[Evaluation of management capacity in social organizations: an in-process methodological proposal]

A bill for Public Sector Administrative Reform in Brazil introduces administrative strategies based on broad delegation of authority and "a posteriori" demands for results, thereby highlighting the issue of evaluation in public organizations. This article presents a methodological proposal to evaluate management capability in so-called social organizations, a kind of non-government public entity created within this Reform. Drafting of the bill included the definition of an underlying management concept and its dimensions, which oriented the construction of variables, indicators, parameters, and an analytical plan for evaluation. The final remarks include the argument that the conceptual choices and procedural decisions aim to produce an evaluation design that would guarantee the results' reliability and their sensitivity for approaching the phenomenon under evaluation, as well as the methodology's applicability and reproducibility in different contexts.