Applying sustainability in national park management: balancing public and private interests using a sustainable market orientation model

Abstract

The application of sustainable development (SD) in organisational strategy has been debated for over 20 years. There is much social and political support for sustainability, but very little empirical research into its value, particularly to public sector organisations. This paper reports on the first empirical research into the application of Sustainable Market Orientation (SMO), a conceptual merging of the principles of sustainable development and market orientation, to be applied in strategic management. The research context is the New Zealand Department of Conservation's (DoC) administration of national park policy with particular focus on the Fiordland National Park. In-depth interviews were made with 33 DoC stakeholders, 9 internal and 24 external, including tourism businesses, local and national politicians and tourists and NGOs. The findings confirm the value of SMO in public service strategy management particularly in terms of balancing environmental, social and economic strategy, defining public service marketing parameters and ensuring the integration of short-term and long-term strategy. They also raised key issues in achieving conceptual balance in managing the environmental, social and economic orientations of SMO in protected areas using publicly owned resources and dilemmas inherent in reducing public sector funding for protected area conservation.