| Stakeholder involvement has received considerable attention as a way to improve administrative decision making. Approaches to stakeholder involvement, however, can vary substantially on several dimensions. Further, it is not clear how variation on these dimensions may affect the benefits anticipated for decision processes and results (including changes in institutional arrangements).;This research utilizes comparative case studies to explore stakeholder involvement, collective decision making, and institutional change. The first objective is to assess different conditions of stakeholder involvement (the configuration of collective choice rules structuring participation). The second objective is to evaluate decision process effectiveness and results associated with different conditions of stakeholder involvement. Three case studies were conducted to evaluate the structure of stakeholder involvement, perceived decision process effectiveness, and institutional changes directed as a result Case studies examined initiatives in the Delaware Estuary, Merrimack River, and Lake Champlain basins.;The analytical framework extends application of the Institutional Rational Choice (IRC) and Competing Values (CV) approaches. The study supports previous CV studies in concluding that this model provides a useful conceptual foundation for evaluating group decision processes. It also illustrates the value of the IRC framework in structuring analysis of a specific class of decision situations and in providing testable hypotheses about results of decision making.;Results indicate that the breadth of participation in decision making components of a participatory forum, the scope of decision making, and the rigor of the aggregation rule are salient dimensions of variation in structures for stakeholder involvement. Results support the proposition that decision processes are more effective when stakeholder involvement is broader and more diverse. Finally, results demonstrate differences across cases in directed institutional change, with directed changes least ambitious in the case with greatest constraints in scope and aggregation rules. This aspect of the stakeholder involvement structure seems to have greater proximate influence on the results of decision making than does breadth of participation. There is some evidence, however, that both broader participation and lower constraints from other aspects of the structure may contribute to results that, if implemented, can be expected to improve the fit between institutional arrangements and the physical domain. |
