Stakeholder engagement in natural resources management: Where go from here?

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement (SE) has become a core practice for natural resources management. However, little is known about how interactive relationships between SE components have been considered during a dynamic SE process, compromising our capacity for SE configuration. This study proposes a comprehensive 5 P–10 R framework encompassing five components (P1-problems, P2-purpose, P3-participants, P4-processes, and P5-products) and ten relationships between any two components delineating interactions between them. The framework is applied to examine all SE case studies (n = 1119) on natural resources management published in Web of Sciences until 2021. Findings suggested that among 561 pairs of combinations of these components, only 13% of relationships were significant. The existing knowledge of SE on natural resources management showed a polarized pattern of either knowledge homogenization or knowledge dearth, calling for more theoretical and interdisciplinary research on SE.