Nicoletta Stame
Biographic Data
| ID | 3436080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicoletta Stame |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicoletta |
| FAMILY NAME | Stame |
| SIGNATURE | STAME N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sapienza University of Rome |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2163-5828 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 165 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Program, complexity, and system when evaluating sustainable development
In light of the challenges of the Anthropocene, it is common today for evaluators to propose a systems rather than a program perspective. A program perspective is reproached for its simplicity and linearity, while the systems perspective is praised for its ability to account for complexity and emergence. This article argues that even before the systems perspective appeared on the horizon, the story of program evaluation had been characterized by …
Doubt, surprise, and the ethical evaluator
This article discusses the work of Judith Tendler, a development economist, consultant, and evaluator from the perspective of her contribution to evaluation research. It argues for her role as a forerunner of many contemporary evaluative concerns and the enduring vitality of her unconventional views. Her reflective practice is built on the doubt and surprise that emerge during fieldwork. It aimed to surface what worked in adverse conditions, and …
Strengthening the ethical expertise of evaluators
In today’s turbulent world the ethical contribution of evaluators needs to be strengthened. Evaluators have been constrained making judgments that take account of values and morality by the fact/value dichotomy and other positivist social science precepts. Too often evaluation confines itself to assessing whether objectives set by program designers are achieved. In evaluation, valuing has to support improvement and learning that encourages societ…
Exploring ethical issues and conditions for institutionalizing evaluation in the public sector
When addressing evaluation ethics, both the literature and existing ethics codes focus on evaluators’ conduct. This risks undermining the evaluator’s position vis-à-vis programme managers and evaluation commissioners, without addressing major ethical issues. This study indicates that the factors influencing ethical choices include institutional settings and organizational arrangements. Evidence was collected from an institutionalization of evalua…
Evaluation, Language, and Untranslatables
The issue of translatability is pressing in international evaluation, in global transfer of evaluative instruments, in comparative performance management, and in culturally responsive evaluation. Terms that are never fully understood, digested, or accepted may continue to influence issues, problems, and social interactions in and around and after evaluations. Their meanings can be imposed or reinvented. Untranslatable terms are not just “lost in …
Standing back and looking forward
For us this is a special issue at a particular moment: the journal Evaluation is marking its 20th anniversary, an occasion that challenges us to stand back and take stock – and to do so in a more nuanced way than the Social Science Citation Index on its own allows.1 It offers an opportunity to reflect on the aspirations that launched Evaluation back in 1995, on where we are now, and where we might be going. As the editors of this special annivers…
Positive Thinking Approaches to Evaluation and Program Perspectives
This article deals with the relationship between approaches to evaluation and program perspectives. When evaluated by traditional approaches, programs based on a “direct help” perspective, oriented toward addressing deficits, tend to yield the depressing result that “nothing works.” Programs based on an “indirect help” perspective, favouring people's active involvement, require evaluation approaches that are able to value innovation and change, s…
Nota su "Meccanismi invisibili" di Ray Pawson
This essay is a brief introduction to Ray Pawson's work. His contribution is considered from the viewpoint of the development of the realistic evaluation approach and the in depth study of two pillars: context and mechanism. In particular, the theme of mechanism is addressed in consideration of its broad meaning, and includes mechanisms that at first glance are seemingly counterintuitive, but in fact correspond to the difficult path of program re…
Broadening the range of designs and methods for impact evaluations
Introducing the study'rigorous' experimental methodology) and a 'substantive definition' (the DAC's, that does not require a particular methodology
What Doesn’t Work? Three Failures, Many Answers
Current debates on impact evaluation have addressed the question ‘what works and what doesn’t?’ mainly focussing on methodology failures when providing evidence of impact. In order to answer that question, this article contrasts different approaches to evaluation in terms of the way they address different kinds of possible failures. First, there is more to be debated than simply methodological failures: there are also programme theory failures an…
The European Project, Federalism and Evaluation
The US federalist system has been at the origin of evaluation in many ways: providing a laboratory for experimentation of innovative policies, and requiring evaluation of the growing federal intervention from the War on Poverty onwards. Evaluation approaches have been developed that took into consideration the multiple forms of collaboration activated by the federalist system.This experience offers a benchmark for considering evaluation of EU pol…
Governance, Democracy and Evaluation
Theory-Based Evaluation and Types of Complexity
Theory-based evaluations have helped open the ‘black box’ of programmes. An account is offered of the evolution of this persuasion, through the works of Chen and Rossi, Weiss, and Pawson and Tilley. In the same way as the ‘theory of change’ approach to evaluation has tackled the complexity of integrated and comprehensive programmes at the community level, it is suggested that a theory-oriented approach based on the practice of realistic cumulatio…
The Sixth European Evaluation Society Conference on ‘Governance, Democracy and Evaluation’
Evaluation and the Policy Context
My talk today deals with the European experience with evaluation. A few points are necessary to frame what I am going to talk about
Household and Small Business Across the Disciplines
Households, which are seen as income pooling units (Wallerstein, Martin, Dickinson 1982), play a crucial role in the world-system analysis. Individuals enjoy income that accrues to their households, a unit embedded in a network of different social relationships among people, kin or not kin, living under the same roof or sharing some important living function. Thus, social relations are seen as ways of obtaining different types of income (wages, r…
Evaluation in Italy
The management of public affairs in Italy today is characterized by a demand for transparency and accountability, and by a desire to learn to manage the instruments of intervention today available to society. This emphasizes the need to evaluate the effectiveness and the results of policies and programs, which is not, however, matched by adequate knowledge of the methods or by sufficiently creative approaches. This social deficit in evaluation ha…
Broadening the range of designs and methods for impact evaluations
Introducing the study'rigorous' experimental methodology) and a 'substantive definition' (the DAC's, that does not require a particular methodology
Theory-Based Evaluation and Types of Complexity
Theory-based evaluations have helped open the ‘black box’ of programmes. An account is offered of the evolution of this persuasion, through the works of Chen and Rossi, Weiss, and Pawson and Tilley. In the same way as the ‘theory of change’ approach to evaluation has tackled the complexity of integrated and comprehensive programmes at the community level, it is suggested that a theory-oriented approach based on the practice of realistic cumulatio…
The European Project, Federalism and Evaluation
The US federalist system has been at the origin of evaluation in many ways: providing a laboratory for experimentation of innovative policies, and requiring evaluation of the growing federal intervention from the War on Poverty onwards. Evaluation approaches have been developed that took into consideration the multiple forms of collaboration activated by the federalist system.This experience offers a benchmark for considering evaluation of EU pol…
What Doesn’t Work? Three Failures, Many Answers
Current debates on impact evaluation have addressed the question ‘what works and what doesn’t?’ mainly focussing on methodology failures when providing evidence of impact. In order to answer that question, this article contrasts different approaches to evaluation in terms of the way they address different kinds of possible failures. First, there is more to be debated than simply methodological failures: there are also programme theory failures an…
Strengthening the ethical expertise of evaluators
In today’s turbulent world the ethical contribution of evaluators needs to be strengthened. Evaluators have been constrained making judgments that take account of values and morality by the fact/value dichotomy and other positivist social science precepts. Too often evaluation confines itself to assessing whether objectives set by program designers are achieved. In evaluation, valuing has to support improvement and learning that encourages societ…
Standing back and looking forward
For us this is a special issue at a particular moment: the journal Evaluation is marking its 20th anniversary, an occasion that challenges us to stand back and take stock – and to do so in a more nuanced way than the Social Science Citation Index on its own allows.1 It offers an opportunity to reflect on the aspirations that launched Evaluation back in 1995, on where we are now, and where we might be going. As the editors of this special annivers…
Evaluation and the Policy Context
My talk today deals with the European experience with evaluation. A few points are necessary to frame what I am going to talk about
Governance, Democracy and Evaluation
Evaluation, Language, and Untranslatables
The issue of translatability is pressing in international evaluation, in global transfer of evaluative instruments, in comparative performance management, and in culturally responsive evaluation. Terms that are never fully understood, digested, or accepted may continue to influence issues, problems, and social interactions in and around and after evaluations. Their meanings can be imposed or reinvented. Untranslatable terms are not just “lost in …
Program, complexity, and system when evaluating sustainable development
In light of the challenges of the Anthropocene, it is common today for evaluators to propose a systems rather than a program perspective. A program perspective is reproached for its simplicity and linearity, while the systems perspective is praised for its ability to account for complexity and emergence. This article argues that even before the systems perspective appeared on the horizon, the story of program evaluation had been characterized by …
The Sixth European Evaluation Society Conference on ‘Governance, Democracy and Evaluation’
Evaluation in Italy
The management of public affairs in Italy today is characterized by a demand for transparency and accountability, and by a desire to learn to manage the instruments of intervention today available to society. This emphasizes the need to evaluate the effectiveness and the results of policies and programs, which is not, however, matched by adequate knowledge of the methods or by sufficiently creative approaches. This social deficit in evaluation ha…
Household and Small Business Across the Disciplines
Households, which are seen as income pooling units (Wallerstein, Martin, Dickinson 1982), play a crucial role in the world-system analysis. Individuals enjoy income that accrues to their households, a unit embedded in a network of different social relationships among people, kin or not kin, living under the same roof or sharing some important living function. Thus, social relations are seen as ways of obtaining different types of income (wages, r…
Evaluation and the Policy Context
My talk today deals with the European experience with evaluation. A few points are necessary to frame what I am going to talk about
Theory-Based Evaluation and Types of Complexity
Theory-based evaluations have helped open the ‘black box’ of programmes. An account is offered of the evolution of this persuasion, through the works of Chen and Rossi, Weiss, and Pawson and Tilley. In the same way as the ‘theory of change’ approach to evaluation has tackled the complexity of integrated and comprehensive programmes at the community level, it is suggested that a theory-oriented approach based on the practice of realistic cumulatio…
The Sixth European Evaluation Society Conference on ‘Governance, Democracy and Evaluation’
Governance, Democracy and Evaluation
The European Project, Federalism and Evaluation
The US federalist system has been at the origin of evaluation in many ways: providing a laboratory for experimentation of innovative policies, and requiring evaluation of the growing federal intervention from the War on Poverty onwards. Evaluation approaches have been developed that took into consideration the multiple forms of collaboration activated by the federalist system.This experience offers a benchmark for considering evaluation of EU pol…
What Doesn’t Work? Three Failures, Many Answers
Current debates on impact evaluation have addressed the question ‘what works and what doesn’t?’ mainly focussing on methodology failures when providing evidence of impact. In order to answer that question, this article contrasts different approaches to evaluation in terms of the way they address different kinds of possible failures. First, there is more to be debated than simply methodological failures: there are also programme theory failures an…
Nota su "Meccanismi invisibili" di Ray Pawson
This essay is a brief introduction to Ray Pawson's work. His contribution is considered from the viewpoint of the development of the realistic evaluation approach and the in depth study of two pillars: context and mechanism. In particular, the theme of mechanism is addressed in consideration of its broad meaning, and includes mechanisms that at first glance are seemingly counterintuitive, but in fact correspond to the difficult path of program re…
Broadening the range of designs and methods for impact evaluations
Introducing the study'rigorous' experimental methodology) and a 'substantive definition' (the DAC's, that does not require a particular methodology
Positive Thinking Approaches to Evaluation and Program Perspectives
This article deals with the relationship between approaches to evaluation and program perspectives. When evaluated by traditional approaches, programs based on a “direct help” perspective, oriented toward addressing deficits, tend to yield the depressing result that “nothing works.” Programs based on an “indirect help” perspective, favouring people's active involvement, require evaluation approaches that are able to value innovation and change, s…
Standing back and looking forward
For us this is a special issue at a particular moment: the journal Evaluation is marking its 20th anniversary, an occasion that challenges us to stand back and take stock – and to do so in a more nuanced way than the Social Science Citation Index on its own allows.1 It offers an opportunity to reflect on the aspirations that launched Evaluation back in 1995, on where we are now, and where we might be going. As the editors of this special annivers…
Exploring ethical issues and conditions for institutionalizing evaluation in the public sector
When addressing evaluation ethics, both the literature and existing ethics codes focus on evaluators’ conduct. This risks undermining the evaluator’s position vis-à-vis programme managers and evaluation commissioners, without addressing major ethical issues. This study indicates that the factors influencing ethical choices include institutional settings and organizational arrangements. Evidence was collected from an institutionalization of evalua…
Evaluation, Language, and Untranslatables
The issue of translatability is pressing in international evaluation, in global transfer of evaluative instruments, in comparative performance management, and in culturally responsive evaluation. Terms that are never fully understood, digested, or accepted may continue to influence issues, problems, and social interactions in and around and after evaluations. Their meanings can be imposed or reinvented. Untranslatable terms are not just “lost in …
Strengthening the ethical expertise of evaluators
In today’s turbulent world the ethical contribution of evaluators needs to be strengthened. Evaluators have been constrained making judgments that take account of values and morality by the fact/value dichotomy and other positivist social science precepts. Too often evaluation confines itself to assessing whether objectives set by program designers are achieved. In evaluation, valuing has to support improvement and learning that encourages societ…
Doubt, surprise, and the ethical evaluator
This article discusses the work of Judith Tendler, a development economist, consultant, and evaluator from the perspective of her contribution to evaluation research. It argues for her role as a forerunner of many contemporary evaluative concerns and the enduring vitality of her unconventional views. Her reflective practice is built on the doubt and surprise that emerge during fieldwork. It aimed to surface what worked in adverse conditions, and …
Program, complexity, and system when evaluating sustainable development
In light of the challenges of the Anthropocene, it is common today for evaluators to propose a systems rather than a program perspective. A program perspective is reproached for its simplicity and linearity, while the systems perspective is praised for its ability to account for complexity and emergence. This article argues that even before the systems perspective appeared on the horizon, the story of program evaluation had been characterized by …
Evaluation and Performance Assessment (13 works) · Political science (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Economics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Public Administration (6 works)