Mayra

One key tension which emerged was between framing development of the IWRAM DSS foremost as a research project or as a means of supporting the practice of highland

environmental decision-making. Each perspective was associated with differing construing of environmental decision support, differing approaches to highland environmental

problem-solving and decision-making, and differing expectations of how the DSS

development process should be conducted, Table 7.1. For instance, the DSS-for-research perspective construed the primary objective of the IWRAM project as developing

integrated frameworks, and the primary function of the DSS as a modular software system. In part, the modular approach was favoured because, because unlike a fully integrated system, it would enable individual component modules to be transferred relatively easily to future research projects. In contrast, the DSS-for-practice perspective construed the project as fundamentally about helping highland stakeholders to make decisions: “our whole project is now a Decision Support System - stakeholders, a participatory process, what the people want to do to resolve problems, and data is just a support to that”. From this standpoint, the DSS was framed as an interpersonal process necessarily embedded in the decision-making environment of the application locality. As recognised by the Australian DSS leader from the outset of the discursive process, the preceding framings were not inherently compatible, since it was conceivable that the researchers could develop “an academically interesting system”, but “fail to deliver an operational system”.

When queried as to the purpose of the DSS, researchers within the DSS-for-practice group tended to implicate conflict resolution and negotiation, often giving an anecdote from their personal experience about a particular highland conflict. Thus, the focus was on a

grounded problem and how a DSS might support it. In contrast, the DSS-for-research perspective tended to raise the potential for the DSS to explore hypothetical solutions, placing the emphasis on the technology and how it might inform consideration of abstract options. F r a m i n g d e c is io n s u p p o r t D S S f o r r e s e a r c h D S S f o r p r a c t i c e D S S p rim a rily fr a m e d as: T r a n s f e r a b le s o f tw a r e to o l L o c a lly e m b e d d e d p r o c e s s

P urpose o f DSS: T o e x p lo r e h y p o th e tic a l o p tio n s A w a r e n e s s , c o n f lic t r e s o lu tio n , n e g o tia tio n

Users o f DSS: U n s u r e P o te n tia lly a ll s ta k e h o ld e r s

Supp o rtin g IE M B y i n te g r a tin g d a ta a n d a n a ly s e s B y e n c o u r a g in g s ta k e h o ld e r in te r a c tio n P articipatory D S S developm ent: T o e n a b le e f f ic ie n t p ro je c t m a n a g e m e n t T o p r o m o te lo c a l o w n e r s h ip D S S developm ent tim efram e F u n d e d p r o je c t tim e f r a m e U n s p e c if ie d , lo n g te r m tim e f r a m e A nticipating em bedded biases M o d e r a te in te r e s t in a c k n o w le d g in g u n c e r ta in ty M o d e r a te in te r e s t in a c k n o w le d g in g d is to r te d k n o w le d g e a n d a b s e n c e s in k n o w le d g e A nticip a tin g biases in access L im ite d in te r e s t in b ia s e s in a c c e s s C o n s id e r a b le in te r e s t in c o m m u n ic a tio n c o n s tr a in ts

Table 7-1 Divergent framings: Comparing DSS-for-research and DSS-for-practice

The two modes of framing also approached integrated management in different ways. The DSS-for-research perspective tended to emphasise supporting integrated assessment via integrating disciplinary analysis (primarily biophysical and economic). The DSS (framed as a computer-based tool) tended to be cast as a focus for this integration, by combining different models with an integrated database to allow systems modelling. In contrast, the DSS-for-practice perspective tended to portray the task of supporting integrated

management as supporting communication and interaction within a stakeholder-based process, with software and other information playing a role in informing the stakeholders. The DSS-for-research and DSS-for practice perspectives were associated with different timeframes. Those researchers for whom a DSS-for-research perspective had primacy focussed on the funded three-year project timeframe. This had significant implications for the management of biases in access since these researchers had limited motivation to consider practice issues which were likely to become prominent after the funded timeframe was completed. As the Australian project manager commented, “If we can encourage ownership beyond the life of the project, that is good; but we have to keep focussed on the primary objective”. Emphasis was placed on the need to deliver, at the end of the funded time-frame, the tangible research outputs and products specified within the research

proposal. Consequently, technical research activities received prominence and were rapidly assigned to particular researchers, while responsibility for practice-related tasks, such as interacting with users, remained more ambiguous.

The DSS-for-practice perspective tended to have a longer term vision for the DSS and see it as a possible mechanism to promote a fundamental change in the conduct of highland environmental decision-making. This perspective was more interested in potential biases in access, particularly literacy or other communication constraints and the potential for capture of the DSS by elites. Highlighting the impacts that the DSS could have on people’s livelihoods, the DSS-for-practice perspective cast the communication of embedded biases, particularly distortions or absences in knowledge, as an ethical imperative. While also interested in identifying and quantifying uncertainty and

confidence bounds, the DSS-for-research perspective treated the task more as a dimension of ensuring academic rigour. In terms of management of biases, the DSS-for-research emphasis on efficiency and delivery of tangible products translated into an interest, once a bias had been identified, in enacting an appropriate management strategy to enable closure. The DSS-for-practice perspective was more reluctant to take management action until wider consultation had taken place amongst a wider stakeholder group about possible strategies.

As recognised by the Australian sociocultural leader, the tensions between focussing on a research or a practice timeframe could have significant implications for the content of the DSS. She noted that, as a funded research project, the temptation would be to generate a rich database which would enhance the DSS product the researchers were required to deliver at the end of their three-year project. However, generation of a rich database through labour- and resource-intensive fieldwork could mean that updating the database might also prove labour- and resource-intensive. Without the injection of funds from a well-resourced foreign project, this task could prove difficult for Thai stakeholders. The dilemma raised here reflects a common tension between the differing methodological interests of researchers, who often want to demonstrate state-of-the-art methodology, and practitioners, who tend to favour the pragmatic choice (Syme and Sadler 1994:534). In the IWRAM project, the bias implications of electing to generate the richest database possible would include the risk that distortions in knowledge arise as the data becomes outdated, or that absences in knowledge arise as data becomes insufficient in light of the changing decision-making environment. The sociocultural leader noted that an alternate practice- focussed approach would be more targeted and scope the contents of the DSS according to realistic expectations of the capacity of potential users to update the data. The implications of this latter approach in terms of bias would be absences of knowledge, specifically absences of sociocultural and economic information which relied on extensive and

intensive field surveying. This highlights how a new methodological approach, developed to manage the biases associated with a previous methodological approach, may introduce new forms of bias. Management of bias is not a one-off exercise in discerning and applying the most bias-free method, but involves a continuous process of critically appraising potential biases and iteratively adapting methods as an integral dimension of precautionary practice.

The notion of a stakeholder advisory committee arose during the dialogues as one means of responding to the upgrading dilemma. The differing framing by the DSS-for-research and DSS-for-practice perspectives of the rationale for a stakeholder advisory committee provides a useful means of exploring their differing construing of participation. The DSS-

for-practice perspective tended to regard participatory methodology as fundamental to encourage local ownership and thereby facilitate effective research extension into practice. Consequently, within this perspective, the stakeholder advisory committee was framed as a means of promoting stakeholder trust in the research. Meanwhile, the DSS-for-research perspective tended to view participation as a mechanism enabling more efficient

management of the project. Accordingly, the stakeholder advisory committee was framed as a means of delegating responsibility for practice issues, such as questions of access and upgrading the DSS, to the stakeholders. The DSS-for-research perspective also cast formation of the stakeholder committee as the responsibility of the Thai research team “since they’ve got to wear it”, thereby suggesting research ethics as justification to delegate practice issues to the Thais.

During his review of the case study narrative (Chapter 6), the Australian project leader queried the contrast made between a DSS-for-research and a DSS-for-practice, arguing that “no-one ever wanted a DSS-for-research only”. Indeed, this observation is largely

supported by the case study narrative, which illustrates that most participants wanted the DSS to “be more than just a computer”. However, the preceding analysis suggests that even if all participants wish to develop a system that simultaneously fulfils both research and practice goals, there are inevitable tensions in attempting this task. This conclusion is supported by Barnes et al. (1997) who argue that models for research application are fundamentally different in objective, form and function from models for practical decision support. As an illustration of their position, Barnes et al. (1997) suggest that the

complexity of models-for-research is determined by the hypothesis underpinning the model, whereas the complexity of models-for-decision support is dictated by the data available. Thus, in the former case, the data requirements are specified by the model, while in the latter case, the model is specified by the data. This observation clearly reinforces the upgrading dilemma identified by the Australian sociocultural leader.

Literature examining the influence of economic rationalism and managerialism on research practice suggests that the focus on the marketable, transferable products and shorter

timeframes associated with the DSS-as-research perspective arises from a disintegration of conventional distinctions between pure and applied research. Marginson (1997:261) reviews the ensuing reconstruction of research as entrepreneurial: “basic research

penetrated by an applied mission, with an eye on technology transfer”. Within Australia, political pressure on researchers to minimise costs, attract external funds and adopt private sector management models has resulted in greater emphasis being placed on delivery in the short-term of tangible, and increasingly saleable, research outputs and products (Stewart

1997, Orchard 1998:21,23). As Mathews (1990 cited in Marginson 1997) argues, within the new research paradigm, “academics are expected to conduct their research to schedule, offer a product for which there is an identifiable market, and compete for a buyer in that market”. Community development researchers point out that this emphasis on tangible products may conflict with the more long-term and less tangible outcomes associated with effective community-based practice. As Gohlert (1991:58) argues, “the ability of the people to identify the source of their problems, to formulate, implement and assess responses to these challenges entails a complex, subtle and usually slow learning process that is reflected in a gradually growing awareness and consciousness of critical factors in their economic, social and political environments”.

A number of other systemic pressures act to dissuade researchers from giving primacy to a practice perspective. In particular, the research reward system tends to reinforce the

mainstream perspective that linking research to grounded action detracts the researcher from their primary role of conducting basic research (Whyte 1991:8, Guerin and Guerin

1994:563). For example, career promotion rests heavily on publication in peer-reviewed journals, with limited credit accorded to the substantial amounts of time necessary to

engage in practice with participants in or users of research outcomes. As Ewing et al. (1997:2) observe, “the reward system is such that, beyond publication and research awards, active involvement with end-users is distinctly less glamorous and still at the margins of the academic system”. As a result, the low career enhancement potential of practice activities encourages many researchers to relegate such activities to second priority. Combating the systemic discouragement within the scientific community of greater emphasis on practice, funding bodies increasingly require researchers to specify the practical relevance of their research and technology extension or adoption strategy (Ewing et al.. 1997:2). The funding body may thus be viewed as a broker between demand (the users of research) and supply (the researchers). Within the IWRAM experience, the funding body directed that the research be both policy-relevant and practically-oriented, thereby meeting demand imperatives, and academically rigorous to satisfy supply

imperatives. Thus, opportunities exist for funding bodies to mediate discursively between incoherent research and practice commitments, and thereby to facilitate negotiation of a form of DSS, and DSS development, which is of mutual interest and benefit to both research and practice perspectives. However, these opportunities are constrained by contemporary norms of funding practice, whereby a requirement for material

accountability and flexibility prescribe shorter funding timeframes and thus a short-term outcome orientation, reinforcing the research behaviour described previously (Gohlert

1991:58).

7.2.2 Differing construing of stakeholders: Who should use the DSS and how?