| This dissertation examines the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) adoption of the ecosystem approach. While the Agency's conventional "command and control" regulations have been effective in reducing emissions and discharges from industrial and municipal sources, the regulatory hammer has proven limited in controlling sources of ecological stress, such as urban sprawl and agricultural runoff. These problems require strategies which are holistic, integrative, adaptive, and cooperative.; This study proposes that the successful adoption and implementation of the ecosystem approach by the EPA is a function of the innovation's relative advantage over uniform pollution control standards and its compatibility with the organization's goals, structure, technology, and culture. Furthermore, this dissertation modifies existing theories of innovation adoption and diffusion in order to explain how the organization and the innovation underwent a process of mutual adaptation to increase their compatibility and the likelihood of success.; To test these hypotheses, the investigator conducted a field study at the EPA (1993--1996), comparing innovation within three early adopters at the EPA: the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the Office of Water, and Region III. Research findings supported hypotheses which proposed that the fragmented, command and control character of the EPA was a constraint on the adoption of the ecosystem approach. Research findings supported the hypothesis of mutual adaptation. Over time, successful adopters modified their unit of work from facilities to communities, their goals from human health to ecosystem protection, their strategies from single to multi-media solutions, and their relationship with the institution's environment from coercion to cooperation. Successful innovation depended upon the organization's capacity to develop new mechanisms, such as teams, for networking across fragmented statutory programs, new forums for public participation at the boundaries of the organization, new routines for organizing work at the ecosystem level, and new conceptions of what constitutes good policy. Findings also demonstrated innovation reinvention. Repackaged as Community-Based Environmental Protection, it addressed a broader range of issues facing the EPA, such as inner city brownfields, voluntary compliance strategies, and stakeholder involvement. |
