2020 ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 - 6)

OOS 1 Abstract - Formal and informal institutional engagement – Influencing the rules of collaborative behavior

Sarah M Anderson, USDA Forest Service
Background/Question/Methods

Merriam-Webster defines an institution as “an established organization...especially of public character” and as a “significant practice in a society and culture”. As we gather for the Ecological Society of America’s 105th Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, we are engaging with both an organizational institution (ESA) and a behavioral institution (presenting and sharing scientific findings). These and other societal institutions are all facing change at unprecedented scales including technological advances, prodigious access to data, increasing complexity, and competing priorities for natural resources and sustainability needs. To fully “harness the data revolution” requires our institutions to fully embrace these characteristics of the 21st and evolve to meet new challenges, one of which is to nurture the diversity, equity, and inclusion needed to make our institutions resilient, relevant, creative, and inspiring. This talk will examine case studies to highlight barriers and challenges of engaging with both formal and informal institutions, and how acknowledging structures and dynamics can lay the groundwork to foster and create change and innovation.

Results/Conclusions

Engaging with institutions both large and small can be done through both formal and informal mechanisms. For example, even the US Federal Government operates through many formal mechanisms such as the Federal Register and also much more informal processes where decision-makers rely on relationships and trusted knowledge-bearers. Our Society (ESA) also operates through formal and informal mechanisms. The Society is run by a Governing Board with positions and roles formally outlined in governing documents. Informally, the Society and its members engage on social media to hear feedback and responses, to promote activities and events, and to increase awareness overall. Various Sections and Chapters of ESA came together to collaborate in the Human Collaborative Workshop (Louisville Meeting 2019) that led to this session; these too are examples of institutions that blend formal elements (charters, bylaws) and informal elements (networking, brainstorm). Comparing these institutions and their various mechanisms of engagement illustrates how time, location, resources, money, and institutional knowledge can hinder participation. To effectively influence and make change, there is a need to recognize and understand both the formal and informal aspects of institutions by both individuals and institutions themselves.