Selección de compuestos de boro con interés en la química supramolecular

52 This approach, somehow places in a second level the specific focus of each literature (centered in conditions and transfer processes in the policy transfer literature and related to the search of excellence in the benchmarking literature). This decision has been taken in order to better focus on the methodological aspects of the transfer problem, in view of the objective set for this thesis.

Policy learning / transfer

Policy

Measure

Practice

POLICY DEFINITION

COMPLEXITY

High Low

Benchmarking

(Defined, Quantitative) (Undefined, Qualitative)

D

C

O

Coming now back to the question posed (i.e. the evaluation of their potential to back a framework for the analysis of policy transfer with consistent specifications and lessons), its answer greatly lies on the definition of the interface DOC (see diagram). In particular, the evaluation of the complexity linked to the specific policy examined (point C) and its stage of development (point D) will orient it towards one, another, or both literatures.

4.6 Synthesis

In the last decades, changes in the economy and society have led to increasing complexity and challenged the ability of governments and corporations to promote and implement their policies. This evolution has also offered new opportunities in both sectors. Governments have found an increasing availability of national experiences and the occasion for policy coordination, harmonization and transfer. Companies have found new sources of learning in the practices and processes of competitors and have took advantage of them in their innovation processes. New possibilities for learning, improving and transferring policies and practices have arisen. Accordingly, it has been necessary to develop a set of concepts, tools and methodologies to guide and improve the exchange of knowledge across institutions and its application in new environments and contexts. Two distinct disciplines have undertaken this task, developing theoretical and applied approaches to the notions of transfer and transferability: comparative politics and management science.

The efforts of comparative politics have been focused on the development of the policy transfer concept, still open as regards its relation to similar notions like policy learning, policy diffusion or convergence. The review of the ongoing debate provides a valuable input for the conceptual framework proposed in this thesis concerning the relation between transfer and policy-making, the consideration of rationality and coercion in the transfer process or the causes of transfer failure. The review of the frameworks proposed by the policy transfer literature presents a number of lessons that can be useful at different stages of the framework-building process. The most important ideas regard the multi-level approach to transfer, understood as the successive influence of external and internal processes, the open refusal of comprehensive rationality, the three basic steps of policy transfer (information, evaluation/adaptation and decision /implementation) or the key role played by synthesis and mapping procedures throughout the transfer process.

Management science has produced the notion of benchmarking, also subject to debate

because of its dynamic nature and increasingly extended application. In the private sector, benchmarking has been primarily employed as a practical tool to identify and achieve quantifiable targets, but also to steer change in corporate’s visions and culture. A large number of frameworks and models has been developed, with common characteristics, as the cyclical steps of learning and transfer, the specific attention devoted to the monitoring and understanding of internal practices, the ordered and formal approach of the comparison process or the strong orientation towards a clear objective, certainly worth of consideration when proposing a policy transfer framework.

In the public sector benchmarking has assumed a twofold function, as a management tool oriented to reproduce competitive conditions and as a policy-making tool able to explore different policy options, gain political support to new ideas, control decision processes or promote commitment through peer-to-peer pressure. It is in this second role where the notion of benchmarking explores its own limits with respect to the policy-making process, the multiplicity of stakeholders, the introduction of qualitative methods as a complement to quantification or its relation to policy assessment procedures.

The presence of the learning and transfer steps in the benchmarking literature and the apparent overlapping of concepts such as policy learning, policy transfer and policy benchmarking suggests a link between the two literatures considered. This research proposes that both literatures may be understood as different approaches to the same

“transfer problem”, with the view arising from the comparative politics being a “top-down” approach and the view arising from management science being a “bottom-up”

approach. Furthermore it defines the fields of application of each literature according to three dimensions. The first one is the sphere where the transfer question lies. Here it is necessary to distinguish between the management and policy-making spheres, with the management sphere clearly within the scope of the benchmarking literature. Once in the policy-making sphere, the scope for each literature is determined by the policy definition dimension, referred to the point of the process going from policy to practice where the transfer problem arises, and the complexity dimension, related to the specific complication of the transfer problem in terms of the number of levels, actors and interactions involved, the relevance of the specific policy field tackled and the uncertainty present in the decision-making system. According to these two dimensions, the scope of benchmarking literature in the policy-making sphere is preferently located in well-defined and lowly complex steps of policy, while the scope of the policy transfer literature is complementary. This view is in harmony with the development of the benchmarking concept, eminently practical, which reached the policy-making sphere only after succeeding in the private and public sectors as a management tool.

Chapter

5

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE