Enhancing Environmental Appraisal Effectiveness: Towards an Understanding of Internal Context Conditions in Organisational Learning

Abstract

Part of a wider comparative European research project on developing the learning potential of appraisal in spatial planning in the UK, Germany and Italy, this paper aims to explore whether context conditions can facilitate internal organisational reforms and changes, trigger appraisal effectiveness, and facilitate organisational learning. The discussion comprises a synthesis of the environmental appraisal and organisational learning literatures and illustrates the relevance and applicability of this body of work for wider planning practice through an examination of the Comune of Ravenna, Italy. The insights from the case study suggest that sensitivity to internal context conditions is critical to understanding the capacity for organisations to learn, and illustrates how the potential for learning might exist if an organisation is open to nurturing it.

Keywords:

• Organisational learning
• context
• environmental appraisal
• Comune of Ravenna
• internal conditions

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on a pilot project jointly funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and by the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC), Developing the Learning Potential of Appraisal in Spatial Planning, Award No: RES-182-25-0018. The authors are grateful to the ESRC and to the ASC for their support. The authors would also like to thank the Unità di Piano of the Comune of Ravenna (Italy) for their availability and for their contributions to the research, and to acknowledge the constructive comments of three anonymous referees.

Notes

1. This study adopts a positive approach to learning within the context of environmental appraisal, whereby learning is associated with change and is intended as the process of improving actions through better knowledge, understanding and skills (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Kim, 1998). In this study and within the context of the wider research project underlying this paper, learning is therefore the process of improving the integration of the environment in policy, plan and programme making as a result of enhanced know-how and know-why, and of achieving effectiveness.

2. At the local level (i.e. the Comune level), law 20/2000 separates the plan's structural contents from its programmatic contents, resulting in two local level planning instruments; first, the structural instrument, the PSC, which defines strategies for the Comune's territorial asset and development in order to ensure protection of the physical integrity, the environment and the cultural identity. It consists of three components: 1) the Quadro Conoscitivo (QC), the baseline information framework which reconstructs the state of the territory; 2) the Documento Preliminare (DP), the preliminary document defining the plan's strategic contents; and 3) the Piano Strutturale, the concluding document. Second, the programmatic and operative instrument, the POC, i.e. the five year length executive plan which identifies and disciplines the interventions for territorial protection, valorisation, organisation and transformation.

3. See http://www.urbancenter.ra.it, accessed 21 August 2008.

4. In Italy an administrative and political mandate has a length of four years.

5. See Jordan (2002) for a discussion on “departmental pluralism” within the context of UK environmental policy integration.

6. Following Di Bella et al. (1996), the seven learning orientations are expressed as bipolar continuums. While a pole may represent one or two approaches to an orientation, it is expected that most organisations use a mix of both. According to the authors, the use of learning orientations can help develop an understanding of an organisation's learning style and provide suggestions on how to strengthen or change that style.

7. Whilst the first is known as single-loop learning, the latter is known as double-loop learning (Argyris & Schön, 1978).