The effect of personal values and the roles on representational principles in natural resource management decision-making

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how personal values and the role of the representative influence representation principles when making decisions in natural resource management. This was tested in an empirical case of wildlife management in Sweden, the regional Wildlife Conservation Committees (WCCs). These WCCs consist of a mix of actors in collaborative settings, where both politicians and interest organization representatives make decisions on wildlife related issues. The results show that the value dimension of self-enhancement, associated with giving importance to values such as achievement and power, significantly affects a representational style associated with following the representative's personal preferences when making decisions, the trustee principle. The role of the representative also significantly affects representational style when making decisions in these cases, where the interest organizational representatives more often follow the party principle, i.e., the view of the parties or organization they represent, than the political actors. Age also had a significant impact where older representatives relied more on the trustee principle than their younger peers. The implications of these results are that personal values in this case matters for decision-making, which is in line with earlier research on decision-making on environmental issues. Further, politicians behave atypically for the Swedish context relying more on the trustee principle rather than the party principle, which policy makers should take into consideration when designing collaborative arenas similar to the WCCs.