| Fisheries and aquatic resource managers increasingly recognize the importance of stakeholder collaboration and watershed-based management approaches, but managers may not always know the most effective and efficient way to integrate watershed stakeholders. These managers need tools that will enable them to better understand the potential for communication and collaboration among stakeholder groups in a watershed. Organized groups represent the collective interests of many fisheries stakeholders, and mangers need to know if, how, and why these stakeholder groups engage in management issues. To better understand these dynamics, we analyzed the communication and collaboration networks of 112 fisheries stakeholder organizations in and around Michigan's Pere Marquette (PM) River watershed. Using a mail survey, we collected data from each stakeholder group on their organizational attributes, organizational ties (or interactions) with other organizations, and attributes of these interorganizational ties. Using multi-level social network analysis, we analyzed if and how an organization's attributes influence the types of ties it has with other organizations as well as their position in the overall communication and collaboration network. We found that ties are likely between two organizations in the same county, from the same organizational domain (e.g., education, economic development, etc.), and more than 51 years old. Interorganizational ties were most likely to be reported by organizations that are generalist in scope, satisfied with PM fisheries, unsatisfied with PM fisheries, located inside the watershed, and have a natural resource or environmental orientation. Within the greater fisheries network, sub-networks formed around counties and organizational domain areas, and organizations at the center of each sub-network tended to be concerned about habitat, have paid staff, more than 51 years old, generalists, satisfied with PM fisheries, and have a planning function in their cluster (either natural resources or local government). These findings have implications for enhancing fisheries managers' communication strategies, and we recommend a network-based framework for utilizing and enhancing stakeholder interactions. With a better understanding of how and why stakeholder organizations interact, fisheries managers can more effectively create opportunities for stakeholder interactions and develop the potential for meaningful watershed-scale communication and collaboration, thereby facilitating better fisheries management plans. |
