TIME TO CHANGE: The foreseeable future for water planning

Abstract

The decisions people make, and the actions they take, depend on how they conceptualize and experience time. This fundamental and influential factor is seldom acknowledged, little understood, and rarely considered explicitly in planning; be that for the material systems or the knowledge systems in the water sector. The objectives of the research that is described in this thesis were (1) to characterize similarities and differences in the Time Perspectives of people working in the water sector worldwide and (2) to theorize about how this temporal ambiguity influences, and can be used for, water planning and setting research agendas. First an interpretive framework was developed including a model of Time Perspective, which was designed to make clear the most fundamental assumptions about the (relationships between) aspects of an individual’s Time Perspective that influence the decisions they make and the actions they take. This model builds on explicit foundations from Critical Realism and brings together psychological theories of motivation and internal time consciousness. The model formed a framework that was used to develop the Foreseeable Future Multi-measure Method. This new method was designed to characterize relevant aspects of an individual’s Time Perspective in an integrated fashion. It is a structured interview with five successive steps that are sequenced to account for socially acceptable responses and to facilitate triangulation: 1. Describe the goals and events that motivate the interviewee’s decisions and actions 2. Characterize the structure and orientation of the interviewee’s concept of time 3. Measure the temporal extension of the interviewee’s motivational objects 4. Triangulate the indirect measures with direct questions by completion of sentences 5. Triangulate the preceding measures with an inventory for typifying orientation The Foreseeable Future Multi-measure Method was used to interview 309 managers, practical workers, and scientists in the Netherlands, Ghana, Brazil, and Japan. The author of this thesis conducted all of the interviews in person together with a local interpreter in each country. The four countries were chosen to represent the international diversity in Time Perspectives and the three professional roles provided a sample of the diversity in the level of abstraction of water professionals from theory to practice. The most noteworthy conclusions of the empirical study concern differences in the temporal extent of the goals and events that motivate people. Scientists are motivated by objects that lie furthest into the future followed by managers and then practical workers (Group medians: 8.4; 3.5; 1.7 years). Across national cultures, the time horizons of the Japanese and Brazilian interviewees were found to be longest. The differences across professional roles are greater and more significant than those across countries. But the characteristics of national cultures were found to amplify the differences across professional roles. Within the context of national cultures that were characterized as being most orientated towards the future, for example, scientists had especially long-term Time Perspectives. To map ambiguity in Time Perspectives on a global scale the data from the empirical study was extrapolated and reinterpreted using correlations with national scale cultural dimensions for 22 countries. This theoretical study resulted in an indicator of the potential for intercultural cooperation on wicked problems in water sector worldwide. Brazil, India, and China, countries whose answers to wicked problems in the Water-Energy-Food nexus will be of global importance, are likely to frame problems quite differently from each other but, more importantly, with a longer term vision than recent world powers such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The conclusions are important because the time horizons considered in planning and setting research agendas influence what problems are perceived, what questions are asked, and what solutions are sought. An important recommendation is to invest more resources in the framing of problems, goals, and questions. This is particularly important for participatory planning and transdisciplinary research where the diversity in Time Perspectives is greatest. Insight into Time Perspectives can be used in planning to define milestones with temporal targets that are most likely to motivate the relevant actors. It is also useful for directing strategic horizon-scanning activities. For setting research agendas it is important to match the Time Perspectives of those who prioritize the questions with the purpose of the research.