Understanding the outcomes focused management production process: meta-analysis of the relationship between activities, settings, and the benefits of recreation participation

Abstract

The 1958 Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, through a 1962 report, tasked federal agencies to inventory supply and demand for outdoor recreation participation. Recreation managers are progressively focusing on demand for the beneficial outcomes of recreation, but have struggled to structure planning and management models to guide decisions that optimize recreationists' ability to attain desired benefits. The Outcomes Focused Management (OFM) framework links benefits to specific activity and setting combinations, giving managers a functional role in the process of benefit production. Past studies examining the OFM's activity-setting-benefit relationship reported weak results, but suggest activity is a stronger predictor of benefit attainment than setting. A better understanding of how activity and setting inputs affect recreationists' ability to realize desired benefits is needed for continued implementation of OFM, with the aim of improving attainment rates of positive recreation outcomes. This study used meta-analytic techniques with data compiled from 16 OFM studies to replicate and expand on published work. With the goal of improving the activity-setting-benefit model, this study introduced two predictor variables, previous visitation and visitors' residential proximity to the site, controlled for the desirability of the benefit, and re-conceptualized the setting variable by testing whether study site is a better predictor of benefit attainment than different settings within a site. Two-way analysis of variance tests measured the dependence of 40 personal (PER) and household, community, economic, environmental benefits (HCEE) on activity participation and setting, using effect sizes and significance levels to compare seven models. This meta-analysis reciprocated findings of a 2004 study, failing to offer definitive evidence of linkages among recreation opportunities in the context of the models tested. Benefit items exhibiting relatively higher sensitivity to activity and setting inputs were 1) "Restore my body from fatigue" (PER), 2) "Improved respect for privately owned lands" (HCEE), 3) "Increased self-confidence" (PER), and 4) "Greater respect for private property and local lifestyles" (PER). Suggestions for future OFM studies and research on the activity-setting-benefit relationship are made, in addition to a summary of potential implications for OFM based on the findings of this study.