A Cognitive Perspective on Policy Implementation: Reform Beliefs, Sensemaking, and Social Networks

• Author: Yi‐Hwa Liou,Alan J. Daly,Nienke M. Moolenaar,Michael D. Siciliano
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12797
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

A Cognitive Perspective on Policy Implementation: Reform Beliefs, Sensemaking, and Social Networks 889

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 6, pp. 889–901. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12797.

Alan J. Daly is chair and professor in

the Department of Education Studies at

the University of California, San Diego. His

research and teaching primarily focus on

the role of leadership, educational policy,

and organizational structures and the

relationships among those elements in

the educational attainment of traditionally

marginalized populations. He has held a

wide variety of positions in public education

including classroom teacher, district

psychologist, and site administrator.

E-mail: ajdaly@ucsd.edu

Nienke M. Moolenaar is a faculty

member in the Department of Education at

Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In her

research, she explores how educators’ social

networks change during educational reform.

Drawing on complexity theory and literature on

dynamic systems, she aims to understand how

this network change supports and constrains

school improvement in terms of teachers’

instructional practice and student achievement.

E-mail: n.m.moolenaar@uu.nl

Michael D. Siciliano is assistant

professor of public administration at the

University of Illinois at Chicago. His research

focuses on network formation and the

effect of social structure on individual and

collective behavior, decision making, and

performance. He has worked with nearly 100

schools across the United States on issues

of collaboration, knowledge exchange, and

reform. He also studies collaboration in the

context of local service provision, emergency

management, and science policy.

E-mail: sicilian@uic.edu

Abstract : Utilizing a cognitive perspective, this article examines the social processes through which teachers come to

understand the Common Core State Standards. The authors begin by identifying three beliefs that have important

implications for policy implementation: self-efficacy, resource adequacy, and value for clients. They measure those

beliefs and the Common Core discussion networks that emerge among teachers at three points in time. Through the use

of SIENA models, the authors explore how networks and beliefs coevolve within schools. Unlike prior research on social

networks, which consistently finds strong homophilous tendencies, this research finds no evidence that teachers seek out

coworkers who hold similar beliefs. Rather, teachers relied on preexisting formal and informal relationships to guide

interactions. Those interactions were characterized by social influence, whereby a teacher ’ s own beliefs adapted toward

the beliefs held by the members of their social network. The findings offer a novel perspective on the complex dynamic

that occurs within organizations as new policies are unveiled and employees interact with one another to understand

the changes those policies entail.

Practitioner Points

• Individual policy beliefs, which shape implementation decisions and behaviors, are socially constructed and

legitimized.

• When faced with large-scale policy change, bureaucrats engage one another in a collective sensemaking

process characterized by peer dialogue and discussion.

• While discussion networks emerge when new policy is introduced, they are influenced by preexisting

informal and formal relationships within the organization.

• Bureaucrats both seek and are sought for discussions based on their own efficacy in understanding the policy,

their perception of resource adequacy for implementation, and the value they see in the reform.

• Over time, individual policy beliefs assimilate toward the beliefs held by peers. This suggests that central

members of an organization ’ s informal network carry significant weight in shaping collective beliefs.

Michael D. Siciliano

University of Illinois at Chicago

Nienke M. Moolenaar

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Alan J. Daly

University of California, San Diego

Yi-Hwa Liou

National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan

A Cognitive Perspective on Policy Implementation:

Reform Beliefs, Sensemaking, and Social Networks

T he existence of street-level discretion is well

documented. Research examining frontline

bureaucratic behavior has focused primarily

on the role of individual attributes, organizational

attributes, and client characteristics (May and

Winter 2009 ; Riccucci 2005 ). Two related areas

have received less attention: the personal beliefs

that bureaucrats hold toward a particular policy

prior to implementation and the social processes

and interactions that influence the formation of

those beliefs. The first relates to what Goldman and

Foldy refer to as the “the space before action, or the

processes through which [frontline workers] make

choices about how to proceed” (2015, 166–67). In

“the space before action,” street-level bureaucrats form

perceptions of a new policy, and those beliefs, in turn,

influence their implementation behavior (Hill 2003 ;

Kelly 1994 ; May and Winter 2009 ; Sandfort 2000 ;

Tummers and Bekkers 2014 ).

The second concerns the role of social networks in

shaping street-level beliefs and behavior. Research

suggests that individual beliefs within organizations

are socially constructed (Ibarra and Andrews 1993 ;

Salancik and Pfeffer 1978 ). Therefore, the appropriate

unit of analysis for the study of reform beliefs is not

the individual but rather the social network (Erickson

1988 , 99). Recent scholarship on frontline workers

stresses the need to move beyond analyzing street-level

bureaucrats as independent actors toward research that

situates them as members of a social system (Gofen

2014 ; Keiser 2010 ). Hill contends that “[h]ow—and

from whom—local actors come to understand what

reforms mean in terms of their everyday actions is

of crucial importance, for those understandings will

shape the policy that ultimately gets delivered to

clients” (2003, 266). This suggests that the use of

discretion and divergence from intended policy is not

a phenomenon that occurs individual by individual

Yi-Hwa Liou is assistant professor in the

Department of Educational Management at

the National Taipei University of Education,

Taiwan. Her research interests primary focus

on bringing the network research method

to the world of organizational dynamics

and learning, leadership and development,

and data-informed decisions, to understand

several complex areas of organization-level

research. She is currently conducting a

longitudinal study of social network change

in a school district leadership team and its

alignment effort around improvement.

E-mail: yhliou@tea.ntue.edu.tw