Abstract
Research in such fields as population planning, agriculture, and education has demonstrated the importance of intermediaries to ensure the dissemination of innovative practices However, little attention has been given to how organizations serve this function This article reports four case studies of regional educational service agencies in their role as disseminators of new knowledge Three characteristic approaches to dissemination were identified laissez-faire, entrepreneurial, and authoritarian These approaches wereshapedbyfivefactors in the agency's context state policy initiatives, client concerns, staff interests, history, and leadership External constraints, staff interests, and history created crosspressures that executive leaders responded to by developing missions for their organizations Missions that maximized dissemination services were often associated with some tension with external constituencies
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