How do resource mobility and group size affect institutional arrangements for rule enforcement? A qualitative comparative analysis of fishing groups in South Korea

Hoon C. Shin, David J. Yu, Samuel Park, John M. Anderies, Joshua K. Abbott, Marco A. Janssen, T. K. Ahn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two social feedbacks critical for redressing decline in organizational performance are exit (changing membership to a better performing organization) and voice (members' expression of discontent). In self-governing organizations of common-pool resources (CPRs) experiencing decline from poor rule conformance, the exit option is often unavailable due to a closed membership policy. Thus, members should rely on the voice option to reverse the trend. However, it is poorly understood under what set of conditions members can successfully use the voice option to govern their CPRs. We analyzed 30 self-governing fishing groups in South Korea to generate configurations of institutional and social-ecological conditions linked to the successful voice option. We considered Ostrom's Design Principles for rule enforcement as institutional conditions and resource mobility and group size as social-ecological factors affecting institutional fit. We find that if the informal mechanism for conflict resolution is absent, fishing groups will be unsuccessful; even if rules for monitoring and graduated sanctions are not in use, groups can be successful when they harvest only stationary resources and the informal conflict-resolution is present; and groups managing mobile resources need graduated sanctions to be successful, while those appropriating only stationary resources can achieve the same outcome without such sanctions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number106657
JournalEcological Economics
Volume174
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2020

Keywords

  • Common-pool resources
  • Design principles
  • Group size
  • Institutional fit
  • Resource mobility
  • Voice option

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Environmental Science
  • Economics and Econometrics

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