Article ID: | iaor20012101 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 51 |
Issue: | 6 |
Start Page Number: | 700 |
End Page Number: | 711 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2000 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Taket A., White L. |
Keywords: | community OR |
Operational research frequently has to deal with situations where the perceptions and views of the various stakeholders involved may be quite different. One such situation is provided by the case of the evaluation of the work of voluntary sector groups, where concepts such as quality are frequently held to be the desired objectives whose achievement should be evaluated, yet where quite different perceptions of these concepts are held by the various parties to the evaluation. Through the use of a case study, this paper illustrates how approaches to narrative analysis like actant analysis and deconstruction can be used alongside other soft OR methods to enable negotiation of common understandings of important concepts like quality.