BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE REVIEW - THE SEDUCTION OF RAW DATA

What do managers need from researchers, anyway? Frank P. Williams, Mar ilyn D. McShane, and Dale Sechrest contend that the keys to successful administrative practices for the future will be accountability and th e management of performance review. However, structural and philsophic al shifts in the role of evaluation research will be necessary to acco mmodate more effective use of the tremendous amount of data now availa ble to public administrators on a daily basis. Researchers or research units within agencies represent the most effective way for managers t o have data appropriately interpreted, yet, past experience has shown that building effective working relationships between research and man agement may not be easy. The authors explore the problems posed by lar ge databases and the reasons behind manager/researcher conflict, using agencies within the criminal justice system as an example. A solution to the problem of interpreting data is proposed.