/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 1 Agency, structure and logic in social scientific knowledge exchange The relationship between knowledge and

action has been of interest to scholars from the ancient Greeks onwards (Rich 1979) and sociologists have been concerned with the use of knowledge to improve society since the emergence of their profession in the 19th century (Weiss 1995). Marx, a social philosopher whose academic career was constrained by a political climate which made his prospects for obtaining a university post remote (Rockmore 2008), worked to change society through political activism (McLellan 2006). Durkheim effected change by reorganising academic structures, founding sociology as a university discipline and establishing the journal L'Anne sociologique through which he would influence academics working in other disciplines and, through them and their students, society as a whole (Thompson 2002). Towards the end of the 20th century social scientists began to recognise that despite their concern for the betterment of society, there was little evidence that their work was influencing public policy directly (Albaek 1995). In part, this may be due to empirical difficulties in measuring research use (Beyer & Trice 1982; Greenberg & Mandell 1991; Sunesson & Nilsson 1988), particularly where the research is used conceptually rather than instrumentally (Weiss 1979). In the traditional 'enlightenment' mode of knowledge production, the accumulation of knowledge is a good in itself which will lead eventually to social improvement. The problem is that a considerable amount of time may elapse between the conduct of social research and its use and "in the meantime the benefits to knowledge can be extremely unequally distributed" (Calhoun 2006). Consequently, there have been calls for a redefinition of scholarship and a reconsideration of academic priorities (Boyer 1990). In order to understand the gap between the knowledge produced by social science and the reality of public policy and professional practice, academics have produced progressively more complex models of the research-to-action or 'knowledge exchange' process (Nutley et al. 2007). Linear-rational stage models (Knott & Wildavsky 1980) have been succeeded by multi-dimensional characterisations of knowledge producer and user communities (Caplan 1979) and relational and interactive models (Lomas 2000). Revised modernist conceptions of research use blend a social constructivist emphasis on local knowledges, contexts and interpretations with traditional models of dissemination (Cousins & Simon 1996). These approaches stress the importance of 'sustained interactivity' which results from the development of mechanisms to link researchers and practitioners (Huberman 1994).

/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 2 Formal linking mechanisms include client-driven 'problem-solving' research (Weiss 1979), government scrutiny processes (Centre for Public Scrutiny 2005) and programme evaluation (Patton 1997). Less formal mechanisms which lead to the development of positive relationships between academics and practitioners include collaborative research projects in the form of engaged scholarship (Van de Ven & Johnson 2006) or a more flexible, relational scholarship (Bartunek 2007). However, many academics struggle with the diversity and diffusiveness of the many potential partners with which they might collaborate (Pettigrew 2011) and policy-makers say that they lack the time to engage with researchers (Sheldon & Chilvers 2001). Lists of organisational barriers to and facilitators of knowledge transfer abound in the literature (Crewe & Young 2002; Ferlie et al. 2012) but scholars have failed to find knowledge exchange strategies which are independent of context (Contandriopoulos et al. 2010), concluding that the best that can be hoped for at present is an identification of which sets of factors apply in which types of context (Oh 1997). A focus on process and context reflects the observation that human action is enabled and constrained by social structure (Giddens 1984) but deemphasises the role of individual agents in shaping their structure. Individuals express their agency and influence social structure by making strategic choices; they gain power and increase their influence by mobilising the support of others through purposive, reflexive organising (Whittington 1992). Through the process of organising they may construct new ways to influence social change; the social scientists engaged in the 'organic public sociology' described by Burawoy do not think of potential partners and publics as fixed, but as groups that can be created and transformed (Burawoy 2005). Organic public sociologists intervene where necessary -- where markets, media or bureaucracy have eroded group identities -- to create new publics. Faced with the scale and complexity of social problems and the unpredictable and contextdependent outcomes of knowledge exchange interventions, organic public sociologists co-construct a future with their publics. A focus on the structuring potential of agency emphasises the importance of understanding the organising behaviours of social scientists in an institutional environment characterised by pressure to conform to an imperative of disinterestedness (Merton 1979), weak incentives for external engagement and institutionalised bureaucracy (Lam 2000). Weber observed that scholarly life requires different qualities than do political or practical pursuits (Turner 2007) and the behaviours required for success within the academy may not be the same as those required to build partnerships in an external environment characterised by diversity and unpredictability. Although the relative autonomy afforded to scholars and the legitimacy conferred by domain expertise supports efforts to work across

/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 3 organisations and sectors (Williams 2002), scholars may fail to attain sufficient power within their institution to acquire sufficient autonomy, or having devoted their career to meeting the expectations of their peers they may consequently fail to develop an approach which helps them to succeed in the unbounded and unpredictable world outside the university setting. A logic which supports co-construction activity within an unpredictable context has been identified by Sarasvathy, who studied the heuristics used by successful entrepreneurs to structure their environments (Sarasvathy 2008). Where outcomes are difficult or impossible to predict but actors retain some degree of local control, an 'effectual' (as opposed to causal) logic involves the transformation of local resources into co-created goals by working with others who share a desire to build a possible future (Wiltbank et al. 2006). It is derived from an implicitly constructionist view of a malleable social world, with opportunities for change being made rather than discovered. When confronted with unpredictable situations, Sarasvathy found that entrepreneurs operate with a set of flexible heuristics: (i) they start with means rather than ends; (ii) they work on a basis of affordable loss rather than expected return; (iii) they view initial customers as partners, and vice versa; (iv) they ignore competition and stress partnerships; (v) they fabricate rather than find markets; (vi) they accept unanticipated ends rather than requiring a preselected goal (Sarasvathy 2001). An effectual logic based on the premise: "To the extent we can control the future, we do not need to predict it" (Sarasvathy 2001) may be problematic for scientists who are concerned with understanding the social world in order that the results of social interventions may be predicted. A future research strategy could seek to identify whether such a logic is in use by social scientists working within the organic public sociology model. In addition to understanding the context of 'hybrid' research groups such as ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London and the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King's College London, which view the forging of multilateral partnerships with policy-makers and practitioners as a central part of their function, an understanding of the logics utilised by their founders may illuminate the role of agency in building knowledge transfer structures. The action of individuals to establish of research groups within universities is a relatively understudied, and potentially informative, phenomenon.

Albaek, E., 1995. Between knowledge and power: Utilization of social science in

/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 4 public policy making. Policy Sciences, 28(1), pp.79100. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/index/U77Q2V8V153285X0.pdf. Bartunek, J.M., 2007. Academic-practitioner collaboration need not require joint or relevant research: Toward a relational scholarship of integration. The Academy of Management Journal, 50(6), pp.13231333. Beyer, J.M. & Trice, H.M., 1982. The utilization process: A conceptual framework and synthesis of empirical findings. Administrative Science Quarterly. Boyer, E., 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate, Burawoy, M., 2005. For Public Sociology. American Sociological Review, 70(1), pp.428. Calhoun, C., 2006. The University and the Public Good. Thesis Eleven, 84(1), pp.743. Caplan, N.S., 1979. The two-communities theory and knowledge utilization. American Behavioral Scientist. Centre for Public Scrutiny, 2005. The scrutiny map: charting the range and reach of scrutiny bodies across the public sector, Centre for Public Scrutiny. Contandriopoulos, D. et al., 2010. Knowledge exchange processes in organizations and policy arenas: A narrative systematic review of the literature. Milbank Quarterly, 88(4), pp.444483. Cousins, J.B. & Simon, M., 1996. The nature and impact of policy-induced partnerships between research and practice communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 18(3), pp.199218. Crewe, E. & Young, J.M., 2002. Bridging research and policy: context, evidence and links. Ferlie, E. et al., 2012. Knowledge mobilisation in healthcare: A critical review of health sector and generic management literature. Social Science and Medicine, 74(8), pp.12971304. Giddens, A., 1984. The Constitution of Society, Greenberg, D.H. & Mandell, M.B., 1991. Research utilization in policymaking: A tale of two series (of social experiments). Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 10(4), pp.633656. Huberman, M., 1994. Research utilization: The state of the art. Knowledge and Policy, 7(4), pp.1333. Knott, J. & Wildavsky, A.B., 1980. If Dissemination Is the Solution, What Is the Problem? Science Communication.

/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 5 Lam, A., 2000. Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework. Organization Studies, 21(3), pp.487513. Lomas, J., 2000. Using Linkage And Exchange To Move Research Into Policy At A Canadian Foundation. Health Affairs, 19(3), pp.236240. McLellan, D., 2006. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (4th Edition). kar.kent.ac.uk. Merton, R.K., 1979. Science and the Social Order. In The sociology of science: theoretical and empirical investigations. University of Chicago Press, pp. 113. Nutley, S.M., Walter, I. & Davies, H.T.O., 2007. Using Evidence: How Research Can Inform Public Services, The Policy Press. Oh, C.-H., 1997. Explaining the impact of policy information on policy-making. Knowledge and Policy. Patton, M.Q., 1997. Utilization-focused evaluation, Sage Publications, Inc. Pettigrew, A.M., 2011. Scholarship with Impact. British Journal of Management, 22, pp.347354. Rich, R.F., 1979. The Pursuit of Knowledge. Science Communication, 1(1), pp.630. Rockmore, T., 2008. Marx After Marxism: The Philosophy of Karl Marx, books.google.co.uk. Sarasvathy, S.D., 2001. Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), pp.243263. Sarasvathy, S.D., 2008. Effectuation: elements of entrepreneurial expertise, Edward Elgar Publishing. Sheldon, B. & Chilvers, R., 2001. Evidence-Based Social Care, Russell House Pub Limited. Sunesson, S. & Nilsson, K., 1988. Explaining Research Utilization Beyond Functions. Science Communication. Thompson, K., 2002. mile Durkheim, books.google.co.uk. Turner, S., 2007. Mertons `Norms in Political and Intellectual Context. Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(2), pp.161178. Van de Ven, A.H. & Johnson, P.E., 2006. Knowledge for Theory and Practice. The Academy of Management Review, 31(4), pp.802821. Weiss, C.H., 1995. The haphazard connection: Social science and public policy. International Journal of Educational Research, 23(2), pp.137150.

/ LITERATURE REVIEW / 6 Weiss, C.H., 1979. The Many Meanings of Research Utilization. Public Administration Review, 39(5), pp.426431. Whittington, R., 1992. Putting giddens into action: Social systems and managerial agency. Journal of Management Studies, 29(6), pp.693712. Williams, P., 2002. The competent boundary spanner. Public Administration, 80(1), pp.103124. Wiltbank, R. et al., 2006. What to do next? The case for non-predictive strategy. Strategic management journal, 27(10), pp.981998.