6. Conclusions
This study examines how enterprise policy ideas emerge in think tanks to explore whether this could possibly lead to the ineffectiveness of enterprise policy by understanding the enterprise policy process, the actors and the environment. Think tanks share a number of challenges with other institutions working with or advising government, it is very much a top-down approach with respect to policy-making or policy influencing (Arshed et al., 2016). It was never the aim of this study to establish a causal relationship between think tank ideas and the outcomes of enterprise policy. In any case, this would be very difficult as policy processes are complex and involve a multitude of actors. “If ideas emerging from think tanks are consistent with policy proposals from leaders of political parties, this can be taken as an indication of in- fluence, but finding congruence does not establish proof of impact” (Pautz, 2013, p. 373). The findings highlight that think tanks have no systematic method of understanding where ideas come from, and how they directly influence government officials with them. They take care to collect evidence to support their ideas before presenting them to government officials, but more often than not, the ideas are purposely beneficial to the government official that they have a relationship with or know of particular individual interests with respect to the political environment.
