Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Would You Walk 500 Miles? Place Stewardship in the Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

To sustainably govern a Social-Ecological System (SES), both the academic literature and practitioners recommend involving a broad range of actors—public or private—from the territory in question. Nonetheless, the presence of actors in collaborative SES governance processes is not a given. Since this presence requires time and energy without direct personal reward, it depends on the actors’ likelihood to embrace a stewardship role, which in turn depends on their relationship with their biophysical and social contexts. This paper studies the role played by actors’ places of residence in their stewardship behavior in collaborative SES governance. To this end, we analyze the attendance patterns of over 600 members of a French River Basin Committee over 26 years, to shed light on the biophysical determinants. We find that individuals’ biophysical experience plays a critical role in motivating ‘place stewardship’ behavior—especially for key groups of actors such as farmers. We discuss the challenges that place stewardship poses for SESs and outline measures for fostering broader SES stewardship.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The anonymized data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. CLC provides land use data for the years 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018. There are changes of land use in Loire-Bretagne, but they are relatively slow. The ratio of forest and semi-natural land remains stable from 19.8% to 19.9% between 1990 and 2018.

  2. 37 of all 465 municipalities in our dataset are located outside the basin boundaries. This is because the river basins cut through other administrative geographical units in France (e.g., departments, regions). For example, representatives of regional organizations partly covered by the basin might not themselves live within basin boundaries.

  3. Three different presidents were in position between 1990 and 2015.

  4. To gain further insights on members’ propensity to attend meetings during extreme hydrological conditions (years of high- and low-flow), we additionally considered these two exceptional flow situations separately (see Appendix Table 7). This additional analysis shows that the disappearance of geographical constraints to members’ attendance is especially strong in high-flow years, when the distance variables no longer have a significant effect on the likelihood to attend.

References

  • Agence de l’eau Loire-Bretagne. (2008). Procès-verbal de séance—Séance plénière du 10 juillet 2008. Ed. Archives de l’agence de l’eau, Orléans.

  • Ansell, C., & Gash, A. (2008). Collaborative governance in theory and practice. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(4), 543–571.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anton, C. E., & Lawrence, C. (2014). Home is where the heart is: The effect of place of residence on place attachment and community participation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 451–461.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barataud, F., Durpoix, A., & Mignolet, C. (2014). Broad analysis of French priority catchment areas: A step toward adaption of the water framework directive? Land Use Policy, 36, 427–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baudoin, L., & Gittins, J. R. (2021). The ecological outcomes of collaborative governance in large river basins: Who is in the room and does it matter? Journal of Environmental Management, 281, 111836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belaire, J. A., Dribin, A. K., Johnston, D. P., Lynch, D. J., & Minor, E. S. (2011). Mapping stewardship networks in urban ecosystems: Social networks in urban ecosystems. Conservation Letters, 4(6), 464–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, N. J., Whitty, T. S., Finkbeiner, E., Pittman, J., Bassett, H., Gelcich, S., & Allison, E. H. (2018). Environmental stewardship: A conceptual review and analytical framework. Environmental Management, 61(4), 597–614.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkes, F., Folke, C., & Colding, J. (1998). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bodin, Ö. (2017). Collaborative environmental governance: Achieving collective action in social-ecological systems. Science, 357(6352), eaan1114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brody, S. D., Highfield, W., & Alston, L. (2004). Does location matter?: Measuring environmental perceptions of creeks in two San Antonio watersheds. Environment and Behavior, 36(2), 229–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chan, K. M. A., Balvanera, P., Benessaiah, K., Chapman, M., Díaz, S., Gómez-Baggethun, E., Gould, R., Hannahs, N., Jax, K., Klain, S., Luck, G. W., Martín-López, B., Muraca, B., Norton, B., Ott, K., Pascual, U., Satterfield, T., Tadaki, M., Taggart, J., & Turner, N. (2016). Opinion: Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(6), 1462–1465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, A. S., Kruger, L. E., & Daniels, S. E. (2003). “Place” as an integrating concept in natural resource politics: Propositions for a social science research agenda. Society & Natural Resources, 16(2), 87–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cockburn, J., Cundill, G., Shackleton, S., Rouget, M., Zwinkels, M., Cornelius, S. A., Metcalfe, L., & van den Broeck, D. (2019). Collaborative stewardship in multifunctional landscapes: Toward relational, pluralistic approaches. Ecology and Society, 24(4), art32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cour des comptes. (2015). Les agences de l’eau et la politique de l’eau : une cohérence à retrouver. Rapport public annuel (Tome 1). pp. 69–164. Ed. Cours des Comptes, Paris. https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-rapport-public-annuel-2015

  • Dietz, T., Ostrom, E., & Stern, P. C. (2003). The struggle to govern the commons. Science, 302(5652), 1907–1912.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Egan, M. (2015). Driving water management change where economic incentive is limited. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(1), 73–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Folke, C., Biggs, R., Norström, A. V., Reyers, B., & Rockström, J. (2016). Social-ecological resilience and biosphere-based sustainability science. Ecology and Society, 21(3), art41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., & Norberg, J. (2005). Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 30(1), 441–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao, L., Tao, B., Miao, Y., Zhang, L., Song, X., Ren, W., He, L., & Xu, X. (2019). A global data set for economic losses of extreme hydrological events during 1960–2014. Water Resources Research, 55(6), 5165–5175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grammatikopoulou, I., Pouta, E., & Myyrä, S. (2016). Exploring the determinants for adopting water conservation measures. What is the tendency of landowners when the resource is already at risk? Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 59(6), 993–1014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guthey, G. T., Whiteman, G., & Elmes, M. (2014). Place and sense of place: Implications for organizational studies of sustainability. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(3), 254–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heikkila, T. (2017). Evidence for tackling the complexities of water governance. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 17–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez, M. (2012). Toward an understanding of the psychology of stewardship. Academy of Management Review, 37(2), 172–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hui, I., Ulibarri, N., & Cain, B. (2020). Patterns of participation and representation in a regional water collaboration. Policy Studies Journal, 48(3), 754–781.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Irvin, R. A., & Stansbury, J. (2004). Citizen participation in decision making: Is it worth the effort? Public Administration Review, 64(1), 55–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jager, N., Challies, E., Kochskämper, E., Newig, J., Benson, D., Blackstock, K., Collins, K., Ernst, A., Evers, M., Feichtinger, J., Fritsch, O., Gooch, G., Grund, W., Hedelin, B., Hernández-Mora, N., Hüesker, F., Huitema, D., Irvine, K., Klinke, A., … von Korff, Y. (2016). Transforming European water governance? Participation and river basin management under the EU Water framework directive in 13 member states. Water, 8(4), 156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, M. L., Campbell, L. K., & Svendsen, E. S. (2020). Conceptualizing, analyzing, and supporting stewardship : Examining the role of civil society in environmental governance. Ecology and Society, 25(4), art14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knowler, D., & Bradshaw, B. (2007). Farmers’ adoption of conservation agriculture: A review and synthesis of recent research. Food Policy, 32(1), 25–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koehler, B., & Koontz, T. M. (2008). Citizen participation in collaborative watershed partnerships. Environmental Management, 41(2), 143–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larson, K. L., & Lach, D. (2008). Participants and non-participants of place-based groups: An assessment of attitudes and implications for public participation in water resource management. Journal of Environmental Management, 88(4), 817–830.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leach, W. D. (2006). Collaborative public management and democracy: Evidence from western watershed partnerships. Public Administration Review, 66(s1), 100–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masterson, V. A., Stedman, R. C., Enqvist, J., Tengö, M., Giusti, M., Wahl, D., & Svedin, U. (2017). The contribution of sense of place to social-ecological systems research: A review and research agenda. Ecology and Society. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08872-220149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mobley, C. (2016). What matters when explaining environmentalism at the watershed level: Who you are, where you live, what you see, or what you perceive? Environment and Behavior, 48(9), 1148–1174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogan, R., O’Connor, M., & Horwitz, P. (2005). Nowhere to hide: Awareness and perceptions of environmental change, and their influence on relationships with place. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(2), 147–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarvilinna, A., Lehtoranta, V., & Hjerppe, T. (2018). Willingness to participate in the restoration of waters in an urban–rural setting: Local drivers and motivations behind environmental behavior. Environmental Science & Policy, 85, 11–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, T. A., Ulibarri, N., & Scott, R. P. (2020). Stakeholder involvement in collaborative regulatory processes: Using automated coding to track attendance and actions. Regulation & Governance, 14(2), 219–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sebastien, L. (2020). The power of place in understanding place attachments and meanings. Geoforum, 108, 204–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. (2001). An ethics of place: Radical ecology, postmodernity, and social theory. State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sofi, M. S., Bhat, S. U., Rashid, I., & Kuniyal, J. C. (2020). The natural flow regime: A master variable for maintaining river ecosystem health. Ecohydrology. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2247

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stedman, R. C. (2003). Is it really just a social construction?: The contribution of the physical environment to sense of place. Society & Natural Resources, 16(8), 671–685.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiefenbeck, V., Goette, L., Degen, K., Tasic, V., Fleisch, E., Lalive, R., & Staake, T. (2018). Overcoming salience bias: How real-time feedback fosters resource conservation. Management Science, 64(3), 1458–1476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ujházy, N., Molnár, Z., Bede-Fazekas, Á., Szabó, M. O., & Biró, M. (2020). Do farmers and conservationists perceive landscape changes differently? Ecology and Society, 25(3), art12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wooldridge, J. M. (2005). Simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic, nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 20(1), 39–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zelenski, J. M., Dopko, R. L., & Capaldi, C. A. (2015). Cooperation is in our nature: Nature exposure may promote cooperative and environmentally sustainable behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 42, 24–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Marion Robiliard and Emmanuel Milcent from the Loire-Bretagne Water Agency who helped us access the data and Kevin Walsh for his help in collecting travel distance data. This research has benefitted from the financial support of the FI-AGAUR grant (grant credentials 2018 FI_B 00258, 2019 FI_B1 00166 and 2020 FI_B2 00127).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Excelia Business School, CERIIM, La Rochelle, France

    Lucie Baudoin

  2. IESEG School of Management, Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Economie Management, F-59000, Lille, France

    Mohammed Zakriya

  3. Universitat Ramon Llull, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain

    Daniel Arenas

  4. Teagasc, Dublin, Ireland

    Lael Walsh

Authors
  1. Lucie Baudoin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mohammed Zakriya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Daniel Arenas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Lael Walsh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucie Baudoin.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors are not aware of any conflict of interest for the current study. A subset of the dataset supporting this paper has been used in another paper published by one of the authors (Baudoin & Gittins, 2021) but it was used to answer a different research question—for which attendance ratios between groups were used as an independent variable—and with distinct methodological and theoretical approaches. It does not study individual attendance patterns. Additionally, qualitative data collected by the authors on French River Basin Committees are used in work in progress but again, for non-conflicting research purposes.

Ethical Approval

This research project has been reviewed and approved by ESADE’s Ethics Committee (Approval numbers RE01-003–2018 and RE01-003–2018-rev1).

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7 Determinants of attendance during high- and low-flow years
Full size table
Table 8 Robustness checks for the social-ecological determinants of attendance
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Baudoin, L., Zakriya, M., Arenas, D. et al. Would You Walk 500 Miles? Place Stewardship in the Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems. J Bus Ethics 184, 855–876 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05362-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05362-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation