Policy entrepreneurship: empirical inquiry into policy agents and institutional structures

Marianne Van Der Steen and John Groenewegen

Journal of Innovation Economics, 2009, vol. n° 4, issue 2, 41-61

Abstract: This paper contributes to the discussion to what extent government organizations facilitate or hinder policy-oriented innovations and policy entrepreneurship. More specifically, we try to understand both the characteristics of entrepreneurial policy makers -who are able to break with the organizational routines and initiate new policies- and explore under what conditions these policy makers can be effective in their learning behavior. For this purpose, we provide an in-depth empirical analysis of policy entrepreneurs at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs from 1990 until1997. Our conclusion is that two archetypes of policy learning occurred: ?normal policy learning? and ?direct policy learning?, each associated with specific local institutional conditions and requiring specific attributes of the entrepreneurial policy makers. JEL Codes: L32, L26

Keywords: policy entrepreneurship; science and technology policy; institutional change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 L32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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