Abstract The ways in which local government policy entrepreneurs use knowledge production to drive policy innovation remain underexplored. This study addresses that gap by analysing how local government policy entrepreneurs utilise diverse knowledge production strategies to achieve policy innovation. Examining agricultural fund reform in a location referred to as ‘T Town,’ the study creates a knowledge-centred, stage-contingent framework that relates entrepreneurial strategies to policy innovation and observed results. It demonstrates how a township-level policy entrepreneur orchestrated stage-contingent knowledge to move a reform from agenda-setting to authorisation and routinised delivery, then traces the mechanisms that link knowledge claims to intermediate outputs and outcomes. The reform yielded organisational streamlining, greater transparency in fund uses and stronger local governance, and the results of the study show how knowledge operates both as design input and a relational device that structures collaboration across policy stages.
Liang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.