Stakeholder Bias Research Articles

Rapid Site Selection to Prioritize Coastal Seascapes for Nature-Based Solutions With Multiple Benefits

Coastal seascapes are productive and diverse land-sea systems that provide many valuable benefits yet are increasingly threatened by human activity. Scaling up of nature-based solutions (NbS) to effectively protect, sustainably manage, and restore coastal seascapes is urgently required for mitigation of climate change and biodiversity loss while also providing socio-economic benefits. Evidence-based site selection is an important first step to improve the outcomes and avoid negative impacts when prioritizing NbS investments at national level. We developed a spatially explicit, integrative and culturally relevant ecosystem-based site selection process to identify a portfolio of seascapes for NbS consideration in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The primary goal was to rank planning units based on potential for climate change mitigation action, positive impact to biodiversity and socio-economic benefits to people. The multi-criteria site-selection framework provided a rapid, transparent, repeatable and scalable tool. The highest weightings were assigned to blue carbon storage value, biodiversity conservation features, and local stakeholder preferred areas. Spatial proxies for benefits to people were represented by population density and accessibility to coastal seascapes, relative tourism and recreation potential, and importance of fish habitat and fishing grounds for food security. Participatory mapping of local knowledge and review of existing data ensured that both qualitative and quantitative criteria were reliable, up-to-date and locally relevant. Two distinct clusters of high suitability planning units were identified in the Abu Dhabi region and four along the north-western coast of the UAE. Most high suitability sites were located outside of existing marine protected areas. Alternative spatial scenarios without stakeholder bias underscored the suitability of sites identified through participatory mapping and highlighted additional priority sites for future scaling-up of NbS. A spatial corridor of medium and high suitability planning units across the region offers potential for designing well-connected NbS investments to accelerate and boost synergistic outcomes and increase resilience. The site selection framework provides a rapid tool that integrates local and global open access data at a range of scales with great potential for transferability to other regions worldwide.

Stakeholder bias in best practice advisories: an ethical perspective.

Clinicians are increasingly being asked to heed and follow the guidance provided by “best practice advisories.” Such advisories, often in the form of electronic reminders or alerts, are meant to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of evidence-based medical practice. However, we argue that best practice advisories can sometimes be infused with stakeholder bias, even if inadvertently. We specifically argue that best practice advisory biases can occur when an advisory is not oriented to benefit patients at least as much or more than other stakeholders. To address this issue, we put forth the perspective that ethical consideration of biases is especially important in best practice advisory design and revision processes.

An Analysis of the Conceptual Landscape of Corporate Responsibility in Academia

Most corporate stakeholders agree that Corporate Responsibility (CR) ought to be part of modern business management and practice. Academic work has been seminal to a fruitful and collaborative relationship between business and society. A closer examination of the contemporary academic narratives on CR, however, reveals a plethora of positions orbiting this complex construct, rendering it and its applications opaque, amorphous, and contested. The bewildering array of conceptualizations and applications leads not only to unintended consequences but also to concrete negative outcomes for most stakeholders. In this study, we map the conceptual landscape of CR in academia by systematically analyzing 120 audio and video recordings of university sponsored or endorsed CR-focused workshops, business meetings, interviews, lectures, conference presentations, roundtable events, and debates held between 2010 and 2014 and deposited at the media repository iTunesU. The recordings were analyzed using Content Configuration Analysis, a qualitative analysis method related to content and thematic analyses. Our results show how business ethics in academia are often debated in opposition to or independent from business and economic concerns. We highlight seven shortcomings within this conceptual space, relating to conceptual disunion, Eurocentrism, lack of specificity with regard to domains, stakeholder bias, areas of application, and normativity. Recommendations to overcome some of these shortcomings are presented to develop policy-relevant and change-oriented approaches to CR, which would make academic work on business ethics more applicable to globalized business and business practices, as well as to further develop collaborative partnerships between academia, business, and society.

The Three Gorges Project: How sustainable?

Summary In 1984 the Government of China approved the decision to construct the Three Gorges Dam Project, the largest project since the Great Wall. The project had many barriers to overcome, and the decision was made at a time when sustainability was a relatively unknown concept. The decision to construct the Three Gorges Project remains contentious today, especially since Deputy Director of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, Wang Xiaofeng, stated that “We absolutely cannot relax our guard against ecological and environmental security problems sparked by the Three Gorges Project” ( Bristow, 2007 , Mccabe, 2007 ). The question therefore was posed: how sustainable is the Three Gorges Project? Conventional approaches to sustainability assessment tend to use monetary based assessment aligned to triple bottom line thinking. That is, projects are evaluated as trade-offs between economic, environmental and social costs and benefits. The question of sustainability is considered using such a traditional Cost-Benefit Analysis approach, as undertaken in 1988 by a CIPM-Yangtze Joint Venture, and the Mauri Model Decision Making Framework (MMDMF). The Mauri Model differs from other approaches in that sustainability performance indicators are considered independently from any particular stakeholder bias. Bias is then introduced subsequently as a sensitivity analysis on the raw results obtained. The MMDMF is unique in that it is based on the Māori concept of Mauri, the binding force between the physical and the spiritual attributes of something, or the capacity to support life in the air, soil, and water. This concept of Mauri is analogous to the Chinese concept of Qi, and there are many analogous concepts in other cultures. It is the universal relevance of Mauri that allows its use to assess sustainability. This research identified that the MMDMF was a strong complement to Cost-Benefit Analysis, which is not designed as a sustainability assessment tool in itself. The MMDMF does have relevance in identifying areas of conflict, and it can support the Cost-Benefit Analysis in assessing sustainability, as a Decision Support Tool. The research concluded that, based on both models, the Three Gorges Project as understood in 1988, and incorporating more recent sustainability analysis is contributing to enhanced sustainability.

Managing Sustainable Development Conflicts: The Impact of Stakeholders in Small-Scale Hydropower Schemes

The growing importance of the environment and its management has simultaneously emphasized the benefits of hydroelectric power and its environmental costs. In a changing policy climate, giving importance to renewable energy development and environmental protection, conflict potential between stakeholders is considerable. Navigation of conflict determines the scheme constructed, making sustainable hydropower a function of human choice. To meet the needs of practitioners, greater understanding of stakeholder conflict is needed. This paper presents an approach to illustrate the challenges that face small-scale hydropower development as perceived by the stakeholders involved, and how they influence decision-making. Using Gordleton Mill, Hampshire (UK), as an illustrative case, soft systems methodology, a systems modeling approach, was adopted. Through individual interviews, a range of problems were identified and conceptually modeled. Stakeholder bias towards favoring economic appraisal over intangible social and environmental aspects was identified; costs appeared more influential than profit. Conceptual evaluation of the requirements to meet a stakeholder-approved solution suggested a complex linear systems approach, considerably different from the real-life situation. The stakeholders introduced bias to problem definition by transferring self-perceived issues onto the project owner. Application of soft systems methodology caused a shift in project goals away from further investigation towards consideration of project suitability. The challenge of sustainable hydropower is global, with a need to balance environmental, economic, and social concerns. It is clear that in this type of conflict, an individual can significantly influence outcomes; highlighting the need for more structured approaches to deal with stakeholder conflicts in sustainable hydropower development.

Audio‐video decision support for patients: the documentary genré as a basis for decision aids

Decision support tools are increasingly using audio-visual materials. However, disagreement exists about the use of audio-visual materials as they may be subjective and biased. This is a literature review of the major texts for documentary film studies to extrapolate issues of objectivity and bias from film to decision support tools. The key features of documentary films are that they attempt to portray real events and that the attempted reality is always filtered through the lens of the filmmaker. The same key features can be said of decision support tools that use audio-visual materials. Three concerns arising from documentary film studies as they apply to the use of audio-visual materials in decision support tools include whose perspective matters (stakeholder bias), how to choose among audio-visual materials (selection bias) and how to ensure objectivity (editorial bias). Decision science needs to start a debate about how audio-visual materials are to be used in decision support tools. Simply because audio-visual materials may be subjective and open to bias does not mean that we should not use them. Methods need to be found to ensure consensus around balance and editorial control, such that audio-visual materials can be used.

I don’t need anybody to tell me what I should be doing’. A discursive analysis of maternal accounts of (mis)trust of healthy eating information

Healthy eating initiatives, and messages about what one should be eating, are prolific in contemporary British society. This paper examines mothers’ talk around food and feeding to determine how trust or mistrust in healthy eating information is established and rationalised. Discursive analysis of interviews with mothers (N=12, aged 25–45) isolated two prominent discursive positions that mothers established with regards to healthy eating messages. First, they legitimised an extensive mistrust of healthy eating information and messages on the grounds that they are at best, inconsistent and at worst, grossly contaminated by stakeholder bias. Second, and in contrast, they established (most) mothers as having a wholesome, privileged, and entirely sufficient instinctive knowledge about how to feed their children. However, an out-group of failing mothers, deemed to have inadequate nutritional knowledge, was also formulated. Mothers talk thus established a central dilemma whereby to accept nutritional advice compromised a good mothering identity. We argue that nutritional messages and interventions should be sensitive to this dilemma so that they facilitate, rather than threaten, a good mothering identity.

Crossing Borders: Developing an Innovative Collaboration to Improve the Preparation of High School English Teachers

Broad (1999) observed that “troubled borders crisscross the geography of teacher preparation in English” (p. 373), calling for collaboration where preparation is a university responsibility (Gregorian, 2001). This research documents a three-year complex case study that addressed the question: What happens when English, education, and high school faculty cross borders to prepare secondary English teachers to teach in urban schools? This study looked at faculty mentors and preservice teacher mentees as they collaborated on multi-leveled projects to improve teacher preparation of secondary English teachers. Interventions included collaborative seminars, collaborative mentoring, and individual mentoring of preservice English teachers by English, education, and high school faculty. Results indicate that interventions challenged biases of stakeholders, enhanced the quality of teacher preparation, and revised instructional practices of university English and education faculty and preservice teachers. Results indicate that mentees incorporated suggestions made by mentors that reinforced pedagogical content knowledge. Most mentees regarded content mentors favorably, noting that their focus of observation was different from those of clinical supervisors and cooperating teachers. English and education mentors assimilated changes in personal pedagogy based on observations and discussions with urban high school teachers. Such discussions also challenged personal beliefs about urban students and schools. Content mentors also adjusted syllabi to include materials used in high school curricula. The implication of this study is that “crossing borders” improves and alters how university faculty can better prepare preservice teachers.

Stakeholder Bias

AbstractThe handling of potential stakeholder bias distinguishes evaluation theorists from one another and from practitioners.

Insights from Attempts to Validate a Multi‐Attribute Model of Problem Definition Quality

ABSTRACTProblem definitions are often used as part of the problem structuring process in decision sciences. We report an attempt to validate a multi‐attribute model of problem definition quality in the context of an experiment based upon the definition of the ‘alcohol problem’ on a campus. Three independent raters assessed values for the attributes of the model for 57 written problem definitions, and their rating was compared to three subjective ‘expert’ ratings made by individuals with some responsibility for alcohol policy. Our study shows that the experts exhibited considerable stakeholder bias in their assessments of the definitions, suggesting that a definition that is evaluated as good may not be subjectively acceptable to others. We present some evidence that the best definitions are those that provide direction with regard to solution, neither suggesting firm solutions to the problem nor being too open‐ended. It is shown that the multi‐attribute model is a reasonable tool for eliminating poorer definitions. Further, we relate our work to recent conceptual developments in understanding problem definition.