Resilience and emergence in contemporary project evaluation: An epic battle between professional and political logics

Purpose – This study seeks to shed light on the increasing complexity of evaluation practices in the context of international development projects by exploring two competing evaluation logics—professional and political. This study then aims to provide greater understanding of 'how' and 'why' projects are really evaluated beyond the common and formal rhetoric expressed by mainstream stakeholders in the project evaluation context. Design/methodology/approach – This qualitative study was built upon a systematic review of the evaluation literature followed by an in-depth investigation of a phenomenon through the application of narrative inquiry approach. This research also benefits from the conceptual aid of the actor-network theory (ANT) in the examination of an international development project funded by the World Bank in Brazil. The ANT is used as a sensitizing concept to examine the emerging role of different human and non-human actors (such as the funder, sponsor, evaluators, government, project team, etc.) in the evaluation process of a large and complex project. Findings – This study found that evaluators and other key stakeholders must manage a competing battle between professional and political logics in which each actor pursues their own interests, attitudes, and approaches through the manipulation of the evaluation product (report or text). This research illustrates how an emergent transformation of an evaluation outcome occurs as a consequence of a constant contest between professional and political logics. This study articulates the evaluation practice as the collaborative sense-giving and sense-making processes in which both evaluators and evaluees enhance their understanding of the project and its outcome. Furthermore, this research also proposes that the evaluation outcome could be either enlightenment, legitimization, collusion, or a combination of these, depending on the result of the battle between professional and political logics. This work also integrates the findings into a concept map that demonstrates how different elements—such as evaluation motivation, purpose, value, politics, process, temporality, criteria, and actors—interact through collaborative sense-giving and sense-making processes to construct the final evaluation logics. Research limitations/implications – This research does not seek to propose a generalizable concept model or framework following the mindset of 'one size fits all'. Instead, this study offers both project evaluation scholars and practitioners a method to go beyond scientific paradigms and objective-subjective duality and consider evaluation practice through the lens of a social construction paradigm. This study opens up a new avenue toward the study of evaluation logics in an emergent and complex environment and allows for better understanding of the complexity of evaluation practice. Practical implications – The collaborative sense-giving and sense-making concept map developed in this study can assist evaluation practitioners to enhance their understanding of the increasing complexity of evaluation practice. This study also aims to assist evaluation practitioners with adopting a more resilient and adaptive approach toward the design and implementation of evaluation practices to address the emergent nature of societies. Originality/value – The originality of this study relies on transcending the conventional approaches toward project evaluation practice and enhancing this understanding of the two competing professional and political logics in the context of international development projects. The value of this research is that it sheds some light on the subjective process of translating the evaluation product to an outcome through the lens of sense-giving and sense-making processes.