Strategies for change in organizations often have unintended effects, and their intended effects are not always achieved. In this article, some aspects of the dynamics of such strategies are analyzed. Strategies are shown to be transformed in the course of processes of change, especially as a...

Often, administrative reform is guided by a 'blueprint approach'. Thinking about reform begins with an assessment of the actual situation. When present arrangements are found unfavourable, the question arises what a better administration would look like. In a subsequent design process,...

The focus of this article is organizational learning in Dutch governmental agencies in relation to evaluation studies of the Court of Audit. A theory is developed in which the impact of evaluation is related to institutional conditions, such as - formal arrangements and normative frameworks....

Debriefing is an important phase in gaming simulations. It is the activity where participants make the transfer from the experiences they acquired during the simulation to real life situations, or in other words, it is the phase where the actual learning has to take place. Therefore, due...

In recent years, the idea that public policy can be viewed as a horizontal and polycentric process (if not a series of interlocked processes) has become widely acknowledged in the field of public administration research. Still to be explored, however, are implications of this view for policy...

Policy processes evolve in highly institutionalized environments, and policy effects are generally shaped by these environments. Policy outcomes could therefore be expected to be patterned and even predictable. In practice, however, prediction of policy outcomes is difficult. In part this lack...