Employer-Sponsored and Self-Sponsored Participation in Collaborative Visioning

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Abstract
Planners and community leaders around the nation use collaborative processes to create and advance shared visions of the future, yet these processes' biases are rarely discussed. Using data from a survey of stakeholders who participated in one metropolitan region's recent collaborative visioning process, this article compares participants sponsored at least in part by their employers during the year-long process (employer-sponsored) with those who participated entirely on their own time (self-sponsored). Although the two groups were similar in many respects, the research correctly anticipates differences in motivation and significantly lower levels of satisfaction and attendance among self-sponsored participants. These findings are consistent with the theory that the self-sponsored experience higher net personal costs of participation than do the employer-sponsored. This provides a theoretical basis for understanding and predicting how sponsorship affects self-interest when citizens participate in public planning, the important consequences this effect has, and how they might be addressed.

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