a “standard utilitarian claim” is “that businesses and agents in general have the duty to provide for people’s basic wants right up to the point where the costs begin to outweigh the benefits . . . For example, so long as cor- porate assets could provide advertising, pure utilitarians would say that it would be wrong to use them for such corporate purposes” (Velasquez 1995, p. 873). Again, utilitarianism on this criticism leads to unrealistic expectations and obligations.

In responding to Velasquez first: perhaps some models of thought would advocate the reallocation of funds as per Velasquez’ suggestion, but Mill’s utilitarianism does not need a company to cease to spend money on operations to increase the fulfillment of other people’s wants, for example, for the manager to give all their advertising budget to the local soup kitchen. The reasons are many. There are multiple promises and good faith obligations made to investors, stockholders, and other stakehold- ers such as employees and suppliers which would all be broken for the sake of soup, and randomly breaking such contracts in nonextraordinary circumstances would not be acceptable—a society where commitments are fulfilled, salaries are paid, jobs are maintained, tax revenues are produced, and investors are repaid, and the owners fiduciary interests are maintained will be a society happier than one where such fidelity and trust is absent (on the other hand, if the company was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and made a corporate decision to divert special funds from advertising toward helping with the emergency, it might very well be considered acceptable). Second, the point of utilitarianism is not merely to give people what they want or to provide a communistic equality which brings all down to a common low level of means. Having concentrated wealth in

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institutions such as corporations may lead to more efficient eco- nomic growth and so, help bring about prosperity to society. An argument could be made that it is more advantageous to the well-being and overall happiness of society for the company to advertise well and increase revenues and grow, provide more jobs and dividends and tax revenues for the local community, than for the soup kitchen to increase its budget.

We might respond in three ways as utilitarians. First, if it is an extraordinary circumstance, and in fact the greater good is not served in staying, then we should not stay, unless an important socially beneficial principle is preserved. In effect, the utilitarian agrees with Hartman’s exit principle: “in a community in which some people are free riders—the usual state of affairs—it is not rational to want to want to be a contributor all the time . . . you ought to want to be the sort of person who contributes until others clearly show they will not; then you can reciprocate by withholding your contribution” (Hartman 1996, p. 184). Of course, in principle, one should always try to fulfill promises and obligations, be faithful, loyal, etc. Loyally staying to burn the midnight oil out of loyalty to the company is admirable, but if it really is impossible for you to do your work without the others present, then it may simply be absurd.

Second, it seems that not being able to complete the goal of the group does not necessarily mean that one has no reason to complete one’s own responsibilities from a utilitarian viewpoint. Utilitarians who see that none of their neighbors recycle are not excused from recycling, despite the fact that their actions alone will not make much of a difference. With regard to this “staying late” example, a utilitarian may say that you do have an obligation—and your obligation is to stay relatively late, as late as it would have taken all of you to get finished, granted you can do your work without the input from the others. In other words, other people not doing their part does not mean you have 10 times as much responsibility, or all the responsibility, but it also does not mean that you are relieved from doing your part.

Third, there are long-term benefits to the many which come from sticking to principle apart from the immediate short-term gain. We can easily see this in research and development depart- ments, where many ultimately fruitless projects are pursued in

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hopes that some of them will come to fruition. In football practice, third stringers do all the same drills as the starters knowing they likely will not play Friday night in the game. The point is, the utilitarian does support practices which are rooted in principles that are thought to have long-term benefits, but these principles are always guided by the basic guidance of utility—what will bring about the greatest good in the long run.15 A utilitarian upholds certain principles because of a belief that maintaining the prin- ciples will produce a society in which happiness production is more possible and likely. This is exactly the very heart of integrity and trust which business depends on. If we do not act on good faith principles, then business cannot happen, and society becomes unable to provide basic happiness ultimately. In cultures of extreme corruption and no good faith trust, there is no capacity for business interaction. If a person is surrounded by lazy irre- sponsible coworkers, that in itself is no excuse to give up their own integrity and work ethic because we know a society in which people act with integrity will be a happier one.

Majority Bias: Utilitarianism Is Biased in Favor of Majority, and So, Is Unfair to Minority Rights Utilitarianism is undeniably for the happiness of the majority. The greatest happiness is what we strive for in our ethical decisions. However, certain freedoms for the minority are always supported by Mill with utilitarian arguments. Another criticism often raised against utilitarianism is that it will regularly undermine people’s rights, particularly when they are in the minority.16 For example:

A straightforwardly utilitarian rule consistently applied may violate people’s rights. Consider a rule that licenses discrimi- nation against the handicapped and thus saves all the money that would be spent in accommodating them. There is no evident algorithm for trading off rights and utility insofar as they are distinct, not least because there is not reason to suppose they are commensurable. (Hartman 1996, p. 46)

Hartman is right to point out that the needs of handicapped and money are incommensurate goods. Yet, we constantly are put in situations where we must weigh them and make judgments, and we do—in light of a common good principle, much like the GHP. So, the choice is not either: pursue utility or help the disabled—

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helping the good of the disabled is part of the utility as we make our judgment. We should not withhold money to the disabled simply because we love money. However, we would limit money spent on handicapped on the basis of justice, the rights and needs of others, and a utilitarian wants to pursue justice because a just society is more happiness productive than one which does not pursue justice as a general rule. We would weigh the needs of elementary education and highway maintenance, senior citizens, and military spending against the needs of the handicapped. Practically speaking, we unfortunately must set some financial limits on how much we will make provisions for the disabled, and that is why we, for example, do not demand that all buildings be retrofitted for handicapped access, but only public buildings of certain types. Doing such calculations is complicated but hardly without precedent or models. We do not simply write blank checks for funding the disabled. Mill obviously thinks preserving justice is essential to happiness, and it is likely that he would endorse helping the needy, supporting the less fortunate to a limited degree, and providing treatment to those who need it. A society which can help its disabled, resocialize its psychopaths, and bring its poor into the mainstream economy will be better off than one which ignores these minority needs.17

Bowie seems to also claim that Mill ignores the rights of the minority when he highlights what he considers to be the “anti- utilitarian principle” in Kantian thought. This is the key point which goes against utilitarian thinking, according to Bowie. This principle of Kant’s which is incompatible with utilitarianism goes as follows:

When a situation arises where it appears that the humanity of one set of stakeholders must be sacrificed for the humanity of another set of stakeholders, that decision cannot be made on the grounds that there is a greater number of stakeholders in one group than in another. (Bowie 1999, p. 90)

Bowie is correct in saying that not only the interests of the major- ity should be considered. Utilitarianism is not simply for the greater number, it is for the greatest overall happiness of the greatest number, and Mill is clear that, in many cases, this requires the majority grant the individual in the minority rights which might not have any apparent immediate benefit to the

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majority. One example he provides is security: “security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immu- nity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good,” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 25, l. 13) and so, as it is such a basic necessity, and because without it basic happiness is impossible, society protects it for us as a right. “To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in the pos- session of. If the objector goes on to ask why it ought, I can give him no other reason than general utility” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 25, l. 1). In some cases, such as when a criminal, politician, or other person whose security is in danger is protected from angry protesters, society has police risk their lives for the security of a citizen. So, the reasons for protecting the rights of an individual or minority group are (1) a society which maintains rights of indi- vidual or minority will be happier than a society which does not provide such rights and (2) the pain to the individual or minority group outweighs the cost to the majority more often than not (if the individual does not get fair trial they get lynched. The majority pays for this with time/patience and some tax dollars, which, distributed across the public, are a small cost per person).

So, with respect to Bowie’s point, Mill’s actually agrees that you should not ask that the humanity of one set of stakeholders be sacrificed for the humanity of another group solely on the grounds that there are more stakeholders in one group than another (Audi 2007). That would be to ignore the amount of happiness and quality of the happiness involved. Promoting indi- vidual liberties does contribute to the overall happiness capacity (“utility”) of society at large.

But again and again, we find it claimed that utilitarianism itself is totalitarian and homogenous, tending to undermine individual liberty and creativity:

[I]t is a good thing that utilitarianism cannot get off the ground. It is a good thing that we, and most particularly our political and economic institutions, respect a variety of con- ceptions of the good and a variety of kinds of life, rather than imposing a single one on all within the community. We rightly grant people autonomy in that sense. (Hartman 1996, p. 61)

While some utilitarian models may quash variety and diversity, Mill clearly supports the principle of liberty and wants it because

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he thinks a free society is a better pleasure-producing society (Gustafson 2009). Mill does think that providing protection for minority behaviors and activities does in fact directly contribute to the greater good of society. Mill would support diversity, affirma- tive action, and proactive support of women in traditionally male workplaces, and males in traditionally female workplaces. He sees diversity in general as a great happiness-producing asset to society. He brings this out most clearly in his On Liberty where he provides explicitly utilitarian arguments for supporting the liberty of individual dissent against the majority—because it is in the majority’s best interest to do so. Mill says that “the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, because by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals” (Mill 1999, p. 117). For Mill, liberty is what provides opportunity for progress in society [or corporate culture], and homogeneity is much more dangerous, so individual liberty must be protected from the tyranny of the majority:

the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation’ those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. (Mill 1999, p. 59)

Progressive companies seek and promote innovative people who think outside the box, even if it goes against “the way we’ve always done things around here.” Respect for liberty and minority opinion is not contrary to but is actually founded upon the greater happiness principle, as Mill sees things. We also see the same sort of greater happiness argument used to support the individual’s right to try various experiments in living which go against the majority:

As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living: that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. (Mill 1999, p. 103)

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The core starting points for establishing a society which promotes these experiments in living are justice, liberty, and fairness. Why do we start with these? Because those are the sentiments which will bring about a happier society or corporate culture, compared with those we have seen which have not valued justice, liberty, and fairness. While on the face of it, it might seem like liberty of the individual to resist the majority and the pleasure of the majority might be at odds, Mill in fact thinks that allowing great liberty will nurture a diversity which will enhance the strength and depth of society at large and produce a society which is best able to achieve high levels of happiness potential.

We of course see this tension in the corporate environment—the tension between allowing freedom for creative solutions and main- taining order through cohesive unified policies. We know that too much restriction hampers creativity, and what Mill says of states applies just as well to the contemporary corporation:

A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish. (Mill 1999, p. 166)

When trying to find the balance between allowing freedom and yet maintaining order through some restrictions, in either case we tend to use utilitarian style arguments to support the policies we have to support or conversely restrict individual freedoms in the workplace.

Motivation: Utilitarianism Is Irrational and Impractical Because We Have No Motivation to Obey the Greatest Happiness Principle In the workplace, we often hear about being a “team player,” but at times, my being a team player might not lead to much good for me but rather might provide more good to others who already seem to be doing better than me (like my superior). If utilitarian- ism asks me to sacrifice for “the team” (the greater happiness), then what exactly is my motivation for doing so? Bowie asks,

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“What would motivate an individual to sacrifice his good for the public good even if those who gain are already better off . . . would not the less fortunate be extremely bitter at having to sacrifice even more for the benefit of the more fortunate?” (Bowie and Simon 1998, p. 51). Two questions are raised here—one about inequitable sacrifice, and one about motivation to be concerned about the public good.

First, regarding apparent inequitable sacrifices, we can think of very practical examples where those who are less fortunate are sacrificing their good for the public good, and especially for those who are already better off. Consider these three examples: (1) our military is made up of a disproportionate share of lower income enlistees than of those who come from wealth, although the wealthy have more to lose quantitatively if our free country was overtaken or the markets severely disrupted by terrorism; (2) oftentimes, the wealthy get tax breaks that middle and lower income people never could get; and (3) people with middle and lower incomes pay a great deal of money to help put up stadiums, pay athletes and rock stars and others who are already better off financially. Although it might be argued that there may be a social injustice in these examples, there are arguments which seem to support these types of apparently inequitable situations: (1) the military provides income, training, and pension to the lower income enlistee than they could get otherwise; (2) the wealthy get tax breaks for investing in construction, job creation, rental housing, giving away money (Philanthropy), and other sorts of spending which—it is thought—help the majority. In other words, we use utilitarian thinking to provide such tax incentives to the wealthy because we see the long-term benefits of that spending for the economy that the majority benefits from. For example, the $100 Million Holland Performing Arts center in Omaha was pri- marily paid for by a private donor, and that donor undoubtedly got a tax break—and the City of Omaha got a first class perform- ing arts center; and (3) people are often willing to pay to contrib- ute to the good of someone more wealthy than they are if they see a tangible benefit such as being able to have a professional sports team or active concert venue in their city. So, it actually seems that in many cases, those less well off are motivated and willing to sacrifice their good for the good of the many, even if the many seem to be better off to begin with.

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Second, the question of why someone would be concerned with the public good rather than their own selfish interests is important, and Mill deals with it a great deal in chapter 3 of Utilitarianism. One motivator is external sanctions—external pun- ishments which we suffer if we act against the majority interests. In business, examples of this would be the 1993 sentencing guidelines, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission man- dates, Occupational Safety and Health Administration regula- tions, public shame, community outcry, etc. The second motivator is internal, conscience nurtured by education or habitual asso- ciation, the process by where my happiness begins to be more and more closely aligned with that of the social good.

Mill says,

So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and neces- sarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence. (Mill 1998, p. 78)

The GHP is the utilitarians’ guide for action, not the spring for moral motivation (Wilson 1982). The principle of the theory is not the motivation, obviously. Mill knows that motivation comes through habituation and socialization which are really a process of getting someone tied into a particular narrative about how they live in the world—who they are, what their relation is to others, etc. In business, as in the rest of life, most ethical decisions are made without theoretical analysis. Theory may play a background role, or an anchor for our convictions, but really, most of our moral acts are habitual-subconscious responses. So then, the question is: how do we instantiate right moral habitual-subconscious responses to situations? How do we make it so that we and our employees just as a matter of course nearly automatically do the

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right thing? Somehow, we must create a community of ethical behavior, a community which nurtures this sort of conscientious- ness. Putting upright principles and value statements forward can provide some compass, and narratives of noble business practices can stimulate ethical motivation. However, a lot of a manager’s job is the long-term work of establishing and nurturing habits of ethical conduct and expectation in the day-to-day ways of doing business, demonstrated in the leadership of the firm but passed down through mentoring and example, and a clear, repeated, vision of how things should be done. External and internal sanction methods are discussed in business ethics literature as the “compli- ance based approach,” where you get obedience to corporate poli- cies through punishment versus the “integrity-based approach,” where you nurture a corporate culture of doing things the right way through management encouragement and reiteration of values and purpose (Paine 1994). Mill believes that habituating the conscience through socialization and education is the key to nurturing a strong social concern and moral sentiments in people. In this sense, he is quite like Aristotle who believes ethics is taught more through habit formation like basketball or piano playing, rather than through theory learning alone.

Calculation: Utilitarian Calculation Is Not Possible Because We Cannot Determine Maximal Happiness The utilitarian principle seems clear: do what brings about the greatest happiness for the most. However, this is more easily said than done because it seems to leave us with an even more difficult question: how do we determine what the greatest happiness for the many is?—and how many? Who is the many? So, two ques- tions arise: (1) are the goods we are comparing even commensu- rate? and (2) how are we to measure them uniformly in terms of pleasure and pain?

It is often said that utilitarians cannot provide a singular account of the good toward which all are supposed to strive because, in fact, there are multiple incongruous goods we are choosing between (DesJardins 2011, p. 38; Hartman 1996, p. 60; McKay 2000; Rawls 1971). As Audi comments, “is calling a tooth- ache twice as painful as a pin prick even fully clear in its meaning?” (Audi 2007, p. 596). This incommensurability problem comes up a lot in our decision making. We see it especially in

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questions of Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) accounting, and attempts to value environmental concerns according to the free market. If you try to measure (for example) societal good against environmental concerns against financial profit (TBL), it becomes difficult to do the comparative assessments of valuation for each of them against the others (Pava 2007). How do we weigh the value of the environment against job losses because of increased spending on environmental concerns? How do we weigh the value of an unclut- tered skyline against the need for affordable housing? However, for the utilitarian the fact that we have some disagreements about happiness does not necessarily derail utilitarianism. A lot is agreed upon regarding what happiness entails—and what will provide for a happier society. Most would consider a degree of liberty, private property rights, justice, fairness, kindness, moral imagination, education, etc essential to creating a happy society. We can certainly come to widespread agreement as to why certain countries do not provide for the happiness of their citizens, and agree on means by which happiness could be achieved. We do have debates of course about abortion, gun control, taxation, and so on, but there are general aims we agree on, which we use as the basis of our arguments for or against our positions. In the greater scheme of things, the debate about whether or not we should allow semiautomatic weapons is a micro issue. The reason we have debates about more-free versus less-free market is often because we have different ideas about economics, rather than because we have different ideas about happiness (although there are obviously disagreements about what will bring about the greatest happiness and what it is). Again, as the Bible is the starting point for understanding christianity for most christians (despite disagreement about interpretation), so to the GHP is the agreed starting point for the utilitarian (again, despite disagree- ment about interpretation of where that will bring us).

A related important critique says utilitarianism does not provide a means for measuring pleasure or pain, or making difficult deci- sions. This seems especially acute as a problem as it is impossible to know the future results of present actions (Audi 2007, p. 596; Hardin 1988; MacNiven 1984). Mill’s response to the difficulty of knowing future outcomes would be along these lines I believe: we believe the world to have regular causes and effects, and for the future to resemble the past, and based on generalizations, we can

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make extremely well-grounded guesses as to what our current actions will bring in terms of communal happiness production, and based on those estimates, we can make confident decisions about the pleasure production of our actions. Mill makes the following response to potential critics in Utilitarianism: ”People talk as if the commencement of this course of experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin consid- ering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness” (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 24, l. 1). That we cannot know the future is not, for Mill, a significant fault of his theory, as the utilitarian’s directive is to aim toward what tends to bring about the greatest happiness for the most and subrules which generally tend toward the greatest happiness are the rules to follow.

But even if we can define pleasure clearly enough and guess well at future outcomes of our present actions, there is still a question of how to measure outcomes at all. Beauchamp and Bowie, for example, ask, “How does a corporate public affairs officer decide how to distribute limited funds allocated for chari- table contributions? If a corporate social audit (an evaluation of the company’s acts of social responsibility) were attempted, how could the auditor measure and compare a corporation’s ethical assets and liabilities?” (Beauchamp and Bowie 2001, p. 23)

First, as Beauchamp and Bowie point out, this might be a difficult problem for any theory, and if so, utilitarians may be no worse off than other theories would be in light of the question.18

Secondly, there are audits done of this sort of thing all the time at corporate foundations, so it is not as though we have no reason to believe such audits are possible. They happen.

But as a utilitarian, one approach is to argue that if one cannot show an auditor that absolute maximal happiness was not calcu- lable, perhaps a satisfactory happiness was, drawing from the work on Happiness Economics and economic work of Herbert Simon regarding “satisficing” may also provide a means of answering this objection (Simon 1947). On this model, instead of achieving the maximum result, one aims for a satisfying result—one which will provide happiness, if not maximal happiness (Byron 2004; Slote 1985, 1989).19 In many cases, it seems that it would be more rational to achieve a satisfying result resulting in actual happiness, rather than not being satisfied until the optimal result occurs.20

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The fact that we are not omniscient should not in itself count against our ethical theory. Utilitarians may, in certain cases where many good options are available, do the best they can to ensure a satisfactory choice and leave it at that, particularly when we do not know various outcomes. People who sit around all evening until after the restaurants close trying to analyze which restaurant experience would bring the greatest pleasure for the majority are not fulfilling the greatest utility. Stock analysts who take too long to analyze stock might lose their opportunities, and no utility is served there either. There is a balance which must be maintained, or the real utility of the decision may be lost. As the old saying goes, one bird in hand is better than two in the bush.21 So with regard to Bowie’s example of deciding how to distribute charity money, it seems that we could show the moral auditor that we acted in good faith and responsibly on the utilitarian principle. We might have decided to give to the project which we thought would help the most people, or to the five charities which together would help the most people, or to the five neediest charities, or the five best run charities (based on reports from agencies who know this sort of thing), or we might have decided that in light of our inability to make a clear distinction of one above another, we split our charity giving equally among the many. I do not think any of these decisions could be considered substantially worse than the others. Auditors in general realize that there are various ways to keep track of records, but as long as you are following the basic goals and principles, and not “cooking the books,” there is a spectrum of means of bookkeeping which are considered acceptable and upright. In the same way, an ethical auditing can take into account that there are multiple good things to be done, multiple ways to generally accomplish the goal— and the important thing is that one is generally acting on behalf of the interest of the many.

How Mill’s Utilitarianism Is Unique

When this defense of Mill is presented, Aristotelians tend to say that this sounds a lot like Aristotle, and sometimes Kantians say it sounds like Kant. Mill clearly has some similarities to both but is clearly different as well. Of course, Mill’s utilitarianism is dif- ferent from egoism. First, for Mill, the greater happiness of the many is the goal, whereas for the egoist, the only thing that

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matters is my personal happiness. On Mill’s view, I should act to bring about the greatest happiness. Mill’s utilitarianism is dif- ferent from Kant for at least three reasons. First, Kant thinks that instincts guide us toward happiness, and reason tells us not what will make us happy but what we must do (Kant 2002). In short, ethics is not about happiness for us or anyone else. However then, the second point of difference here is that Mill’s theory does not depend on a concept of a universal reason held in common by all rational beings. Rather, Mill’s utilitarian direc- tive, if ultimately rooted in common desires—as a perusal of chapter 5 of Utilitarianism, will show. Third, while Kant’s ethics is rooted in the commands of reason understood by the autono- mous individual, Mill’s view of ethics is fundamentally group centered and others centered. Mill thinks that Kant’s categorical imperative—that one must only act on such a maxim as one could make a universal law—is at root a directive based on happiness because Mill thinks that we must in such a situation consider the outcome of acting on the maxim to make the judg- ment (Mill 1998, ch. 1, para. 4, l. 34). How do we decide which laws should be made universal? By taking the greater good or happiness into account (says Mill). Mill’s utilitarianism is quite like Aristotle’s virtue ethics in many respects, including the fact that some pleasures are higher than others, that moral educa- tion involves habituation of sentiments, that politics and poetics play important roles in developing moral feelings to help us act ethically. However, Mill is different from Aristotle in that Mill is social, not merely an enlightened egoist, as Aristotle tends to be. Second, Mill does not rely on Greek cultural values. Third, Mill makes a place for the importance of sympathy for others, a topic not so central to the Greeks.

CONCLUSION

I hope that the following points have been made sufficiently clear in this article:

1. Insofar as principles of justice, fairness, honesty, and integ- rity, as general rules, provide a foundation for a happier community than a community without these principles, they have a secure basis in utilitarianism.

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2. Insofar as utilitarianism does not require supererogatory (unlimited) altruistic behavior to the point of overgenerosity without limits, it provides a basis for thoughtfully consider- ing personal obligations to others, to duties, and to virtues.

3. Insofar as utilitarianism sees diversity and support of indi- vidual liberty to be the basis of a happier community than one which would not support liberty, utilitarianism supports the concerns of minority viewpoints and liberties.

4. Insofar as utilitarianism can consider the relative worth of individuals and also provide a basis for valuing all individu- als universally with dignity as well, utilitarianism provides an ethic for workplace management which really makes practical sense in decision making.

5. Insofar as utilitarianism provides a vision of a cohesive social community as the basis of all decision making, it provides a real vision of the importance of an ethical corporate culture as the foundation of ethical behavior in the workplace.

6. Insofar as utilitarianism provides a basic starting point and framework for determining right action across individual interests, it provides a useful ethical foundation for business to make sound ethical decisions while making economic sense.

Here, in the course of responding to many typical criticisms of utilitarianism, I have argued that Mill’s utilitarianism can support principles of justice and fairness and can support personal duties and obligations; it does not repress minorities, does not destroy individuality, and I addressed the question of treating people as a means to an end. Further, I have tried to explain how that satisficing theory may be utilized to respond to criticisms that utilitarianism is unable to provide a method of calculating great- est pleasure for the greatest number. These responses are meant as an initial foray into mostly unexplored ethical territory. I hope that work will continue to bring Mill’s utilitarianism to bear on practical business ethics issues.22

NOTES

1. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editor of BSR, as well as Pat Werhane’s class at Darden who provided many thoughtful

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responses to this article when I did a seminar on Mill’s utilitarianism there, and Pat Werhane, as well as the reviewers of this article for the SBE conference a few years back.

2. I am not going to spend time in this article making these arguments to distinguish Mill from preference utilitarianism, but I would simply point to Mill’s discussion of competent judges (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 8, l. 1) which seems to assume a broadly universal understanding among human- ity in general to be able to distinguish higher from lower pleasures.

3. Audi (2007) provides a nice argument about this question of dis- tribution in his “Can Utilitarianism Be Distributive?”

4. It should be noted that Mill does not expect us to actually think of that transcendent idea “humanity” when we act ethically toward someone: “it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large. The great majority of good actions are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up” (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 19, l. 23).

5. Of course there is a long discussion of venerable voices between “rule utilitarianism” and “act utilitarianism.” I am here merely pointing out that Mill himself suggests that we refer to intermediate rules to follow as rules of thumb when pursuing the greatest happiness. I myself find act utilitarianism unsustainable in practice or textually.

6. This has direct implications for our moral behavior. My moral imagination enables me to think about how my actions affect others; my noble sentiments make me ashamed to be selfish and prompt me to live for higher principles and as I nurture my moral feelings, I find it easier to be thoughtful, considerate, and decent toward others. Lower capaci- ties, like eating, are not evil—they are simply not something “to die for.” We must eat, but one who only lives only to eat will eventually lose their capacity for the higher pleasures, and this will lead to a net decrease in pleasure experience. But what is worse, as one loses ones higher capaci- ties, society as a whole becomes less and less capable of producing as much happiness. Mill is ultimately optimistic about humans: “a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 4, l. 10). Of course, some humans live at an animal level of existence, but their happiness capacities are greatly diminished, as though they were sick or only half alive.

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7. I thank an anonymous reviewer for giving me that phrase for what I was thinking here.

8. With regard to exceptions, Mill says, “It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require o exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its laws . . . for accommodation to peculiarities of circum- stances” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 9).

9. Mill seems quite clear that one does not need to do utilitarian calculus for each and every action, but instead, we can rely on basic principles which we derive from seeing previous happiness results. As Mill says, “there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human species. During all that time mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, is dependent” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 5). To act as though we have no means of believing that the future will be like the past is akin to Hume’s skeptic which even Hume says we should ignore by playing a nice game of backgammon;—any reasonable person relies on sensibly construed expectations about the results of particular types of actions.

10. Yet, the utilitarian is capable of exceptions. One can imagine disobeying laws in a Nazi regime, for example, or lying to a psychopath in order to save a life. Such exceptions could be counted as such if they were obviously done for the greater good.

11. Bob Bates, former executive at Lincoln Financial. 12. This utilitarian response invokes rule utilitarianism, the view that

obeying certain rules is what we should do in a given situation—rules like “do not cry wolf” or “do not break promises” which, when followed, tend to make society a place more capable of producing happiness. However, Hartman criticizes this position, saying that rule utilitarianism is no better than act utilitarianism, “On the contrary, where it does differ from act utilitarianism, it may impose an obligation to do something futile because, although the result of everyone’s doing it would be good, not everyone will, and the good result will not happen” (Hartman 1996, p. 46).

13. In Utilitarianism, Mill says, “Justice remains the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly more important and therefore more absolute and imperative, than any others are ” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 38, l. 11). Justice is sought because a society which is just will be

355ANDREW GUSTAFSON

able to produce the most pleasure for its citizens. Mill says we will always seek a justice respecting society which provides rights (private property, liberty) and expects duties from people, such as the responsibility of the wealthy to pay more taxes than the less fortunate, because we know that these bring about a happier society. We preserve the right to a fair trial because by and large such a rule establishes a degree of order and fairness which then provide the greatest benefit to the many in the end. We are willing to sacrifice to preserve these principles because ultimately, we know that society will be better for respecting these than it would neglecting them.

14. My favorite class examples for the utilitarian argument for pre- serving principle is the movie Blackhawk Down in which the marines have a pledge to their men: “never leave a man behind” which they fulfill regardless of the danger to those attempting the rescue. The reason that the pledge is kept, despite risking the loss of more lives, is that the morale of the marine community in Mogadishu depended on that pledge being kept, despite its costs. It brought about greater happiness produc- tion than not sustaining it.

15. Mill, for example, suggests what he calls “experiments in living” where people try new and innovative ways of living in the world, not because he thinks that every one of those experiments will turn out to be a viable way to live, but because constant innovation and the provocation of the status quo are of overall value to society. (Mill 1999, p.103).

16. Bowie, for example, has claimed that utilitarians do not make distinctions between desires, and that if we had a majority racist society, “the intense desires of the racist majority would count more than the more passive desires of the oppressed”—especially if they were intense, Bowie says. Bentham does not distinguish desires, but I believe Mill’s higher–lower pleasure distinction is clearly meant to differentiate desires. I am not going to spend time here developing arguments that racist desires correspond to lower pleasures while desires like justice, fairness, and kindness are higher, but I think that the argument could be made quite easily in response to Bowie.

17. As for minority rights in particular, it should be noted that Mill does support the right of the minority over against the majority in his book, On Liberty, and he does support individual liberty on the basis that preserving liberty for minority opinions in society actually is beneficial to the majority: “But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion still more than

356 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW

those who hold it” (Mill 1999, p. 59). Really, these sorts of criticisms are rooted in the broader criticism of Mill that his concern for the greater good does not coincide well with his concern for individual liberties and rights, particularly of minorities. However, Mill argues that a society which does provide individual liberties, supports the minority, allows dissenting opinions, etc will be a stronger society more able to produce happiness. Mill’s entire argument in On Liberty is that the principle of liberty and freedom of dissent and minority concerns must be preserved on the basis of utilitarian pleasure. This is clear from chapter 2 of On Liberty.

18. It is hard to imagine an ethical auditor measuring if one has achieved perfect balance of the virtues of generosity, prudence, courage, modesty, kindness, honesty, etc when one is faced with deciding toward which of the many charities to give. It is hard to know how a Kantian would answer when asked what the specific maxim was he acted upon which he could consider universal when he chose to donate to United Way over Salvation Army.

19. Since writing this section, I have discovered Michael Slote’s chapter “satisficing consequentialism” in Common Sense Morality and Consequentialism, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) 35–59. It provides some thoughtful common sense means of appropriating satisficing theory to utilitarianism as well. His Beyond Maximizing (Harvard University Press, 1989) also develops some of this line of thought.

20. We know of this problem in many work situations where a per- fectionist has difficulties finishing a project because there is always “just one more thing to adjust” to make the project better. In such cases, we realize that it is better (and will bring about more happiness) to achieve the closer-at-hand satisfying result rather than perpetually put off the maximal result.

21. It seems that this is how we often make decisions in business. We want to open a new operation in town A, B, or C, and hire manager 1, 2, or 3 to run operations. We find that A or B make the most sense for various economic and other reasons, and managers 2 and 3 seem to be the best qualified and most dependable. What then is the right decision? A2, A3, B2, or B3? Is the utilitarian stuck? No. I think that at this point, one can just make a decision, and any of these are fine. We have eliminated a lot of options using utilitarian reasoning. We have narrowed it to a pool of satisfying decisions, and any will do. Economists and those in business know better than anyone that it is difficult to determine exact

357ANDREW GUSTAFSON

future outcomes—but this hardly keeps us from making good guesses based on previous experience. And we have to work with vagueness. Consider Friedman’s shareholder theory: we want to maximize share- holder value—but what is our target shareholder? The one who sells this evening? Next year? 2 years? 5 Years? 20 Years? The one who never sells? The policies which we would enact to ensure highest yield tonight would be quite different from those used to aim for highest yields in 20 years. Yet, we cannot aim at either of these exclusively. We just have to gener- ally aim to keep the stock strong and generally healthy. In the same way, as utilitarians, we try to provide a satisfactory outcome which benefits society as best as we can with our knowledge at hand.

22. Mill’s utilitarianism applied to business ethics really brings us to a broader conception of what business ethics is about. It is, on a utilitarian view, a question of what sort of world and people do want to become, in short, what world and what lives will bring about opportunity for the most pleasure capacity.

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Segregation

November 24, 2022/in Uncategorized /by SK

You are required to answer three questions from Part B. Write a short essay, at least 400 words long, for each answer, worth 5 points. Focus your response on the question; and, “own” your answers.
Answer any three of the following 8 questions.

1. Segregation, a social system based on a long history of prejudices and discrimination, was deeply entrenched in people’s minds as well as in the culture. How did segregation manifest itself in daily life in the South? How did segregation disenfranchise black Americans?

2. “Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, American society was sharply segregated along color lines. Supported by both law and custom, the Jim Crow system—late nineteenth-century rules and regulations that codified a long tradition of prejudice, dehumanization, and discrimination— created separate and unequal services, employment, and housing for blacks and whites. The first episode traces events that brought this discrimination and violence to public awareness and the awakening of the nascent civil rights movement. (Blackside, 1986, ‘Awakenings’)”.Considering the resultant context, what is the difference between desegregation and integration? What is required for each?

3. What is the evidence that American youth of college age participated in the ACRM during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s? Describe a youth organization you know participated in some of the biggest campaigns of the ACRM.

4. In his civil rights address of June 11, 1963, President Kennedy points to several contradictions inherent in twentieth-century American democracy. What were they? Why did they become especially significant in June 1963?

5. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, MLK wrote about the “degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’” prevalent among blacks in America. What did he mean by the term ‘nobodiness’? How, according to the King’s letter, do indignities like name-calling rob blacks of their individuality and humanity? Can you think of other examples in which people are made to feel like “nobodies” because of the way they’re treated?

6. “Four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for her defiant bus ride, local activists recruited a young minister to lead their struggle against segregation in Montgomery … twenty-six-year-old Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … to lead the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association … on December 5, 1955 … at the Holt Street Baptist Church … King … laid out the plan for the Montgomery bus boycott and a new vision for American democracy”. What kind of struggle did King propose? What principles did King cite as a foundation for the struggle?

7. Episode 5 of the video series EOTP explores the “voter registration drive and the racist backlash of intimidation and violence that followed”. What strategies were employed by activists during “Freedom Summer” to reverse years of intimidation, segregation, and discrimination in Mississippi? How did the various components of the program connect?

8. Is the American Civil Rights Movement over? Georgia Congressman John Lewis probably will answer “not yet”. Here is a link to a recent biography: https://johnlewis.house.gov/john-lewis/biography. Would you agree or disagree with the Congressman? Take a stand and explain why you agree or disagree

Extra Credit. 5 Points each. Answer only one of the following questions

9. Episode 6 of eyes on the prize, “bridge to freedom”… What different strategies did activists in Selma, Alabama use to draw national attention to discrimination in voting rights?

10. Would you recommend to others the course BST 204, Intro to African American History II – Great Depression to American Civil Rights Movement? Why or, why not? Considering your experience in that course, please explain in a short essay.

1

Health Finance

November 24, 2022/in Uncategorized /by SK

*Health Finance (HCM565)*easy A ID :HWM00255*Homework: critical thickening *need the pelgrism below 18%* Please read below articles below :

Chapter 4 in Understanding Healthcare Financial Managemen
Drummond, M., Augustovski, F., Kaló, Z., Yang, B., Pichon-Riviere, A., Bae, E., & Kamal-Bahl, S. (2015). Challenges faced in transferring economic evaluations to middle income countries. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 31(6), 442-448.

========================================================================assignment:Purchase Evaluation (100 point)

For this Critical Thinking assignment, imagine that you are tasked with evaluating a major purchase by your healthcare organization. You have been asked to share the process steps of your purchase evaluation with the board of directors.

For this project, the actual product you are purchasing is secondary to the steps used to evaluate the capability of your organization to afford such a purchase. However, to assist you with the constructs of this presentation, you may select a product to focus on. A recommended product may be a new MRI-machine. Be sure to highlight the time value of money as one of your considerations.

Develop a PowerPoint presentation meeting the following structural requirements. Your presentation must:

Be organized, using professional themes and transitions in addressing the evaluation of the purchase.
Consist of four slides, not including the title and reference slides (six total slides).
Provide in each slide detailed speakers notes—a minimum of 100 words in length. Notes must draw from, and cite, relevant reference materials.
Provide support for your statements with in-text citations from a minimum of four scholarly articles.
Two of these sources may be from the class readings, textbook, or lectures, but the others must be external.
The Saudi Digital Library is a good place to find these references.
Follow APA and Saudi Electronic University writing standards.

Assignment 2 Planned Evaluation Approach

Applying Ethical Frameworks

Segregation

Health Finance

Experience

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