Assessing institutional ineffectiveness: A strategy for improvement

Abstract

Institutional change and improvement are motivated more by knowledge of problems than by knowledge of successes. Thus, negative feedback is more conducive to advancement than is positive feedback, as is evidenced by the fact that stress produced by negative performance feedback is seen as a necessary precondition for organizational learning.

Outcomes Evaluation: A Model for the Future

“…An interesting idea designed to avert this latter phenomenon was advanced by Kim Cameron (1984) in Assessing Institutional Ineffectiveness. She suggests the use of "fault tree analysis" in which weaknesses rather than strengths are identified because "institutional change and improvement are motivated more by knowledge of problems than by knowledge of successes; negative feedback is more conducive to advancement than is positive feedback."…”