Empowerment Evaluation Essay: McDavid, Hawthorn, Lipsey

Empowerment Evaluation Essay: McDavid, Hawthorn, Lipsey
1.      Empowerment evaluation

According to McDavid and Hawthorn (2006), empowerment evaluation is the process through which an external program evaluator helps program managers and staff to evaluate their own program.   This is contrasted with the traditional methods of evaluation where the external evaluator would evaluate the programs independently and give the feedback later. Lipsey (2000)

Empowerment evaluation has a more positive impact on employee learning and performance than the traditional form of evaluation because it helps the managers and the staff feel in charge of the evaluation. This is because the external evaluator gives them the required quality controls and advice, which they learn from as they assess their progress. In contrast, traditional evaluators may just give a report on what the staff has done well and what they may have done wrong. For instance, while working as a teacher, external assessors have evaluated my teaching methods, classroom management and overall performance. Some of the evaluators just gave me reports while some of them assisted me evaluate my own performance. In the long run, I have benefitted more from those who coached me to evaluate my own progress than from those who just gave a report.

2.      Steps in an evaluation study

For my final project, I intend to use a corporate organization, Amazon Inc. My choice is informed by the relative success Amazon has experienced, placing it among the largest and most successful companies. Here are the mission and vision statements:

Mission: To continue offering high quality products using the best technology

Vision: To be the most customer centric company on earth

One of the areas of evaluation studies among Amazon employees would be to evaluate the relationships among them. This would include the effectiveness of communication and its effect their performance of duties

Another problem I would investigate would be on employees’ ability to control their emotions in the work place. The study would evaluate how the employees’ emotions affect their performance and whether there are changes that may be necessary.

 References

Lipsey, M. W. (2000). Method and rationality are not social diseases. The American Journal of Evaluation, 21 (2), 221-223.

McDavid, J.C., & Hawthorn, L.L. (2006). Program evaluation & performance measurement: An introduction to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.