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Sune Sunesson

Professor emeritus

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Conflict or Control: Research Utilization Strategies as Power Techniques

Author

  • Kjell Nilsson
  • Sune Sunesson

Summary, in English

The sociology of research and knowledge use, argue the authors, could be a way of linking important parts of sociology, such as organization studies, the sociology of science to each other. In the article, they discuss the idea that organizational responses to environments are related to research utilization. Based upon an empirical investigation of city welfare departments, four empirical “utilization strategies” are presented and shown to be related to power and control patterns. While negative utilization strategies are hostile to uncontrolled research utilization and enhance the formation of bureaucratic expertise, conflict-oriented strategies are discursively productive and reinforce research use and alliance formation with social scientists to control the environment.

Department/s

  • Sociology
  • School of Social Work
  • Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies

Publishing year

1993

Language

English

Pages

23-36

Publication/Series

Knowledge, Technology and Policy

Volume

6

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Keywords

  • sociologi
  • sociology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1946-4789