The eastern migratory population of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) has declined by >80% within the last two decades. One possible cause of this decline is the loss of >= 1.3 billion stems of milkweed (Asclepias spp.), which monarchs require for reproduction. In an effort to restore monarchs to a population goal established by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and adopted by Mexico, Canada, and the US, we developed scenarios for amending the Midwestern US landscape with milkweed. Scenarios for milkweed restoration were developed for protected area grasslands, Conservation Reserve Program land, powerline, rail and roadside rights of way, urban/suburban lands, and land in agricultural production. Agricultural land was further divided into productive and marginal cropland. We elicited expert opinion as to the biological potential (in stems per acre) for lands in these individual sectors to support milkweed restoration and the likely adoption (probability) of management practices necessary for affecting restoration. Sixteen of 218 scenarios we developed for restoring milkweed to the Midwestern US were at levels (>1.3 billion new stems) necessary to reach the monarch population goal. One of these scenarios would convert all marginal agriculture to conserved status. The other 15 scenarios converted half of marginal agriculture (730 million stems), with remaining stems contributed by other societal sectors. Scenarios without substantive agricultural participation were insufficient for attaining the population goal. Agricultural lands are essential to reaching restoration targets because they occupy 77% of all potential monarch habitat. Barring fundamental changes to policy, innovative application of economic tools such as habitat exchanges may provide sufficient resources to tip the balance of the agro-ecological landscape toward a setting conducive to both robust agricultural production and reduced imperilment of the migratory monarch butterfly.

Can public organization managers respond to rapidly changing environmental conditions given that stability is a primary societal function of bureaucracies? If so, how might they successfully bring about change? Bennis (1966) states that examinations of organizational change fall into two categories: 1) those attempting to explain why organizations change and 2) those attempting to explain how organizations change. Those exploring why organizations change question the degree to which managers can serve as successful stimuli for transformation. This is true across public and private realms, but is particularly germane to public organizations, where managerial agency is restricted by accountability, civil service employee protections, and democratic norms. A Rational Adaptive philosophy of change suggests that managers can and do change organizations; however, with the exception of transformation in the face of budgetary and managerial crises, little evidence exists for manager-initiated, public organization change. Furthermore, prescriptions for how to bring about change are largely anecdotal and private-sector oriented. While Contingency Theory posits that no one-sizeits-all formula will suffice across all organization types and contexts, public administration scholars have proposed testable propositions regarding drivers of bureaucratic transformation. Using descriptive statistics, qualitative analysis, and logistic regression, this study examined one U.S. national agency’s attempt at transformational change to determine 1) the degree to which managers achieved success and 2) under what circumstances success was achieved. A theoretical typology for U.S. hierarchical, national agencies attempting internal policy change was proposed using the testable propositions, and a derivative model of change was tested to determine the types of manager-initiated efforts that yielded organizational change versus those that did not. Results suggest that, while transformational organizational change is challenging, managers of public organizations can create changes in employee attitudes and behavior in the absence of immediate crisis by communicating the vision for the change effectively and incorporating change-related routines in employees’ workplaces. Managerial support for the change may influence employee attitudes regarding the change and encourage support, while change-related incentives may promote behavior changes and adoption. Furthermore, adequate provision of change-related resources may be an important component in ensuring employees who desire to change can do so.