Organizational Learning,Bureaucratic Control,Preservation of Form

Abstract

Research utilization refers to a phenomenon or set of phenomena inseparable from the complicated context in which use is to occur. This article examines possibilities for refining our basic understanding of research use in public agencies. The authors propose the notion that preservation of form is a subtle bureaucratic imperative that influences research use at the level of the single organization and at the level of the organizational sector. The authors suggest that the metaphor of organizational learning provides a rich set of possibilities for conceptual development and that examination of characteristic orientations and features of decision systems, combined withexamination of bureaucratic control of the decision system, results in intriguing and important possibilities for refining the essential foundation for understanding and investigating use in complex public organizations.