Diversify, Specialise, Reform, or Co-operate: Analysis of the Strategic Responses from Natural Resource Management Organisations Living under the Shadow of Austerity

In response to the global financial crash of 2008 many European Governments have instituted programmes of fiscal austerity. These programmes have sought to cut public sector spending, including to environmental management organisations which tend to be heavily reliant on public funding. This curtailment of funding impact organization’s business model, reduce their ability to conduct environmental management activities, and drive them towards new organizational behaviors. After seven years of austerity in the UK, this paper engages environmental management organisations within the North Devon UNESCO biosphere reserve partnership to seek to understand how they have been affected by, and have organizationally responded to, the UK austerity agenda. Through thirty semi-structured interviews it was discovered that, whilst many of the assumed negative impacts of austerity have been borne out, this period has also forced organisations to critically re-evaluate their strategy and governance. The outcome of which is that organisations have tended to adopt a strategy of both, or either, diversification, reformation, specialization or co-operation; with each strategy or combination of strategies bringing its own risks, rewards, and outcomes. Considering the breadth of existing international austerity programmes, and the scope for further austerity in the wake of new global financial shocks, this study points towards strategies that organisations can adopt to survive, and perhaps thrive in austere times.