Organizational resistance to community-based forest management in Forest Department, India.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 225
Description: The major objective of this study is to examine suitability of the bureaucratic management principles to the community-based forest management (CBFM), and to conceptualize and investigate three different types of organizational resistance to the CBFM, in four Indian state Forest Departments (FD). Using perceptions of the foresters and structural modeling techniques, three theoretical models are tested and variations across the four states and three management levels are explored.In the first model, the construct of organizational bureaucracy is construed as comprising of hierarchical rigidity, centralization of powers, non-participatory decision-making, and organizational rigidity, while acceptability of CBFM is composed of structural acceptability, cultural acceptability, and organizational support. The results reveal a high degree of incongruity between these two constructs that varies across the states but is uniform across the management levels. These differences suggest that the uniform organizational reforms, across states, pursued by the Government of India may prove counter productive.The final model consists of two dimensions of resistance to change (structural resistance and cultural resistance) and four categories of resistance factors (organizational, service related, personal, and environmental factors). Empirical results confirm the existence of structural and cultural resistance, and reveal that the foresters perceive greater resistance in the organizational structure than in the organizational culture. The results indicate that organizational bureaucratization is the major causal factor of structural resistance, while innovative culture has the most mitigating influence on 'cultural' resistance.The second model examines two dimensions of attitudinal resistance---disapproval of the CBFM systems by the foresters at an individual level and at organizational level, and four categories of causal factors of resistance---personality traits, service related features, external environmental factors, and socialization factors. The study suggests that members of the four state FDs of India have less resistance at an individual level, but show high resistance to the implementation of CBFM by the organization. Results further suggest that fear of losing prestige and authority is a major cause of resistance at the personal level, while hierarchical attitude is a primary causal factor of resistance to organizational level implementation. Some of the causal factors of both kinds of resistance show dissimilar effects across the four states and also across the management levels.
Notes: Adviser:  Shashi Kant.

Forestry theses.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: B, page: 4917.