Abstract:
The perceptions of “public” members of participation
processes have been studied far more than those of agency
personnel. To improve the practice of public participation,
this study, using Q analysis, explores how personnel from one
agency view their experience, expertise, and learning with regard
to communication with the public, including but not limited
to public participation. Without organizational learning,
which is more than the aggregation of individual learning, inferences
from history will be lost. We found two perspectives:
the Enthused (“Tiggers”), who focus on the support they receive
for communication activities, including learning, and
the Constrained (“Eeyores”), who see the limitations of their
program and their own learning. The differences in the perspectives
were not associated with agency unit, level of hierarchy,
communication training, or tenure in the agency. We
suggest ways to promote interchange among these participants
through double-loop learning, which has similarities to
the interactive, recursive processes that can integrate analysis
and deliberation.
