What is the relationship between program implementation and bureaucratic entrepreneurship? The work presented here, based on a comparative case study of three public programs, integrates both implementation and entrepreneurship into a larger framework encompassing patterns of program development. Additionally, it describes a pattern of bureaucratic entrepreneurship called bottom-up entrepreneurship to indicate that people working at lower levels of the system developed the programs. Comparing patterns of entrepreneurship with patterns described in the implementation literature suggests two critical dimensions of program development. These dimensions involve efforts to gain acceptance among actors engaging in the action (lower level acceptance) and efforts to gain acceptance from actors with the authority to provide funding and officially adopt new programs (upper level acceptance). The author uses these two factors to construct a program development framework that both integrates and distinguishes between entrepreneurship and implementation.
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