Framing Strategies of Think Tanks: A Case Study
JETTA FROST
University of Hamburg
Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
Department of Business and Economics
Institute of Public and Personnel Management
Chair of Organization and Management
Von-Melle-Park 5
20146 Hamburg
Germany
Phone ++40 / 42838 – 7435
Fax ++40 / 42838 – 7433
E-Mail [email protected]
RICK VOGEL
University of Hamburg
Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
Department of Business and Economics
Institute of Public and Personnel Management
Chair of Organization and Management
Von-Melle-Park 5
20146 Hamburg
Germany
Phone ++40 / 42838 – 7017
Fax ++40 / 42838 – 7433
E-Mail [email protected]
Paper to be presented at
CREMA
Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts
Zürich, November 24, 2007
2
Abstract
To sustain their survival in the knowledge economy, strategies of linking exploration and
exploitation become crucial for many organizations, among them, to a rising extent, researchintensive organizations. In this paper, we focus on think tanks as intermediaries between
exploration and exploitation, questioning the strategies they have developed to link both. In
doing so, we depart from previous research on think tanks in political science and relocate the
issue in organizational studies. We argue that think tanks make use of framing to pursue their
mission. In a case study design, we investigate the framing strategy of a think tank which has
played a decisive role in the modernization of the German public sector. We select
publications by means of their bibliometric impact and apply an interpretive textual analysis
on them to reveal the frames they serve as vehicles for. As a result, three stages of the framing
process can be distinguished. With the support of framing strategies, the focal think tank
triggers the exploitation of an explorative concept, resulting in a remarkable diffusion rate in
practice.
Keywords
exploration and exploitation; framing strategies; think tanks; research-intensive organizations;
case study; new public management; Germany; bibliometrics
3
1
Introduction
Balancing exploration and exploitation is viewed as one of the most important tasks of both
management and technology policy (e.g. Gupta, Smith, & Shalley, 2006; March, 1999;
Nooteboom, 2000). Although exploration and exploitation have emerged as twin concepts,
specialization in one of these processes is an alternative to “ambidexterity,” i.e. the
simultaneous pursuit of both. Obviously, research-intensive organizations like universities,
public and private institutes or industrial labs tend to dominate in exploration. This partly
holds true by definition: exploration is sometimes explicitly seen as analogous to research (the
“R” in R&D), whereas exploitation is assumed to correspond with development, i.e. the
utilization of existing knowledge in new products or processes (Garcia, Calantone, & Levine,
2003). Exploration refers to the search for new knowledge while exploitation refers to the
ongoing use of the researched knowledge base (Vermeulen & Barkema, 2001).
Notwithstanding, research-intensive organizations are forced to link their explorative
activities to exploitation for organizational survival (March, 1991). Even if they do not pursue
those exploitative activities on their own, they have to link their explorative activities across
different organizational domains which focus on high levels of exploitation (Benner &
Tushman, 2003). As such, research-intensive organizations must be interdependent with other
organizational domains for balancing the need for both exploration and exploitation.
However, there are remarkable differences in the extent to which they are concerned with
exploitation.
To examine how the interplay between the two occurs, we focus on a type of researchintensive organizations which, though explorative in nature, controls complementary
resources to ensure that the output of their exploration is not wasted but handed over to other
organizational domains for exploitation. These organizations are think tanks as non-profit
private and public organizations which examine and analyse controversial social and
4
economic issues in an explorative manner and disseminate their various knowledge products
targeted to other domains, i.e. organizations and decision-makers in politics, administration,
and business (Thunert, 2004). A think tank clearly fails to accomplish its mission if its
explorative ideas and concepts keep being unexploited. Therefore, think tanks act, by their
very mission, in the interface of exploration and exploitation where they are constantly
concerned with linking both.
The aim of our paper is to examine the strategies think tanks have to develop to
balance exploration and exploitation across different organizational domains. Until now, think
tanks have almost exclusively been object of investigation in political science. We depart
from that previous research by re-locating the issue within organization studies, analysing
think tanks mainly with regard to their mediating role between exploration and exploitation.
We argue that think tanks make use of frames to complete this mission. Relying on framing
theory, we examine framing strategies to link exploration and exploitation. To elaborate our
arguments, we accomplish a single-case study on a think tank which has been a leading
reform promoter in the modernization of the German public sector. We select publications by
means of their bibliometric impact and apply an interpretive textual analysis on them to reveal
the frames they serve as vehicles for.
The paper is organized as follows: In the next section, we draw in more detail on the
interplay between exploration and exploitation and give reasons why think tanks act as
intermediaries between these twin processes. In section 3, we investigate how research on
framing can contribute to strategies of balancing exploration and exploitation. In section 4, we
present our single-case study. Firstly, we briefly sketch the investigated think tank and its
background in public sector modernization in Germany. Secondly, we document our data and
method. We use the case study method because it allows us to elaborate carefully the
circumstances in which framing strategies offer potential for explanation. Thirdly, we present
5
our results by revealing the framing strategy pursued by the focal think tank, thereby
distinguishing three stages of the process. In section 5, we discuss the results and line up main
contributions which can be drawn to several areas of research. We end up with some
recommendations on how framing may become part of the strategic repertoire of other
research-intensive organizations to successfully link exploration and exploitation.
2
Think tanks between exploration and exploitation
Since the seminal works of Levinthal and March (Levinthal & March, 1993; March, 1991),
the terms of exploration and exploitation have become increasingly dominant for analysing
organizational learning and knowledge processes, innovation, organizational adaptation and
survival (Auh & Menguc, 2005; Gilsing & Nooteboom, 2006; Gupta et al., 2006; Jansen, Van
Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2006). Explorative activities are associated with terms like
discovery, experimentation, innovation and search, resulting in the production of new
knowledge. In contrast, activities of exploitation refer to the utilization of already existing
knowledge. It is captured by such terms as implementation, execution and refinement.
The question how the interplay between exploration and exploitation occurs
presupposes a careful specification of the unit of analysis in defining where exploration and
exploitation activities take place. We focus on a multiple organizational domain approach. We
start with the every day observation that think tanks operate within a broader social system
and as such are interdependent with many other organizational domains. We argue that
exploration and exploitation can take place in different organizational domains. We analyze
think tanks which, though explorative in nature, control mutually complementary resources to
ensure that the output of their exploration is not wasted but handed over to other
organizational domains for exploitation. They act in the interface of exploration and
exploitation where they are constantly concerned with linking both.
6
Up to now, think tanks have accorded scholarly investigation almost solely in political
science (Abelson, 2002; McGann & Weaver, 2000; Stone, 1998; Stone & Denham, 2004).
This research is strongly rooted in the tradition of the American political system in which
think tanks have fulfilled a decisive function in policy-making for a long time, often
illustrated with prominent examples such as Brookings Institution, RAND, or Heritage
Foundation (e.g. Abelson, 2002: 36-42). Accordingly, the notion of think tank commonly
refers to research institutes which are engaged in policy-related issues by offering their
expertise in the hope of influencing decision-making in the political process. Their mission is
understood as one of informing and influencing through the spread of ideas and arguments
rather than direct lobbying (Stone, 2004: 3). Think tanks preferably disseminate their
knowledge in form of reports, surveys, edited books, newspaper and journal articles,
newsletters, lectures, hearings, interviews, personal advices and coaching.
We depart from previous research in political science in at least two (admittedly
heavily interconnected) points. First, in influencing political decision-making, we see rather a
mean than a goal. In our view, think tanks are ultimately interested in the transitional
consequences of these decisions, i.e. in social and economic change by exploitation of
innovative ideas and concepts. Second, the target groups of think tanks do not only consist of
politicians. In principle, any decision-maker with property rights of resources that can be
employed for exploitation potentially belongs to the target group of think tanks. In both
aspects, we assume previous research on think tanks to be far too narrow. Analysing think
tanks from an organization studies’ point of view, we are able to contribute to different
disciplinary approaches dealing with the subject of think tanks, among them anthropology,
economics and sociology (Stone, 2004: 1).
In recent years, the number of think tanks has grown almost explosively, leading to a
world-wide spread of this kind of organization. However, by becoming an ubiquitous
7
phenomenon, the range of goals, functions, size and structures of think tanks has expanded
considerably, depending on the cultural context they are embedded in. As a consequence of
this diversity, the notion of think tank has become barely definable, being an “ambiguous
category” (Weaver & McGann, 2000: 4), a “slippery” (Stone, 2004: 2) or “elastic term”
(Stone, 2007: 262). This has in part led to an expansion of the think tank category,
progressively including other types of knowledge-intensive organizations such as
consultancies or professional associations (Stone, 2007). We adopt an organizational view and
aim at highlighting their intermediating role between exploration and exploitation.
The intermediating role of think tanks is exposed when questioning the reasons for
their proliferation in almost every part of the world. Among other factors, the increasing
complexity of decision-making, running in tandem with a rapidly growing availability of
information (Castells, 1996), boosts the demand for expertise. The distinct tendency towards
the “knowledge society” (Stehr, 1994), indicated by the raise in importance of knowledgeintensive work and products (Alvesson, 2004), has led to an increasing significance of experts
and consultants who act as mediators by “bringing ideas quickly and decisively into public
focus, brokering their ideas in the context of different spheres of influence” (Osborne, 2004:
435). In part, this mediating function has always been accomplished by intellectuals, in
contemporary as well as in previous societies. In a noteworthy article of 1949, Hayek
describes these “professional second hand dealers in ideas” as having “all-pervasive
influence” (Hayek, 1949: 417, 419). In the rise of the knowledge society, the intermediary
role intellectuals have been playing (and, of course, will still be playing in the future) is to a
rising extent adopted by think tanks. From this perspective, the world-wide spread of think
tanks indicates a professionalizing of intermediary functions in knowledge networks, – and
thus the “linking pins” between different organizational domains – relocating them in an
organizational category (Stone, 2002a, 2002b). Facing the complexity, ambiguity and fragility
of social (especially economic) systems which are progressively driven by knowledge (Stehr,
8
1994), knowledge intermediation becomes an organized endeavour that exceeds the capacity
of individual intellectuals.
The intermediating role of think tanks appears when they are referred to as “catalysts”
(Thunert, 2000), “idea brokers” (James, 1993), “translators” (Stone, 2004: 7) or “mediators”
(Stone, 2007: 276). Think tanks own their rise in importance to an overload rather than to a
lack of information. Facing social and economic issues, decision-makers constantly demand
understandable, reliable, accessible and useful information (Weaver et al., 2000: 2). Think
tanks meet this need by providing expertise that is able to explain the nature, the causes and
solutions of problems (Stone, 2004: 7). In doing so, think tanks draw on innovative ideas and
concepts which are the result of what we have introduced as exploration above. Although
many of them do, think tanks do not necessarily pursue explorative endeavours on their own,
but may infiltrate explorative knowledge from their environment. But no matter whether it is
based on their own or others’ research, think tanks do not accomplish their mediating function
by simply disseminating explorative knowledge. Rather, they aim at the exploitation of this
knowledge, i.e. at the implementation and utilization of new ideas and concepts. Therefore,
the function of think tanks is not passive transfer of knowledge but active transformation. This
transformation is successful if the probability of its use in practice increases. It may take
various forms – selection, emphasis, enrichment, elaboration – but in the end, it aims at an
enhanced intellectual persuasiveness of the supported ideas and concepts as a precondition for
their diffusion in practice. In this view, the very mission of think tanks is the linking of
exploration and exploitation.
To summarize, think tanks are of high interest to examine the interplay of exploration
and exploitation in organization studies for two reasons. First, their linking strategies are of
general interest because organizations which claim to be “ambidextrous” (Duncan, 1978)
heavily rely on the capability to balance exploration and exploitation. The simultaneous
9
pursue of both is not a sufficient factor of success. Moreover, it is important to systematically
transfer the explorative outcomes to the exploitative part of the cycle of discovery
(Nooteboom, 2000). Think tanks control mutually complementary resources to ensure the
systematical transfer of their explorative output to other organizational domains for
exploitation. As a consequence, organization research has to offer strategies how to make
exploration and exploitation compatible. Second, those strategies are of special interest with
regard to research-intensive organizations. Despite of their emphasis on exploration, researchintensive organizations cannot lose sight of exploitation. For example, it can be observed that
social and especially economic relevance of research is of rising importance in evaluating the
knowledge generating performance of those organizations (Hemlin & Rasmussen, 2006).
They must have a growing interest in facilitating and promoting the utilization of innovative
knowledge that results from their explorative endeavours, too. As a consequence, beside their
traditional capabilities in exploration, they are forced to develop strategies of linking
exploration and exploitation e.g. by popularizing, commercializing and marketizing research
knowledge. However, the question remains unsolved which “linking strategy” think tanks can
develop. In the next section, we examine framing strategies which think tanks pursue to foster
the diffusion of innovative knowledge to other organizational domains.
3
Linking exploration and exploitation: Framing strategies
Permanently facing the challenge of putting innovative knowledge and concepts into practice,
think tanks pose as strategic actors which transform innovative ideas and concepts into
applicable solutions for pressing problems. However, the predominating mean think tanks
have at their disposal to advance, share and spread their new knowledge is communication
through (written or unwritten) texts. Texts can make bits of knowledge more salient.
Therefore, think tanks’ strategy to link their explorative activities with exploitation in other
10
organizational domains aims at providing the rhetoric and arguments which substantiate and
legitimate a certain position and let the audience think and judge in a particular way. By doing
so, think tanks rely on persuasion and advocacy. They try to set the agenda of discourses and
construct consensual knowledge (Stone, 2002a).
A way to describe the power of a communication text is offered by the concept of
framing. Drawing on research in the field of framing, we examine framing strategies by which
think tanks pursue the goal of linking exploration and exploitation, i.e. making new ideas
work. Framing research is a multidisciplinary approach rooted in economics (Kahneman &
Tversky, 1979), psychology (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984), sociology (Goffman, 1974),
communication (Entman, 1993) and political science (Schön & Rein, 1994). By and large,
framing research aims at investigating the reasons why a particular conceptual model, in the
vast array of options, prevails over others. From this perspective, framing can be understood
as a process of discrimination between competing alternatives (Kohler-Koch, 2000). It aims at
shaping and altering the interpretations and preferences of the audience, favouring a certain
way to deal with an issue.1
Framing strategies occur through pursuing communication processes that foster the
perceived persuasiveness and applicability of supported ideas and concepts, thereby
enhancing the probability of their diffusion in practice. During these communication
processes think tanks use frames which are bounded in narratives, thereby assume the shape
of texts, and serve as guidelines for changes. According to Rein and Schön framing is “a way
of selecting, organising, interpreting, and making sense of a complex reality so as to provide
1
Related concepts are agenda setting and priming (Entman, 2007; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007;
Weaver, 2007). Put simply, agenda setting and priming refer to the question whether we think about an
issue, whereas framing addresses how we think about it (Scheufele et al., 2007: 14). Agenda setting is
based on the idea that the emphasis media place on a certain topic is correlated with the importance
which is attributed to it by the audience. Priming refers to the manipulation of evaluation criteria,
setting benchmarks for the assessment of the performance of leaders and governments. Framing, agenda
setting and priming are not clear-cut concepts but fit together, in part overlapping, as complementary
steps in interpretive politics. In this view, agenda setting and priming can be understood as pre- or early
stages of framing (Entman, 2007).
11
guideposts for knowing, analysing, persuading, and acting. A frame is a perspective from
which an amorphous, ill-defined problematic situation can be made sense of and acted upon”
(Rein & Schön, 1991: 263). Similarly, Entman, defines to frame as “to select some aspects of
a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to
promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or
treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993: 52).
In the processing of framing strategies we distinguish three stages: the breaking of an
old frame, the construction of a new frame and the adjustment of this new frame. This
structuring complies with the results of a comparable study by Abolafia (2004) who applies
these notions to refer to analytically distinguishable, but actually intertwined stages of a
“framing move.”
Although our argument that think tanks perform framing strategies to link exploration
and exploitation is consistent with existing research, empirical investigations in case study
designs are still small in number (for exceptions cf. Brophy-Baermann & Bloeser, 2006;
Godin, 2004). In the next section, we present a single-case study on the framing strategy of a
think tank which has been a key player in the modernization of the German public sector. We
use the above mentioned three stages to examine the case material and elaborate the
characteristics of each stage in detail.
4
4.1
The case of Joint Agency of Local Governments (KGSt)
Brief background information
The think tank we investigate in our case study is an association of public agencies on the
municipal level in Germany, called Joint Agency of Local Governments. Due to its German
name (Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle), we use the abbreviation KGSt to refer to it. KGSt
emanated from the German Association of Cities and Towns and became legally independent
12
in 1951 (for the founding history of KGSt and its early years cf. Badenhoop, 1961; Mäding,
1975). It is a politically independent not-for-profit organization which is funded by
membership fees. According to its ordinance (KGSt, 2005b) as well as mission statement,2
KGSt supports its members in all aspects of public management, aiming at an effective and
efficient administration on the local level. In return for their fees, the members (today more
than 1,600 local authorities) regularly receive general reports and surveys in the field of
management, organization, human resources, accounting and IT. Furthermore, KGSt
organizes exchanges of experience and benchmarking projects and provides some other
knowledge-intensive products like newsletters, handbooks, trainings and web portals. Thus,
KGSt can be regarded as centralized self-help institute of local governments in Germany.
According to its latest activity report, the staff of KGSt accounts for some 40 full-time
employees (KGSt, 2005a). Accompanied by investigations in science and practice, the reports
and surveys are developed in temporary expert groups. Most of these experts are practitioners
from member organizations, but some of them stem from other professional fields like
consultancies or universities. With this unique mode of knowledge production, KGSt, by its
own account, aims at ensuring the application orientation of its products, visions, models and
solutions (KGSt, 2005a: 2). Which general topics are on the agenda of KGSt is decided by its
administrative council which is composed of elected representatives of member agencies.
In this organization and purpose, KGSt is comparable to the Public Management and
Policy Association (PMPA) in the UK and the Association of Public Policy and Management
(APPAM) in the USA. The reputation of an “undisputed authority” (Wollmann, 2000: 926)
which KGSt had gained over the first decades of its existence was even strengthened during
the modernization of the German public sector in the 1990s. In this time, several propulsive
forces simultaneously created the imperative for changes in the administrative system. First of
2
Cf. http://www.kgst.de/.
13
all, in the face of declining public budgets, the need for budgetary discipline became evident.
The pressure to meet the Maastricht criteria made public savings an omnipresent issue in
political debates. To a great deal, the budgetary problems were caused by the enormous public
expenditures induced by the German Unification. Additionally, the public image of state
agencies was damaged because the quality of their service delivery progressively failed to
meet the increasing demands on public services. Furthermore, the international reform wave
of new public management (NPM) especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries could no longer
be neglected. Evolving from these environmental dynamics, a climate of change spread out in
the public sector and encouraged Germany to join, with a delay of 10 years, the NPM
movement.
During the modernization process of the 1990s (and further on), KGSt became a key
player with distinct discourse power. As Reichard remarks, “KGSt has been extremely active
in elaborating on more detailed concepts and instruments for a new doctrine of local
government management” (Reichard, 2003: 349). It is widely acknowledged that the concept
developed and supported by KGSt, labelled New Control Model (NCM), has become the
German variant of NPM. Commentators remark that this model was “promoted in an almost
campaign-like fashion” (Wollmann, 2000: 926) by KGSt and “disseminated like a bushfire”
(Reichard, 2003: 349). Therefore, it is unquestioned that the triumphal procession of NCM
“would not have taken place without the extremely intensive missionary activities of the
KGSt” (Reichard, 2003: 351) during the 1990s. We analyse this process as a framing strategy
pursued by a think tank. In the next step, we outline data and method on which our case study
is based.
14
4.2
Data and method
The case study is a research method which focuses on understanding the dynamics present
within single settings (Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Yin, 1994). It offers
insights in the process of redefining the theoretical concept in order to elaborate more
carefully the circumstances in which it does or does not offer potential for explanation
(Vaughan, 1992). According to Miles and Huberman, the possibilities to generalize from one
single case are founded in the comprehensiveness of the measurements which makes it
possible to reach a fundamental understanding of the structure, process and driving forces
rather than a superficial establishment of correlation or cause-effect relationships (Miles &
Huberman, 1994).
In our case study, we analyse the framing strategy of the focal think tank by extracting
it from publications authored either by KGSt (as institutional author) or by its members (as
personal authors). As we have outlined above, print products like handbooks, reports, surveys,
journal or newspaper articles are among the favourite media think tanks in general and KGSt
in particular choose to disseminate knowledge. In the period from 1991 to 2001, KGSt, by its
own account, released 144 official reports of this kind (KGSt, 2007). To reduce the amount of
publications in the analysis, we employed a selection mechanism which is not based on the
production but on the consumption of texts. A text lacks any influence as long as it keeps
being unnoticed by the audience. Therefore, in terms of publication output, a think tank may
be highly productive, but poorly effective. We assumed that the best indicator of effectiveness
is the amount of citations a publication gains from the audience of professionals it is devoted
to. By citing a text, an author demonstrates that he or she draws on its content for his or her
own considerations. The more citations a publication receives, the more it is acknowledged by
the audience, and the higher is its impact in a discourse. Therefore, citation analysis can be
15
employed as impact analysis, both on the level of a single publication and on an aggregated
institutional level.
The database we used to identify the most influential publications in the field contains
758 articles on NPM, taken from 9 journals in every second volume from 1991 to 2001. All of
the included media are German journals that are specialized on public sector management,
most of them targeted to an audience of practitioners. The selected articles contain references
to 7.766 documents. Ranked by their citation frequency, we identified the 25 most highly
cited publications (Table 1). Among these documents, we allocated 9 to KGSt either by
means of institutional (KGSt, 1991, 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 1994a, 1994b, 1996) or personal
(Banner, 1991, 1994) authorship. Taken this number, it can be concluded that the publication
activity of KGSt was highly effective in influencing the German discourse on NPM in the
focal period from 1991 to 2001. The 3 documents which were by far most frequently cited
were all authored by KGSt or his former director Gerhard Banner, respectively.
Table 1: Ranking of Publications by Citation Frequency
Rank
Publicationa
Degreeb
Citations
Closeness
Eigenvector
1
KGSt (1993a)
37
81,022
84,049
23,862
2
Banner (1991)
26
52,555
67,822
13,089
3
KGSt (1992)
22
48,175
65,865
12,217
8,252
…
66,184
…
48,905
60,352
…
…
13
…
34,307
14,772
…
…
…
…
12
28,467
58,298
6,680
…
…
…
…
11
31,387
59,307
8,715
…
…
…
…
10
21,898
54,800
5,440
…
…
…
…
KGSt (1996)
15
…
KGSt (1994b)
…
…
25
KGSt (1993b)
…
…
23
Banner (1994)
…
…
20
KGSt (1994a)
…
…
12
…
…
10
…
KGSt (1991)
…
…
…
6
9
35,036
60,619
11,015
Note. a See reference list for bibliographic details. b Normalized.
16
However, the importance of a publication is not only displayed in the simple number of
citations it receives. Additionally, its centrality in the citation network must be taken into
account. For this purpose, we employed the bibliometric technique of co-citation analysis (for
a recent application in management studies cf. Acedo, Barroso, & Galan, 2006; for initial
publications cf. Garfield, Malin, & Small, 1978; Griffith, Small, Stonehill, & Dey, 1974;
Small, 1973; Small & Griffith, 1974). A co-citation, by definition, occurs when two
documents are cited jointly in the same publication. The method is based upon the assumption
that any such co-citation is an author’s judgement on the similarity of documents. Under this
premise, the more often two texts are cited jointly, the closer they are connected in terms of
their similarity. On an aggregated level, the method is employed to detect closely related
documents that can be considered to constitute homogenous subfields in the discourse under
investigation. Therefore, the co-citation technique is a method of explorative pattern
recognition which draws on large-scale statistical analysis rather than on qualitative peer
judgements. The collected co-citation data can be processed with network analysis which
allows for visualizing the structure of a discourse. In Table 1, we supplement the simple
citation counts for each publication with some descriptive measures of its network centrality.3
Next, we analyse the selected publications with respect to the frame they serve as vehicles for.
4.3
Results: The framing strategy of KGSt
In order to reveal the framing strategy pursued by KGSt to establish NCM on the local level
of the German administrative system, we subsequently employ an interpretive textual analysis
of the publications which we have selected in the previous section by means of their impact
on the NPM discourse. We elaborate the three stages of a framing strategy introduced in
3
As supposed, there is a high but by no means perfect rank correlation between the citation count and the
centrality measures. Among the publications which received 5 citations or more, all correlation
coefficients (Kendall-Tau-b and Spearman-Rho) are significant at the level of at least p < 0.05.
17
Section 3: breaking the old frame, construction of a new frame and adjustment of this new
frame (Abolafia, 2004). To figure out how framing strategies work in this case setting, we
enrich our interpretations with quotations from the selected publications.
Stage 1 of the framing strategy: Breaking the old frame – “Organized irresponsibility”
At the 1990 general meeting of KGSt, the then director Gerhard Banner started the framing
process in its inaugural address, targeted to an audience of decision-makers from member
agencies. By its own account, the triennial meeting of KGSt is the largest congress on public
management in Europe. Hence, in its initial phase, the framing process was based on oral
communication between the figurehead of KGSt and top and middle managers from local
authorities. However, after the congress, the speech manuscript was released in a practitioneroriented journal and became one of the most influential publications in the German discourse
on NPM (Banner, 1991; see Table 1). In this publication, the phase of frame breaking started
with the identification of what at all the old frame is. The old frame which is challenged by
Banner is the classic model of bureaucracy based on centrality, input control, procedureorientation and legality. Although Banner does not explicitly refer to this work, Weber’s ideal
type of bureaucracy (Weber, 1968) is the blueprint of the administrative system which Banner
accuses for several dysfunctions. Before he lists the reasons why the classic bureaucracy is
out of time in a more analytical fashion, Banner exemplifies the common behaviour of a
budget-maximizing bureaucrat in an anecdote:
“What does a chief officer do if additional or new services are to be performed in his agency, caused by
shifts of the market? He calls for more personnel, more money, more bureaus. What does he not do? He
does not (exceptions are seldom) try to meet the new requirements by re-allocation of resources in his
own agency. […] Why does he not initially examine the option of re-allocation? The answer is: First,
because nobody demands from him to do so – the responsibility for resources does not rest with him, but
18
with central agencies – and second, if he nevertheless did, he would have to overcome too many
resistances” (Banner, 1991: 6-7).4
In this suggestive question-and-answer style, Banner activates the personal experiences of the
audience and attracts the attention to the disincentives of the orthodox bureaucratic system.
He concludes that the system punishes cost-effective behaviour, whereas the waste of public
funds is rewarded. This massive criticism culminates in the notions of “bureaucratic
centralism” and “system of organized irresponsibility” by which the old frame is blamed with
catchy labels. Although this system has endured for a long time, certain dynamics have led to
a misfit between the administration and its environment. At this stage of the framing process,
the old frame is causally connected with an almost existential crisis of local self-government:
“Recently, changes in the environments of municipal governments as well as changes of values have
turned the control principle of bureaucratic centralism into a functional and even existential threat of local
self-government” (Banner, 1991: 7).
In this line of reasoning, the causes of the proclaimed crisis are located in the control system
of local governments. In contrast to this overly monocausal diagnosis, KGSt points out the
multi-faceted symptoms of the crisis by listing four “gaps” between reality and requirements,
all related to control deficits in the bureaucratic system. The strategy gap refers to the
planning horizon of local authorities which is aligned to short-term political cycles rather than
to long-term priorities. This lack of strategic planning is made worse by budgetary problems
which limit the scope of long-range strategies. The management gap is twofold: First, the
management of fully or partly owned public enterprises is dramatically underdeveloped in
comparison with the private sector. Second, the management gap consists in the division of
responsibilities in local agencies, resulting in economic disincentives:
“Namely, responsibility for tasks and resources is divided. The resources are allocated by central
instances […], the re-allocation of personnel, positions and money within the department usually depends
on the permission of these instances. This division of responsibility virtually invites the departments to
excessive applications for funds and to a disregard of cost criteria” (KGSt, 1993a: 10).
4
All translations are done by the authors.
19
The attractiveness gap refers to emerging problems of recruitment. To a rising extent, the
public service fails to meet the demands of applicants who look for responsible, diverse and
creative jobs. At last, with legitimacy gap, the issue of the relationship between administration
and citizen is addressed. Citizens are progressively less willing to tolerate intransparency and
inflexibility of administrative decision-making and expect an ever-higher quality of service
delivery.
In its early stage, the framing strategy of KGSt aims at spreading the awareness of crisis
in the public sector. This crisis is proclaimed to be existential. It is dramatized in figurative
terms and labelled with striking buzzwords. The aforementioned gaps catch the various
appearances of the crisis and underline the need for action. The way the crisis is diagnosed by
KGSt shows that framing accords to the principle of “hiding and highlighting:” Whereas the
disadvantages of the bureaucratic system are broadly stressed, its advantages are
marginalized. The performance of the German administrative system in terms of its stability,
reliability and legality is only casually acknowledged (Banner, 1991: 7; KGSt, 1993a: 13).
The problem description offered by KGSt strongly relies on the definition in which respect
the problems occur and is, therefore, highly selective. As a result, changes in the public sector
seem to be inevitable. However, KGSt is keen on emphasizing that the problems the
administrative system is facing cannot be resolved within the old frame. Due to its
incomparableness to any previous one, the contemporary crisis cannot be faced with
conventional solutions which remain in accordance with the principles of classic bureaucracy.
Instead of incremental changes within the old frame, a strategic renewal is necessary:
“The local government cannot meet the new demands as long as it adheres to the self-image and design
principles of a primarily legalistic administration. It requires a modernization on the basic of a new
vision” (KGSt, 1993a: 13).
The replacement of the old frame by a new one is inevitable. But before developing a new
frame, KGSt exposes an alternative frame that does not offer an appropriate solution for the
20
problems of the public sector. This alternative frame is privatization. In the initial publications
of KGSt, privatization of public agencies is introduced as a prevalent, though dangerous
panacea for the problems of the public sector (Banner, 1991: 7-8; , 1994: 8-10; KGSt, 1991:
10-11; , 1993a: 11). The weaknesses of the bureaucratic system enforce the urge to abandon it
and instead to choose private legal forms for previously public tasks. However, the control
problems are not mitigated but even aggravated by mass privatization:
“Fact is that political councils and administrative boards, if they abstained from direct influence on an
agency and believed that it can be delegated to supervisory boards and committees, would renounce their
rights (and duties) to govern municipalities in a holistic political framework. If this misunderstanding is
stylized to an allegedly universal organizational remedy, then the sold-out of local self-government is
inevitable, and it becomes easily possible that it is replaced by the principle of self-service” (Banner,
1991: 8).
The danger of an already ongoing “erosion of local self-government” (KGSt, 1993a: 11) once
again underpins the need for action. A further loss of control caused by privatization of public
agencies would be the price for inactivity. Because neither classic bureaucracy nor
privatization offers promising solutions, a new frame must be developed and applied.
To conclude, the framing strategy of KGSt starts with breaking the old frame. At this
stage, the framing process heavily relies on a figurehead who recognizes the strategic
opportunity of reframing and disposes of resources and skills to question the established
practices of administration. This function of a “reframer” (Abolafia, 2004) or “institutional
entrepreneur” (Fligstein, 1997) is fulfilled by the director of KGSt. The framing is
retrospective, describing the various facets of a crisis which has culminated under prevalence
of the old frame (strategy gap, management gap, attractiveness gap, legitimacy gap). It
initially aims at establishing a sense of crisis and making the need for strong action aware. At
first instance, the problem presentation causes uncertainty because it suggests that the crisis,
due to its magnitude, is profound and extraordinary. A need for clarification of what causes
the problems is induced. KGSt meets this demand by offering a seemingly convincing
21
interpretation according to which the problems arise from dysfunctions of the bureaucratic
control system. This system is blamed with catchy buzzwords by which the old frame receives
labels (“bureaucratic centralism”, “organized irresponsibility”). At this point it gets clear that
framing strategies are, to a great deal, rhetoric strategies. These rhetoric manoeuvres also
include attempts to persuade the audience that the existing frames are inadequate to face the
challenges. Both bureaucracy and privatization make the things even worse. As a
consequence, it appears to be irresponsible to support one of these options. Rather, a new
narrative for changes in the public sector is required. By constructing the new frame, the
framing strategy enters its prospective phase.
Stage 2 of the framing strategy: Constructing the new frame – “New Control Model” (NCM)
The second stage of the framing strategy directs the attention from the past into the future,
adding prescriptive elements to the frame. While in the frame breaking the impression is
created that something has to be done, now it is said what will be done. The proposed remedy
for the structural crisis of the public sector is the New Control Model (NCM). NCM has
turned into a predominate label for NPM in Germany (Reichard, 2003; Wollmann, 2000).
Once again, a catchy label is integrated into the narrative. The ingredient “model” refers to the
preconditions which have to be satisfied before public agencies can turn into enterprise-like
service providers. By its own account, KGSt does not pursue an one-size-fits-all approach but
only aims at merging the essentials of the new vision which allow for high degrees of freedom
to adjust the concept to local conditions (KGSt, 1993a: 15). In this visionary phase, the
realizability is not in the centre of concern yet (Banner, 1991: 8).
The opposition of NCM to privatization, being frame and counter-frame for each
other, can best be seen with regard to Figure 1. Therein, we created a network diagram based
on our co-citation analysis, containing those publications which received at least 5 citations
22
and which were cited jointly with one or more other document(s) at least 4 times. By varying
these thresholds, the displayed core of the citation network becomes bigger or smaller. Every
node represents a cited publication and every line a co-citation relationship. The node size is
proportional to the number of citations, whereas the tie strength reflects the number of cocitations. We have only marked and labelled the publications which are included in our
framing analysis. As can be seen, publications of KGSt only build the core of one centre
(NCM), being relatively unrelated to the other (privatization). Hence, both frames are
represented in separated and only weak-linked publication clusters, reflecting the bipolar
structure of the inherently divided discourse on NPM in Germany.
Figure 1: Opposite frames in the NPM discourse
New Control Model
Privatization
23
With shift from retrospective to prospective, the second stage also shifts from an individual to
a group level. The framing strategy is no longer accelerated by an individual alone but is
borne by working groups organized by KGSt. In these projects, the various reports in which
NCM is stepwise developed are generated. The project teams consist of staff from KGSt,
representatives of other think tanks, scientists and practitioners from domestic as well as from
foreign local governments. KGSt explicitly draws on foreign experiences:
“Other than at the beginning of the 1980s, foreign as well as few domestic experiences how local
authorities have successfully faced incisive changes of their environments and preserved their autonomy
are available. It is imperative to exploit these experiences” (KGSt, 1993a: 8).
KGSt states that there is remarkable convergence in the international debate on NPM and that
Germany cannot elude from these developments (Banner, 1991: 11; , 1994; KGSt, 1992: 11; ,
1993a: 23-24). In face of the international NPM movement, there is little alternative to
decentralization, participation, market and service orientation, output measurement and
control (KGSt, 1992: 11). However, these approaches are not abstract principles without
reference to reality. Rather, they are already implemented in a growing number of countries.
In its search for best practices, KGSt especially draws on the Netherlands because of the
comparability to the German administrative system, the similarity of management and control
problems and the progressiveness of the modernization process (Banner, 1991: 10-11; KGSt,
1992: 13). In an extensive report, the reform process of the Dutch town of Tilburg is exposed,
creating a template for the modernization of local governments in Germany:
“It [the report] sketches the dimensions of an all-embracing reform of the political-administrative system
of a municipality against the background of internationally discussed approaches of modernization of
local governments. The reform described here ranges from a changed overall concept of local
government, a different relationship between political and administrative councils, the multidivisional
structure of administration, economic management and control systems to necessary changes of
administrative culture” (KGSt, 1992: 9).
The core elements of NCM are derived from the template of Tilburg. According to the main
report (KGSt, 1993a), three rationales, though closely intertwined, can be distinguished: First,
24
the proposed organizational structure of public agencies is heavily decentralized.
Responsibilities of tasks and resources are jointly assigned to peripheral departments which
receive periodical budgets. Their managerial freedom of action increases considerably. At the
same time, the departments are accountable to central agencies which control for their results.
These agencies, resembling corporate headquarters, perform tasks of strategic management
which are not delegable. At the same time, they act as contract partners of political councils
whose sphere of influence is focused on middle- and long-range goals but kept away from the
daily business of administration. In this respect, NCM incorporates elements of management
by objectives, newly labelled as “contract management.” Second, NCM relies on output
control. The rising autonomy of the departments gives rise to new demands on the control
system which shifts from input to output control. To make the output-based control system
run, the service products of an agency must be defined, measured and compared with
previously specified goals. Accordingly, the management control requires informational
support from the controlling and reporting system which undergoes a professionalization,
interfering with changes in accounting. And third, competition is fostered in order to improve
the performance of public agencies. Due to the absence of market pressures in the public
sector, this competition is simulated in benchmarking both among public agencies and with
private firms.
At this stage of the framing strategy, KGSt not only answers the question why it is
inevitable to adopt this model – because external pressures of the international NPM
movement force to do so – but also why it is desirable. By presenting the template of Tilburg
as example of a “good” (i.e. progressive, modern) local government, stressed in overly
positive terms, the attractiveness of NCM is emphasized (KGSt, 1992). Furthermore, KGSt
creates a positive image of what public agencies look like if they adopt NCM. For this
purpose, it uses the suggestive power of metaphor communication. Metaphor communication
enables the externalisation of tacit knowledge and thus the diffusion of that knowledge across
25
organizational domains (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). In all analysed publications, a
metaphorical
comparison
of
the
new
administration
with
a
service
enterprise
(Dienstleistungsunternehmen) is made, more or less frequently. In some of the publications,
this metaphor is even contained in the headline (Banner, 1991; KGSt, 1992). Metaphors
always produce fits and misfits between the subjects which are referenced to each other.
Therefore, it deserves clarification in which respects the metaphorical connected subjects
(source and target) are comparable. According to KGSt, comparability of the new
administration with a service enterprise is given with regard to its orientation on customers,
demand, competition and employees (KGSt, 1993a: 13-14). However, KGSt is as well aware
of the limits of the metaphor:
“At this point a clarification is in order. A local government with the self-image of a service enterprise
and an according organization does not turn into a private firm. […] Therefore, a blind imitation of
structures and instruments of the private sector is out of place. Incidentally, the private sector is by no
means always exemplary. In the economy, there are mismanagement, missed chances and problems of
bureaucracy as well. Nevertheless, a municipality which considers its public tasks can strongly benefit
from a look on the private sector” (KGSt, 1993a: 14).
The function of the employed metaphor in the framing process is to direct the changes
towards a desirable vision. In its reductive character, it helps avoiding that the communication
is overloaded with technical details of NCM. Instead, by frequently applying the metaphor,
KGSt ensures the omnipresence of a common objective of public sector modernization which
is expressed in a simple message. The underlying principle can best be illustrated with a
quotation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people
together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long
for the endless immensity of the sea.”
With the metaphor of a service enterprise, another feature of the frame construction
can be demonstrated. At this stage of the framing process, prescriptive and descriptive
elements are thoroughly confused. Although clearly a normative guideline, the notion of
26
service enterprise is also used in descriptions of a current transformation process (KGSt,
1991: 10). After all, even the direction of action between NCM and the shift of public
agencies into service enterprises remains unclear. On the one hand, the changeover to NCM
derives from this shift which seems to occur independently:
“The progressive evolution of local governments to service enterprises suggested to substitute the
bureaucratic model by an enterprise-like, decentralized control model […]” (Banner, 1994: 5).
On the other hand, it is NCM which enables local governments to turn into service
enterprises:
“The New Control Model is the precondition which has to be fulfilled to make the service enterprise local
government run” (KGSt, 1993a: 15).
This quotation sheds new light on NCM: It no longer necessarily provokes a new
development but only supports an already ongoing one or even itself results from it.
Therefore, NCM appears as an inescapable intervention in a transformation which is under
way but has not been made explicit so far. Although it sharply departs from classic
bureaucracy, the type of change NCM induces is presented as being more evolutionary than
revolutionary. In this respect, the narrative is partially inconsistent.
To conclude, in the construction of the new frame, KGSt turns from a critic of the old
frame to an advocate of a new one. Framing does not stop at rejecting the old frame but
proceeds with suggesting an alternative. Though, frames simultaneously define problems,
identify their causes and propose solutions. The solution of the crisis of the public sector is
NCM which, seemingly inevitable, evolves from the international NPM movement. Opponent
frames (bureaucracy and privatization) are discriminated in favour of NCM which is exhibited
as superior to any alternative. At the very general level on which the elements of NCM are
presented, it aims at building the largest possible consensus of the audience and at forming a
broad coalition of supporters. By drawing on the experiences of a foreign municipality, a best
practice transfer is encouraged. The metaphor of service enterprise offers a positive
27
imagination of the future which is aligned with the means of achieving it. The use of a
metaphor, once again, highlights the rhetoric essence of framing. It simplifies the
communication of the new frame because it catches it in a positively connoted phrase and
helps avoiding that the technical elements of NCM prevail over the overall vision. However,
at the last step, the frame gets more “operationalized.”
Stage 3 of the framing strategy: Adjusting the Frame – “Are the things doing well?”
At the last stage of the framing strategy, the conversion of the possible into the actual lies at
the heart of KGSt’s activities. To complete the framing strategy, it is not sufficient only to
spread a new vision; it has to be implemented in practice. Whereas in this stadium it is both
clear that something must be done and what is to be done, it is not yet clear how it has to be
done. Although in the frame construction the realization of NCM is not paramount, there are
some arrangements which strengthen the perceived practicability of the model from the very
beginning of its construction. First, the realizability of NCM can hardly be questioned since it
is, at least in part, yet realized – in Tilburg, NL. Second, it heavily interferes with a practical
development, namely the shift of public agencies into service enterprises, though it is unclear
in which way it interferes with it. And third, the basic reports on NCM (KGSt, 1991, 1992,
1993a) are all generated by task forces which consist, to a great part, of practitioners, although
they only work out a concept which has previously been projected by KGSt.
In spite of this inherent practicability, the issue of implementation of NCM is
explicitly broached by KGSt in the adjustment of the frame. All of the initial publications on
NCM contain concrete advices for the implementation process (Banner, 1991: 10; KGSt,
1991: 42-45; , 1992: 143-149; , 1993a: 25-37). According to the main report, it is especially
necessary to convince opinion leaders both in politics and administration:
28
“However, in the implementation, no progress is made simply by the general conclusion that it [NCM]
fits into its time. What is necessary for this purpose is a local-tailored process of convincing which aims
at achieving the critical mass for the reorientation of administration by concentration of interests of
important actors. Therefore, the actors must be made aware that this reorientation serves their selfinterest. Also, the indication of already working partial solutions is always convincing” (KGSt, 1993a:
25).
Beside this persuasion tactic, several other success factors for the application of NCM are
described in publications of KGSt (e.g. KGSt, 1993a: 25-37). Among them is the stepwise
implementation of NCM, starting with pilot projects in subunits and successively including
other fields of application. The restructuring should be accompanied with a professional
project management which clearly defines objectives, milestones, responsibilities and
resources. A special emphasis is put on the personnel. To ensure the acceptance of NCM,
employees ought to participate in the change process. Furthermore, the people should be
prepared for their new roles and tasks in trainings. The psychological effects of the
restructuring are to be taken into consideration.
In spite of these and other advices for the application of the new frame, it still lacks of
applicability because it is not yet fully developed. To ask for compliance of the audience,
KGSt initially develops NCM on a very general level, favouring a visionary rhetoric instead
of elaborating technical details. This profoundly changes when it comes to the adjustment of
the frame. Now the frame is equipped with further information on its implications for
practice, i.e. with how-to knowledge. In order to provide this information, KGSt releases a
series of reports in which the previously only roughly sketched elements of NCM are further
developed. By its own account, 20 official publications which are directly related to NCM are
edited in the focal period (KGSt, 2007: 16). Most of the reports we have selected for our
framing analysis deal with aspects of output control as basic idea of NCM. This holds true for
the definition of service products as units for output measurement (KGSt, 1994a), for
controlling (KGSt, 1994b) and for contract management between political and administrative
councils (KGSt, 1996). These reports are supplemented by a survey on budgeting (KGSt,
29
1993b). However, the shift to the conceptual elements of NCM does not mean that the new
frame is taken for granted. Rather, the legitimization of the frame is an ongoing task
throughout the whole framing process. Therefore, most subsequent reports contain
explanatory statements on NCM, repeating its motives, objectives and rationales, that is, in
short, “the message.”
The need for legitimization arises from the criticism the new frame faces during the
whole process. If there were no opposition against NCM, the need for framing could be
questioned at all. Hence, KGSt constantly engages in responding to the critics of NCM. The
criticism intensifies with the adjustment of the frame because only now it becomes clear what
tangible consequences it has for employees in the public service. In his address to the general
meeting of 1993, the director of KGSt deals with the resistances to change NCM is faced with
in practice. Although he is comfortable with the magnitude of modernization efforts in the
public sector since his first initiative, he encourages reflections on the reform process:
“After such a rapid start we have reason to pause for a moment to make sure if the things are doing well
or if re-accentuations or corrections are to be made” (Banner, 1994: 6).
For Banner, the structural aspects of NCM are overemphasized in many projects, whereas the
cultural dimension is underestimated. He concludes from this imbalance to centre more on the
employees and the change of their attitudes and behaviours. However, only the way NCM is
implemented is criticized, not the concept itself. It is still presented as resulting from a
“sociopolitical postulate” and even “all-powerful forces” (Banner, 1994: 6). Banner identifies
a special group of employed persons who offer resistance with their understanding of change:
“Juristically thinking government employees – they are great in number – look at organizational changes
as a linear process which has to be initiated at the top: At first, a law is needed, then an executive order,
then an internal administrative rule, and only after that the administration can engage in the realization.
Previously, nothing will happen. […] Obviously, administrative modernization is no linear but a circular,
iterative process. One can and must start at various points. What the right starting points are depends on
the local situation. Who states that B is not possible before A, is, in case of doubt, not willing to change
anything. However, we do not have the excuse to do nothing” (Banner, 1994: 12).
30
To conclude, in the adjustment of the frame, the framing strategy enters its practical phase.
Whereas the framing is directed to the past in the frame breaking and to the future in the
frame construction, the emphasis in the frame adjustment is on the presence. What is to be
done now to execute the new frame? To answer this question, the frame deserves further
elaboration. Especially its rationale – output control – is projected in greater detail to cope
with the context of application. The main focus of the think tank lies on fine-tuning the frame.
This inevitably provokes criticism because the immediate consequences for practice are
successively revealed. The think tank both prevents from these criticisms and protects against
it: On the one hand, it gives several advices for a smooth implementation process. On the
other hand, it turns the criticism in the opposite direction by criticizing the critics. Although
the frame is now debated less visionary and more technical, the legitimizing efforts of the
think tank last for the whole framing process to stabilize the interpretations of the new frame.
5
Discussion
Framing strategies are part and parcel of the instrumental repertoire of think tanks to balance
exploration and exploitation across different organizational domains. To be in accordance
with March, “the essence of exploration is experimentation with new alternatives” (March,
1991: 85). In our case study, the KGSt think tank offers a separate organizational setting for
such a development of new alternatives. This entails the development of new knowledge and
competences that result in the New Control Model (NCM). The search space of these
exploring activities comprises both methods and instruments of the private sector and foreign
best practices in the public sector. With regard to the elements of NCM, some of them are
new only for the German public sector. For example, contract management is clearly based in
“management by objectives” which has a long-standing tradition in private sector
management. This also holds true for controlling and benchmarking. Thus, the novelty of
31
some conceptual elements of NCM is relative to the point of reference. This shows that think
tanks partly engage as “recycling bins” (Stone, 2007). The explorative merit of the think tank
KGSt is, on the one hand, to detect these concepts and ideas, to evaluate their adequacy for
resolving the dysfunctions of the bureaucratic control system in the German public sector, and
to contextualize them in the specific field of application. On the other hand, and maybe to a
greater part, the exploration consists in the integration of these partial solutions in a
superstructure, namely NCM. For the local governments, this newly explored concept
becomes an alternative to the exploitation of already available solutions like bureaucracy or
privatization.
However, the mission of a think tank does not end with exploration. Rather, a think
tank ultimately aims at the exploitation of innovative knowledge, i.e. “the refinement and
extension of existing competencies, technologies, and paradigms” (March, 1991: 85).
Although the assignment of exploration to a think tank has the advantage of allowing for a
distanced search for new ideas and visions, it may turn into a disadvantage because the
spheres of exploration and exploitation are institutionally divided by this. A think tank cannot
exploit new ideas and concepts by itself but can only induce other organizations to do so.
Therefore, to make new ideas and concepts work, it must develop strategies of linking
exploration and exploitation. In our case study, we have examined one such strategy: the
framing strategy. The think tank KGSt disseminates NCM in a framing process to different
local governments. The framing process includes three stages: frame breaking, frame
construction and frame adjustment. The results of our case study support insights on how
framing works which previous research offers., e.g. on policy meetings (Abolafia, 2004),
social movement participation (Benford & Snow, 2000; Snow, Rochford Jr., Worden, &
Benford, 1986) and political institution-building (Kohler-Koch, 2000).
32
Based on the conceptualization of think tanks as intermediaries between exploration
and exploitation, our case study exemplifies how framing strategies link both. However, it
only demonstrates that the focal think tank has chosen the option of framing and how it has
arranged the framing process, but what is still missing is information on how successful it has
been in doing so. Although our citation analysis shows that KGSt has had a remarkable
impact on the discussion of NPM in Germany, the implementation of NCM in administrative
practice is an analytical level distinct from the discourse on it. To which extent has NCM
actually been exploited in local governments? According to a 2004 survey of the German
Institute of Urban Affairs among 243 municipalities, 77,2% of the respondents state that the
modernization process in their administration has at least partially been guided by NCM
(Knipp, 2005). Similarly, in a comparable survey among 1.565 local governments in 2005,
81,2% of the responding organizations state that they have adopted either partial solutions or
the overall concept of NCM (Bogumil, Grohs, Kuhlmann, & Ohm, 2007). Thus, in face of the
remarkable high diffusion rate of NCM in administrative practice, the framing strategy
pursued by KGSt can be assumed to have been very successful.
Furthermore, due to its interdisciplinarity, our case study contributes to three other
areas of research which we point out in the following. First, by investigating the think tank
phenomenon, new perspectives are opened in regard to ambidexterity. Recently, the
exploration/exploitation literature has evolved to ambidexterity as description of
organizational arrangements which simultaneously allow for exploration and exploitation
(Ahn, Lee, & Lee, 2006; Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004; Lubatkin, Simsek, Ling, & Veiga,
2006; O'Reilly III & Tushman, 2004; Van Looy, Martens, & Debackere, 2005). However, as
March initially stresses, the issue of balancing exploration and exploitation occurs at all levels
of a nested system, i.e. at the individual, organizational and social system level (Gupta et al.,
2006; March, 1991: 72). Conceptualizing think tanks as intermediaries between exploration
and exploitation, attention is attracted to ambidexterity on the system level. Further research
33
on think tanks could shed more light on the issue how they contribute to ambidextrous
systems by linking exploration and exploitation, thereby bridging institutional spheres which
are inherently divided. In this context, the consequences from this insight for research policy
need to be discussed.
Second, our case study points to think tanks as an approach to face structural inertia in
the public sector. As the original literature on exploration and exploitation stresses, both
processes are self-reinforcing, tending to crowd out each other (Levinthal et al., 1993; March,
1991). However, several mechanisms result in an overinvestment in exploitation, leading
organizations into “learning myopia” and “competency traps” (for a brief overview cf. Lee,
Lee, & Lee, 2003). This especially holds true for organizations in the public sector where
competitive pressure is low or completely absent. In long-standing research on public
organizations, excess inertia is well-elaborated in concepts such as “bureaucratic
dysfunctions” (Blau, 1955), “machine bureaucracy” (Mintzberg, 1979) and “bureaucratic
vicious circle” (Crozier, 1964). Our study prompts thinking about the creation of
organizational think tanks to resolve structural inertia of public organizations, especially in
periods of environmental dynamics.
Third, the emerging research on political think tanks may benefit from our findings in
two respects. On the one hand, by employing the exploration/exploitation framework, new
theoretical insights are offered. Our locating of think tanks in the interface of exploration and
exploitation, therein strategically linking both processes, strengthens a view on think tanks as
nodes in a knowledge network (Stone, 2002a, 2002b). On the other hand, we enrich empirical
research by making methodological contributions to impact analysis of think tanks. This
stream of research is predominantly concerned with the media presence of think tanks so far
(Abelson, 2002; Groseclose & Milyo, 2005; Rich, 2001; Rich & Weaver, 2000; Trimbath,
2005). However, the visibility of think tanks in the media only reflects their recognition by
34
journalists. In contrast, our citation analysis draws not on the mediation of their texts by
others but on the direct consumption by the community of practice to which the focal think
tank is targeted to. We assume bibliometric techniques to offer further advancements in
impact analysis of think tanks.
6
Conclusion
In contemporary R&D policy, the shift from R to D becomes a superordinated goal. Visible
signs of the increasing attempts to spread an entrepreneurial spirit in public research institutes
are the creation of technology transfer offices (Etzkowitz & Goktepe, 2005) or science shops
(Leydesdorff & Ward, 2005), offering organizational settings which are devoted to encourage
the changeover from the explorative to the exploitative stages of the cycle of discovery. The
changing role of science in society has been described in concepts such as “triple helix”
(Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1997) which observe an ever-tighter coupling of science
especially with economy, indicating changes of almost historical dimensions. In face of these
developments it can be expected that research-intensive organizations need to develop
strategies of fostering the application and utilization of their research outcomes, i.e. of linking
exploration and exploitation. In the study at hand, we have investigated how think tanks cope
with these requirements. By highlighting their framing strategies, we examine one strategy for
research-intensive organizations as an appropriate mean of linking exploration and
exploitation. However, we expect that to the same degree to which the activities of researchintensive organizations extend into the interface of exploration and exploitation, the demands
on their strategic repertoire to link both will rise. Framing becomes part of it. Of course, it
needs to be discussed to which extent the identity especially of public research institutes is
reshaped by turning into active promoters of research outcomes.
35
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