Explaining Research Utilization

Abstract

With material from a Swedish study of the utilization of social research in city welfare agencies, the author advocate a sociological analysis of the utilization contexts where use of research takes place. The bases of compliance in the organization and the position of the agencies in regard to conflicts in social welfare politics are shown to have great importance for the way organizations use and invest in knowledge, and case studies show that these factors can change the type of impact of research. The language of current utilization research tends to treat differences in research use as quantitative differences or as differences in the “functions” or “modes” of research use. The authors point to the hierarchical distribution of knowledge and research use, the activity of users, and the way conflicts influence research utilization as important issues for the explanation of research utilization.