Exploring ministries’ use of research in policymaking - knowledge stock, circulation, or routines?

Abstract

This paper addresses the use of scientific knowledge in policy work as an organization-level phenomenon and draws on the absorptive capacity concept. Through an empirical study of 14 Norwegian ministries, we seek to understand how organizational characteristics and processes that may play a role for whether and how policy organisations use scientific knowledge in policy making. We make use of the distinction between potential and realized absorptive capacity, and we investigate the following issues: First, we explore whether the knowledge stocks of a government organization influence the propensity to acquire research. Second, we are interested in understanding if knowledge circulation activities influence the propensity to use research-based knowledge in government organizations. Finally, we will look at whether having specific organizational routines in place influences both knowledge acquisition and use in government organizations. Methodologically, we make a qualitative comparative analysis (Ragin, 1987; Rihoux and Ragin, 2012) of 14 ministries, based on both qualitative and quantitative data, including survey data from 1325 ministerial civil servants.