Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 74 p. : map. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-44).

Natural resource management requires the simultaneous consideration of many different and often conflicting goals. For resource decisions to accurately reflect public values and desires, a systematic method is needed for assessing the importance which public groups attach to different management goals. Direct judgments of the importance of goals are often used as weights in additive utility models for evaluating alternative resource decisions. The overall value of each alternative is assessed by assigning it a value with respect to each relevant goal, multiplying each value by the corresponding goal's importance weight, and summing the weighted values. The validity of this procedure depends on the assumption that each goal's importance is judged independently of all other goals and is not affected by perceived conflicts between goals. Otherwise, the importance of some goals will be overestimated (double-counted). This study tested the validity of this assumption for direct judgments of the importance of forest management goals. Subjects read a description of a hypothetical national forest and rated the importance of six forest management goals on a ten-point scale. They also rated the amount of conflict between each possible pair of goals. The management scenarios were varied to represent two levels of conflict between a wilderness preservation goal and a timber production goal, and two levels of scarcity of existing wilderness areas in the region of the national forest. The conflict and scarcity manipulations were crossed, creating four conflict/scarcity conditions in a two-by-two ANOVA design. Analysis showed that both conflict and scarcity produced effects on ratings of the management goals' importance. The effects differed depending on the nature of the individual goal. In particular, goals which conflicted with wilderness preservation were rated lower in importance when the conflict was higher and when wilderness scarcity was high. This suggests that people discount the importance of goals which are perceived as conflicting with a highly valued goal, such as wilderness preservation. Importance ratings would therefore underestimate the importance of goals such as timber production if they were used as weights in an additive utility model. Further analysis revealed the presence of a single strong dimension underlying the ratings of conflict between goals. This dimension also seemed to be related to judgments of goal importance. It is possible that both conflict and importance judgments are made with respect to general cognitive attributes of the goals (for example preservation/utilization orientation). The results of this study show that direct judgments of goal importance may not satisfy the requirements of additive utility models, and that public perception of conflict between goals must be taken into account when interpreting judgments of the importance of management goals. A resource planner must be aware of what preconceptions the public holds about conflicts between goals and how these preconceptions affect the expressed importance of the goals.

This study examines institutional change in forest management in Tlalmanalco, Mexico, over the period 1877--1999 based on qualitative methods. The level of analysis is the domain of forest management, a level of analysis intermediary between macro/national policy and micro/local organizations and groups. I examine the domain composed of local organizations stakeholders in forest management in Tlalmanalco. / The dual research methods include (1) a contextualist approach revealing long institutional cycles over the long run (1877--1996) while (2) grounded theory procedures reveal micro-processus of institutional change in the transition period 1996--1999. / At the macro level, I have identified three institutional cycles of forest management: (1) the entrepreneur elite cycle (1877--1910); (2) the community-based management (1910--1940); and (3) the centralized industrial cycle (1940--1991). Each institutional cycle represents a management template which includes: (1) a management philosophy, (2) a dominant organizational template, (3) a configuration of interorganizational relations, (4) included groups, (5) excluded groups and (6) blind spots. / At the micro-institutional level, the detailed study of the change process (1996--1999) in forest management reveals that two forms of interorganizational collaborations co-exist in the current domain. First, transformational collaboration is a form of open participation coordinated around charismatic leadership, and based on shared values. It aims to build a collective vision for the future of forest management. Second, transactional collaboration is a form of participation restricted to specific tasks, coordinated by the exchange of material and expertise resources. / The contributions of this ideographic study highlight two themes neglected so far by previous research on institutional change. First, this study shows the links between policies formulated at the macro/national level and their implications at the micro/local level. Second, it explores the process of institutional change between two long term institutional cycles.

Thesis (M.F.)--Oregon State College, 1952. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-45). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, 2007. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Nov. 5, 2007). Thesis advisor: David Buehler. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1990. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliography (leaves 147-152). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis(M.S.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1990. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.) in Wildlife Ecology--University of Maine, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-117).

Univ. für Bodenkultur, Diss.--Wien, 2006.