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The authors compare perspectives on external evaluation of health service provision between Norway and the USA. External inspection and accreditation are examples of internationally wide-spread external evaluation methods used to assess the quality of care given to patients. Different countries have different national policy strategies and arrangements set up to do these evaluations. Although there is growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, there is still a gap in knowledge to how structures and processes influence these outcomes. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to describe the structures and processes in external evaluation designed to promote quality improvement in Norway and the USA with attention to comparison of enablers and barriers in external evaluation systems.

Data collection consisted of documentary evidence retrieved from governmental policies, and reviews of the Joint Commission (the US), international guidelines, recommendations and reports from the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and the World Health Organization, and policies and regulations related to Norwegian governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, and the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision . Data were analyzed inspired by a deductive, direct content analytical framework.

The authors found that both accreditation and inspection are strategies put in place to ensure that healthcare providers have adequate quality systems as well as contributing to the wider risk and safety enhancing management and implementation processes in the organizations subjected to evaluation. The US and the Norwegian external regulatory landscapes are complex and include several policymaking and governing institutions. The Norwegian regulatory framework for inspection has replaced an individual blame logic with a model which “blames” the system for inadequate quality and patient harm. This contrasts with the US accreditation system, which focuses on accreditation visits. Although findings indicate an ongoing turning point in accreditation, findings also demonstrate that involving patients and next of kin directly in adverse event inspections is a bigger part of a change in external inspection culture and methods than in processes of accreditation.

The message of this paper is important for policymakers, and bodies of inspection and accreditation because knowledge retrieved from the comparative document study may contribute to better understanding of the implications from the different system designs and in turn contribute to improving external evaluations.

Although there is a growing attention to the impact and effects on quality and safety from external evaluation, the implications of different regulatory strategies and arrangements for evaluation on quality and safety remain unclear.

This study aims to examine the influence of the following on the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation, namely, the timing of adoption of external board evaluation, type of evaluators and the independence of external facilitators.

The statements on board evaluation in annual reports of a sample of FTSE 350 companies were content analysed to measure the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation. This paper then used descriptive analysis and inferential statistics to demonstrate the possible association between the timing of adoption, as well as the type and independence of external facilitators and the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation.

Results reveal some effects of the timing of adoption, as well as the type and independence of external facilitators on the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation.

Shareholders should be aware of the timing of adoption, as well as consider the types and independence of external facilitators, given their influence on the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation. Regulatory authorities should provide more specific guidance on what types of professional organisations can be engaged as external facilitators and on the implementation of externally facilitated board evaluation, to promote its quality.

Several studies have provided theoretical accounts on how board evaluation should be conducted to ensure its effectiveness. However, there is a dearth of empirical literature, which examines the quality of externally facilitated board evaluation. This study develops a quality measure for externally facilitated board evaluation and shows the effect of the timing of adoption, types and independence of external facilitators on its quality. The study forges ahead institutional theorising of external board evaluation.

Many industries are increasingly affected by or even invite the participation of external stakeholders in the innovation process. The concepts of open innovation use the ideas of external stakeholders to foster innovation and make the firms more competitive. However, little research has considered whether evaluations from external stakeholders also serve as a source for open innovation and, and if so, in which way they are integrated into the innovation process. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how external evaluations influence the innovation process in the creative industries.

The authors conducted an explorative qualitative study using a mixture of an inductive and deductive research design. The authors interviewed 14 artists in order to understand how external evaluations are integrated in the innovation process.

The paper formulates propositions on factors that influence whether and how external evaluations are a resource for the innovation process in micro-firms. The factors are the situation of the individual that is evaluated, the external evaluator’s credibility, the content of the evaluation, and the potential impact of the evaluation on the individual evaluated.

This paper provides exploratory insights into a so far neglected source of open innovation and its external evaluations in micro-firms in the creative industries.

Increased investments in employee further training have resulted in a growing interest in ensuring and improving the quality of these measures. However, little is known about the operational decision to initiate an evaluation of further training. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate under which circumstances firms decide to evaluate training measures.

The study analyzes the evaluation decision of firms and external suppliers, and differentiates between internal and external further trainings. Theoretically, two goals of evaluations – monitoring and feedback – and their relevance for the decision makers are considered. Using a unique linked employer–employee data set, the study employs multi-level models to analyze three influencing factors on the evaluation decision: characteristics of the further training measure itself, the employees and the employers.

The results show that evaluation decisions are not based on general organizational practices but on case-by-case cost-benefit considerations. Interestingly, firms are more likely to evaluate internal further training measures than external ones. Therefore, evaluations seem to be more frequently used as a feedback instrument than for the purpose of monitoring. For external further training measures, firms seem to trust market mechanisms as a monitoring instrument, instead of conducting an internal evaluation.

Although further training has become increasingly important, little is known about firms’ quality management in this respect. This paper provides a theoretical framework for the usage of evaluation procedures and analyzes firms’ strategies for ensuring quality based on a large set of variables to give new insight into the organizational decision-making processes.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine more closely the tension between, on the one hand, forms of internal school improvement based on internal evaluation measures and, on the other hand, control and legitimisation needs grounded on external evaluation measures.

The clash of these forms of evaluation is at the core of the paper, dealing in particular with the changing evaluation systems in the Cypriot education system. Therefore, the case study approach is utilised here. More specifically, the case of Cyprus is used as a system under transition in order to move from a primarily teacher inspection system, which is externally driven, to a combination of a teacher/school inspection system, which is based on both external and internal processes and is directed at both formative and summative evaluation processes.

It is asserted that the new proposed appraisal system for Cyprus addresses the deficiencies of the current evaluation system and generally aims at achieving a balance between external and internal processes. Finally, the conditions for the acceptance and successful implementation of new evaluation systems are described.

The results of the study constitute a rich setting of future developments for Cyprus schools with regard to important issues such as school accountability, school improvement, teacher evaluation, internal school evaluation and external inspection, through the proposed appraisal system. Therefore, the paper provides an important source of information for those who have the responsibility of creating educational policy and planning for the years to come in the area of teacher appraisal.

In Saudi Arabia, technical education is managed by Technical and Vocational Training Corporation. However, there is no independent accrediting body to accredit the technical institutes and assure its quality, which causes the lack of unified quality assurance standards and manageable quality improvement processes. The purpose of this paper is to propose self-evaluation standards to help the technical institutes to evaluate their performance.

The author has used a brainstorming technique of local practitioners in quality assurance. Such technique was performed by adopting DACUM that stands for “Developing A CurriculUM”. The author has used a heuristic educational and training process as the foundation of the standards and processes development, namely; curriculum, environment, training managements, and instructors. A team has been established that has been trained locally and abroad on the quality assurance standards and processes. The team studied several quality frameworks of the different countries to come up with guidelines for quality self-evaluation and standards.

The author has found that such an approach is a very effective tool for improving the institutes' performance and gives them the flexibility to decide about their missions. Most of institutes' staff is reluctant to participate in the self-evaluation process because of the fear it may reveal their weaknesses, but with encouragement and motivation especially from the top management they tend to participate in such a process. Self-evaluation helps the educational institutes to be benchmarked with other international institutions, in which good practices may be adopted by the institutes' managements to achieve their vision.

The proposed approach can help the technical education institutes to manage their quality system. In addition, the implementation of such an approach might be the starting point to develop a quality system framework for the technical education in Saudi Arabia. However, further investigation is needed to measure whether applying such standards may help the technical education institutes to meet the required quality standards to attain an accreditation from the international quality agencies.

The proposed guidelines for quality standards and processes is a contribution in the accreditation and quality assurance processes for many public and private institutions in Saudi Arabia. In addition, it is an important step to standardize the quality processes.