{"title":"A cost-effective framework to prioritise stakeholder participation options","authors":"Shuang Liu , Kirsten Maclean , Cathy Robinson","doi":"10.1007/s40070-019-00103-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Stakeholder participation is increasingly being embedded into decision-making processes from the local to the global scale. With limited resources to engage stakeholders, frameworks that allow decision-makers to make cost-effective choices are greatly needed. In this paper, we present a structured decision-making (SDM) framework that enables environmental decision-makers to prioritise different engagement options by assessing their relative cost-effectiveness. We demonstrate the application of this framework using a case study in biosecurity management. Drawing on a scenario of Panama Disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4) invasion in the Australian banana industry, we conducted 25 semi-structured interviews and held a workshop with key stakeholders to elicit their key concerns and convert them into four objectives-making more informed decisions, maximising buy-in, empowering people, and minimising the stress of biosecurity incidents. We also identified ten engagement alternatives at local, State/Territory, and National scales. Our results showed that options to engage local stakeholders and enable capacity to undertake adaptive approaches to biosecurity management are more cost-effective than engagement efforts that seek to build capacities at higher decision-making levels. More interestingly, using the weights provided by different stakeholder groups does not significantly affect the cost-effectiveness ranking of the ten options considered. Even though the results are contingent on the context of this biosecurity study, the SDM framework developed for maximising cost-effectiveness is transferable to other areas of environmental management. The efficient frontier generated by this framework allows decision-makers to examine the trade-offs between the costs and benefits and select the best portfolio for their investment. This approach provides a practical and transparent estimate of the return on investment for stakeholder engagement in highly complex or uncertain situations, as is usually the case for environmental issues.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44104,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Decision Processes","volume":"7 3","pages":"Pages 221-241"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2019-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s40070-019-00103-7","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"EURO Journal on Decision Processes","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2193943821001060","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
Stakeholder participation is increasingly being embedded into decision-making processes from the local to the global scale. With limited resources to engage stakeholders, frameworks that allow decision-makers to make cost-effective choices are greatly needed. In this paper, we present a structured decision-making (SDM) framework that enables environmental decision-makers to prioritise different engagement options by assessing their relative cost-effectiveness. We demonstrate the application of this framework using a case study in biosecurity management. Drawing on a scenario of Panama Disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4) invasion in the Australian banana industry, we conducted 25 semi-structured interviews and held a workshop with key stakeholders to elicit their key concerns and convert them into four objectives-making more informed decisions, maximising buy-in, empowering people, and minimising the stress of biosecurity incidents. We also identified ten engagement alternatives at local, State/Territory, and National scales. Our results showed that options to engage local stakeholders and enable capacity to undertake adaptive approaches to biosecurity management are more cost-effective than engagement efforts that seek to build capacities at higher decision-making levels. More interestingly, using the weights provided by different stakeholder groups does not significantly affect the cost-effectiveness ranking of the ten options considered. Even though the results are contingent on the context of this biosecurity study, the SDM framework developed for maximising cost-effectiveness is transferable to other areas of environmental management. The efficient frontier generated by this framework allows decision-makers to examine the trade-offs between the costs and benefits and select the best portfolio for their investment. This approach provides a practical and transparent estimate of the return on investment for stakeholder engagement in highly complex or uncertain situations, as is usually the case for environmental issues.