Expectations about voluntary efforts in collaborative governance and the fit with perceived prerequisites of intrinsic motivation in Sweden’s ecosystem-based moose management system

Abstract

Collaborative governance regimes may be vulnerable because of dependency on stakeholders’ voluntary engagement and efforts. This study focuses on the Swedish moose management system, a multi-level collaborative governance regime inspired by the ecosystem approach. Self-determination theory is used to explore perceived prerequisites of basic needs for intrinsic motivation across sub-groups of stakeholder representatives who are engaged across different social-ecological contexts. Questionnaire data collected among representatives at two governance levels, moose management groups (n = 624) and moose management units (n = 979), were subjected to two-step cluster analysis. The analyses revealed two sub-groups of representatives, characterized by differences in species composition and land ownership structure: managers of multi-ungulate areas and managers of large-carnivore areas. In several respects, these groups significantly differed in how they perceived the prerequisites. This included prerequisites of perceived competence with regard to their need for knowledge of topics and usefulness of monitoring methods, perceived autonomy operationalized as possibilities to perform their tasks with sufficient time, resources, and support from their organizations, and perceived relatedness to different groups of actors. Further efforts should be made to understand the conditions required for representatives to energize and direct their behavior. The institutional system must better fit the needs of stakeholder representatives across various local contexts, otherwise the space for local voluntary engagement might be hampered.