Using multiple methods to understand agency values and objectives: Lessons for public lands management

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) directs agencies to determine their objectives based on what stakeholders value. Identifying, measuring and analyzing values and objectives is a key challenge for public land management agencies. Using R and Q factor analysis we assess the values and objectives within the Leadership Team (LT) of the United States Forest Service (USFS). R-factor analysis demonstrates strong support among the LT for a more preservation-oriented view to manage public lands. Q-factor analysis reveals divergent perspectives among the LT and how the aggregated preservation orientation found with the R-factor analysis plays out according to individual perspectives. The ¢ndings illustrate the challenges inherent in identifying what values and objectives exist, how they should be analyzed, and the implications for choosing one set of values and objectives over another in public lands management to ful¢ll the mandates under GPRA. Introduction The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) seeks to improve the e⁄ciency and e¡ectiveness of federal programs by creating a system that establishes clear objectives for performance and measurements of program outcomes and results. GPRA requires federal agencies to focus on speci¢ed program outcomes, quality service, and customer satisfaction by requiring strategic planning and performance measures based on identi¢ed objectives (cf. Radin, 1998). GRPA brings to the forefront the importance of determining what an agency values within a framework of explicitly understanding values and objectives. Dealing with directives, such as GPRA, creates challenges for public land management agencies that must distill measurable and tractable values and objectives from among many competing options. The recent history of public lands management has been ¢lled with controversy, con£ict and divisiveness due in part to di¡erences between and among opposing sets of values and objectives for important national resources such as timber, watershed protection, wildlife and much more. Since the 1960s, the relative cohesiveness of commodity management values (e.g., timber, grazing, minerals) was challenged by growing public concern about non-commodity values (e.g., aesthetics, tourism, hiking), creating conditions ripe for clashes over how public lands should be managed (Hays, 1987). The proliferation of diverse values and objectives creates manage37 Policy Sciences 37: 37^69, 2004. 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.