The Study of Community Residents’ Participation Behavior Model in Environmental Improvement Actions

• Main Authors: Chang-Jen Kuo, 郭彰仁
• Other Authors: Jui-Kun Kuo
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5wyj2t

博士 === 國立中山大學 === 公共事務管理研究所 === 96 === During the past decade, the environmental issue has been an important concern of public affairs because the problems generating from the physical environment are the main focus of local development. Generally, the most effective work of community development is to encourage people to participate in environmental improvement actions. For example, the literature has indicated that individual is the most important factor for environmental improvement actions. Thus, people who highly participate in the community affairs often have better performances on community improvement actions. Base on an efficient society and the budget of government downsizing, promoting community residents to actively participate in environmental improvement actions would help the community environment management to be more sustainable and indirectly leading the local development. Concerning community environment, the responsibility for the community, knowledge of environmental action, and the ability of self-control might be correlated with the community residents’ participation behavior in environmental improvement actions. The purpose of study is to explore the relationships among sense of community, the knowledge of environmental action, environmental moral obligation, and participating environmental improvement actions. Four objectives are mainly specified: first, to develop a sense of community scale of Taiwanese population; second, to integrate theories to test a community participation behavior model in environmental improvement actions; third, to understand the influential factors of community residents participation in environmental improvement actions; finally, to compare and interpret community residents participation in environmental improvement behavior model and “Theory of Planned Behavior”. This study surveyed community residents who ever participated in “urban community landscape renaissance project” supported by Construction and Planning Agency, and “rural community landscape renaissance project” founded by Soil and Water Conservation Bureau. A total of 616 community residents were administrated a self-report questionnaire. Further analysis of the data based on comparing respondent’s residence, respondents were grouped into to urban planning district group and non-urban planning district group. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method was then employed to test a conceptual model. There were nine domains proposed in the conceptual model. Five of nine domains adopted from planning behavioral theory included “attitude”, “subjective norm”, “perceived behavioral control”, “behavioral intention” and “behavior”. One of nine domains, “self-efficacy”, was chosen from social cognition theory. Two of nine domains from environmental citizen behavioral model were “knowledge of environmental action”, “environmental moral obligation”. “Sense of community” was referenced to the last domain. The findings provided support for eight hypotheses and two hypotheses were partial supported. The detailed descriptions of hypothesis-testing results were as below. Eight hypotheses supported, they included: (1) After residents reflected on the “subjective norm”, the “attitude” toward participating environmental reform behaviors was remarkably promoted. (2) Resident’s “attitude” significantly influenced their “behavioral intention” of participating environmental improvement behaviors. (3) Resident’s “perceived behavioral control” significantly impacted their “behavioral intention” of participate in environmental improvement behaviors. (4) Resident’s “sense of community” significantly impacted their “behavioral intention” of participating environmental improvement behaviors. (5) Resident’s “knowledge of environmental action” significantly impacted their “self-efficacy”. (6) Resident’s “self-efficacy” significantly effected their “perceived behavioral control”. (7) Resident’s “environmental moral obligation” significantly impacted their “attitude” of participating environmental improvement behaviors. (8) Resident’s “behavioral intention” significantly impacted their participating environmental improvement “behaviors”. Two hypotheses were partial supported: (1) Only in non-urban planning district resident’s “subjective norm” significantly impacted their “behavioral intention” of participating environmental improvement behaviors. (2) Only in urban planning district and all districts resident’s “perceived behavioral control” significantly impacted their “attitude” of participating environmental improvement behaviors. Additionally, the findings confirmed that Italian Sense of Community Scale (ISCS) was an appropriate scale to measure Taiwanese population’s sense of community. These findings provide researchers and practitioners for insight of resident’s participation in environmental improvement, which is better than “Theory of Planned Behavior”.