The effect of institutional support and relational capital on knowledge mobilization in public administration research

Knowledge mobilization (KMb) takes a programmatic approach to empower and motivate scholars to connect research with policy-making through disseminating research to knowledge users, acquiring information from practitioners, and responding to the acquired information. The present study aims to investigate the influence of institutional-level factors on researchers' KMb activities. One hundred fifty-five researchers in the field of public administration across China participated in an online survey study. The participants reported their KMb activities, perceived institutional support, and relational capital. The results demonstrate that both the strength of institutional support and relational capital are positively associated with researchers' KMb activities. Moreover, the effect of institutional support tends to be stronger when an institution has more relational capital. The study highlights that research institutions should take programmatic approaches to empower their researchers to be actively involved in the knowledge co-production process and make a systematic effort at the institutional level to build a well-developed collaborative network.