Perceptions of Success and the Question of Consensus in Natural Resource Collaboration: Lessons from an Inactive Collaborative Group

Abstract

To better understand the relationship between collaborative process and results, we interviewed participants of an inactive collaborative group and analyzed their perceptions of success and the role of consensus in the group's process and outcomes. The main objective of the Intermountain Public Land Cooperative (IMPLC, a pseudonym) was to craft a consensus community alternative for the local Bureau of Land Management (BLM) resource area's Resource Management Plan. Participants perceived many benefits from collaboration, including improved communication and relationships, and high-quality input to the BLM planning process. However, the group was unable to reach consensus and one-quarter of those interviewed indicated that they were less likely to collaborate in the future due to their IMPLC experience. The IMPLC case highlights both benefits and costs of using consensus in collaboration.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 15 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.