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Predicament and Promise: The Internal Evaluator as Ethical Leader
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| Presenter(s):
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| Francis J Schweigert, Metropolitan State University, francis.schweigert@metrostate.edu
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| Abstract:
Internal evaluators can make a significant contribution to ethics within their organizations: there are risks but also great potential. I offer here an analysis of the predicament and promise of the internal evaluator, highlighting similarities between ethics and evaluation in order to clarify and strengthen the role of internal evaluators in the ethics of evaluation practice and the ethics of the organizations they serve.
In this paper, I first distinguish ethics from other values-related functions, namely, morals, markets, culture, and law. I then show how evaluation parallels ethics in examining questions of value under standards of public scrutiny. As the person specially commissioned within an organization to systematically question and listen on matters of value, the internal evaluator represents both external standards of inquiry and internal loyalties to organizational mission and membership. It can be a dangerous yet powerful position for advancing standards of value—in both evaluation and ethics.
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Dealing with Ethically Challenging Situations: The Value of Incorporating Democratic Process within an Evaluation
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| Presenter(s):
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| Biljana Zuvela, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, biljana.zuvela@cnib.ca
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| Abstract:
This session will provide a retrospective analysis of an internal evaluation of a partnership program between a vision rehabilitation organization and an independent ophthalmologist with the highly controversial issues and stakeholders' conflicting values and views. The focus of the presentation will be on what we did, or failed to do in trying to incorporate democratic process (inclusion, dialogue, deliberation) within the evaluation when we encountered ethically and politically challenging situation. We hope that by making our example open for discussion, our story will contribute to the impressive work in evaluation that supports inclusion, dialogue, deliberation and encourages evaluators to make ethical decisions when they encounter difficult situations that require a strong grounding in ethics and evaluation professionalism.
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