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This article investigates the effects of embedding into transnational networks of regulatory agencies (TRNs) on the administrative identifications held by national agency officials. Drawing on an organisational-institutional approach, the article discusses two contending empirical expectations linked to the notion of institutional primacy and transnational segmentation respectively. Whereas the first suggests that agency officials' administrative identifications are primarily and predominantly oriented toward their domestic institutional surroundings, and that this feature is robust in the face of increased transnational collaboration, by contrast, the notion of transnational segmentation assumes that transnational identifications are likely to be present among national agency officials and particularly among those who maintain contacts and participate vis-à-vis TRNs. Employing survey data gathered among Norwegian agency officials, the article assesses the relative strength of different identifications and provides insights into the effects of transnational embedding vis-à-vis this behavioural property.

AbstractIn countries with long‐standing agency traditions, the creation of new agencies rarely comes as a large‐scale reform but rather as one structural choice of many possible, most notably a ministerial division. In order to make sense of these choices, the article discusses the role ofpolitical design—focusing on the role of political motivations, such as ideological turnover, replacement risks and ideological stands toward administrative efficiency—andorganizational dynamics—focusing on the role of administrative legacies and existing organizational palettes. The article utilizes data on organizational creations in the Norwegian central state between 1947 and 2019, in order to explore how political design and organizational dynamics help us understand the creation of agencies relative to ministry divisions over time. We find that political motives matter a great deal for the structural choices made by consecutive Norwegian governments, but that structural path dependencies may also be at play.