ABSTRACT
Patricia Patrizi and Michael Patton introduce their edited book on evaluating strategywith an interesting anecdote about how they came to produce the book. In about 2008, chief executives of philanthropic foundationswanted evaluations of their organizations’ overall strategy. Evaluation had in the past been focusing on projects, programmes, products, policies and personnel. Patrizi and Patton could find ‘no evaluation literature that directly addressed evaluating strategy’ (Patrizi and Patton 2010: 1). On the other hand, they did find an emphasis on strategy everywhere (Patrizi
and Patton 2010: 1):
But once strategy had emerged as the focus, we noticed an emphasis on strategy wherever we looked, in government initiatives, not-for-profit conferences, international collaborations and, especially, private-sector leadership and management : : :Everywhere we looked, we saw a concern with being strategic: thinking strategically, acting strategically and being strategic, all of which led quite directly to evaluating strategically.
