Tropentag, September 17 - 19, 2018 in Ghent "Global food security and food safety: The role of universities"

What Matters for the Job Performance of Field Level Advisors: A Case of Madhupur Sal Forest Bangladesh

¹University of Hohenheim, Institute of Social Sciences in Agriculture, Germany
²University of Guelph, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, Canada

Abstract

In the context of natural resource management, field level advisors are known as change agents and play a critical role in empowering resource users for joint learning and collective action. Their job performance is therefore important for achieving the wider objective of natural resource management. This study identified the factors that affect the performance of field level advisors in the context of organisational pluralism in Madhupur Sal forest, Bangladesh. This study uses quantitative methods and 87 field level advisors from nine organisations were selected purposively for data collection with a structured questionnaire. Four analytical categories i.e. i) governance structures, ii) organisational capacity and management, (iii) partnership and linkage, (iv) advisory methods from best-fit framework were used to outline the main factors responsible for satisfactory performance of the field level advisors. Besides descriptive analysis, binary logistic regression was employed to determine the factors that influence the satisfactory performance of the field level advisors. According to the results, organisational coordination, the existence of economic incentives for the execution of fieldwork, monitoring and evaluation of organisation on individually assigned work of field level advisor, total number of staff, in-service training, travel allowance, a reward and punishment system, computer and internet facilities for advisors, using group approach during field works, and interaction with forest researchers affect the performance of advisors in the provision of advice related to forest management. Our assessment provides a useful lesson for the existing advisory service providers to consider several factors to get better performance from their field level advisors.

Keywords: Bangladesh, best-fit framework pluralism, change agent, job performance, Sal Forest

Contact Address: Khondokar Humayun Kabir, University of Hohenheim, Institute of Social Sciences in Agriculture, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: kabirag09bau.edu.bd