Chapter 9: Moving Forward, Looking Back

Through the reflections shared in the chapters of this book, readers are introduced to the many facets of J. Bradley Cousins’ scholarship, contributions to, and impact on the social sciences and the field of evaluation more specifically. In this concluding chapter, we synthesize these reflections in order to paint a clear, concise picture of his impact, and why it continues to matter a great deal to the field of evaluation, to evaluators new to the field, and to others who continue to make significant contributions to the field.

Consistent with Cousins’ own approach to building conceptual clarity and meaning, we reviewed the preceding chapters with the purpose of extracting key themes that describe, exemplify, and contextualize the essential contributions discussed by the chapter authors. From our analysis, we identified the following three themes: (1) people, referring to Cousins’ ethos of building relationships, collaborations, stakeholder involvement, and partnerships, as well as his focus on training and mentorship, (2) process, referring to Cousins’ practices that are integrative, generative, interdisciplinary, reflective, pragmatic, rigorous, and guided by multiyear research agendas; and (3) results, a theme referring to Cousins’ scholarly impact through sense-making, conceptual breakthroughs, syntheses and critical commentaries, which have contributed to advances in evaluation scholarship and practice. We then examined the interrelationship between these three themes, which led us to the creation of a conceptual framework (see Figure 9.1) that serves both as a summary and as a touchstone for those seeking to understand and perhaps model the actions and behaviors that have led to such significant impacts in our field. Each of the themes is further described below.