Strategic Responses to Resource Management Pressures in Agriculture: Institutional, Gender and Location Effects

Sustainable management of natural resources by farmers is under increasing public scrutiny. In Australia, the case of water unsustainably used and stored by agricultural businesses has gained attention with communities in catchments potentially deprived of water and placed at downstream risk. Yet, s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Tingey-Holyoak, Joanne L. (Author) ; Pisaniello, John D. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2017
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2017, Volume: 144, Issue: 2, Pages: 381-400
Further subjects:B Strategic response
B Institutional Theory
B Water storage
B Institutional environment
B Water use
B Gender
B Resource dependence theory
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Description
Summary:Sustainable management of natural resources by farmers is under increasing public scrutiny. In Australia, the case of water unsustainably used and stored by agricultural businesses has gained attention with communities in catchments potentially deprived of water and placed at downstream risk. Yet, sustainable water management institutional policy mechanisms remain disjointed around the country. The study reported here applies a strategic response typology to a survey of 404 farmers in four different institutional environments in Australia to explore their responses to institutional pressures. Findings demonstrate a convergence in typologies that relate to farmers organising each other and communities influencing and networking for the benefit of agricultural resource management thereby questioning the traditional continuum of resistance. Furthermore, the mid-range typology ‘avoidance’ emerges as a highly problematic typology for sustainable water management policymakers especially those in weaker institutional environments where there is a need to develop policy instruments that retain farmer water management decision-making power and encourage networks. The paper also extends the strategic response typology to enable understanding of how gender and location affect strategic responses to institutional pressures. Findings provide insight for policy design in times of increasing catastrophic flood and drought conditions exacerbated by poor water management practice.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2828-5