Abstract
In managing environmental problems, several countries have chosen the management by objectives (MBO) approach. This paper investigates how focus group participants from the Swedish environmental administration used metaphors to describe the mode of organization needed to attain environmental objectives. Such analysis can shed light on how an MBO system is perceived by actors and how it works in practice. Although the Swedish government intended to stimulate broad-based cooperation among many actors, participants often saw themselves as located at a certain “level,” i.e., “higher” or “lower,” in the MBO system—that is, their conceptions corresponded to a traditional, hierarchical interpretation of MBO. Prepositions such as “in” and “out” contributed to feelings of inclusion and exclusion on the part of MBO actors. However, horizontal metaphors merged with vertical ones, indicating ongoing competition for the right to interpret how the system of environmental objectives should best be managed. The paper concludes that any organization applying MBO could benefit from discussing alternate ways of talking and thinking about its constituent “levels.”
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Notes
Countries where MBO is used for public environmental management include Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
Such national environmental objectives include the Swedish environmental objectives “reduced climate impact,” “flourishing lakes and streams,” and “zero eutrophication” (http://www.miljomal.nu/english.php), and the Australian objectives “protect threatened species and ecological communities” and “achieve ecologically sustainable management of Australia’s water resources and water-dependent ecosystems” (http://environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/objectives/pubs/objectives.pdf).
These are: reduced climate impact, clean air, natural acidification only, a non-toxic environment, a protective ozone layer, a safe radiation environment, zero eutrophication, flourishing lakes and streams, good-quality groundwater, a balanced marine environment, flourishing coastal areas and archipelagos, thriving wetlands, sustainable forests, a varied agricultural landscape, a magnificent mountain landscape, a good built environment, and a rich diversity of plant and animal life (http://www.miljomal.nu/Environmental-Objectives-Portal/).
Other analyses of this data are found in Johansson (2008).
However, in one group (the local politicians) only two participants showed up. This group would, in Toner’s (2009) terminology, be regarded as a very small focus group (VSFG). Toner argues that VSFGs may well generate rich data and that even in VSFGs typical group development stages occur, although interaction in larger groups may reflect more variation, distance, and autonomy.
The metaphors are indicated in italics.
Even though Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) analysis is of the English language, similar expressions exist in Swedish, with similar value loadings.
The concept of social representations could be defined as “a system of values, ideas and practices with a twofold function: first to establish an order which will enable individuals to orient themselves in their material and social world and to master it; and secondly to enable communication to take place among the members of a community by providing them with a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history” (Moscovici 1973, p. xiii).
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Acknowledgments
This paper was made possible by a grant from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency for the research program Assessment of Environmental Goal Achievement under Uncertainty (no. I-37-03). The author wishes to thank Gunilla Öberg and Madelaine Johansson for productive discussion and collaboration throughout the study. Special thanks are extended to Madelaine Johansson, who conducted the focus groups reported on here. Anna Larsson, who now works at the County Board of Södermanland, also contributed to the initial analysis of the material, for which she is warmly acknowledged. The author wishes to thank Anders Grimvall, Claudia Libiseller, Per Milberg, Nico Stehr, Sofie Storbjörk, Lars Westerberg, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.
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Wibeck, V. Images of Environmental Management: Competing Metaphors in Focus Group Discussions of Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives. Environmental Management 49, 776–787 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9816-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9816-7