Pacific Northwest Research Station

Title: Line officers' views on stated USDA Forest Service values and the agency reward system.

Author: Kennedy, James J.; Haynes, Richard W.; Zhou, Xiaoping.

Date: 2005

Source: Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-632. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 72 p

Station ID: GTR-PNW-632

Description: To update and expand a study done in 1989 (Kennedy et al. 1992), we surveyed line officers attending the third National Forest Supervisors’ Conference (Chief, Associate Chief, deputy chiefs, regional foresters, directors of International Institute of Tropical Forestry and State and Private Forestry Northeastern Area, and forest supervisors; January 2004) and a 40-percent sample of district rangers about USDA Forest Service (FS) values and the agency reward system.

These line officers believed in 2004, as did their line colleagues in 1989, that the public in the United States values national forest "outputs" of recreation, wildlife, and water much more than they value traditional commodities of wood or grazing. The public values mirror the personal and professional priorities of line officers in both 1989 and 2004. In 1989, however, line officers believed their agency valued wood much more than line officers or the public did; by 2004 the agency roughly valued all national forest uses equally.

The 2004 line officer sample ranked the six most rewarded FS "operational values" as: (1) teamwork, (2) agency loyalty, (3) meeting targets, (4) professional competency, (5) hard work, and (6) promoting a good FS image-the same six (ranked somewhat differently) as given in 1989. Similarly, the values that the 2004 line officer sample believed should be rewarded, (1) care for ecosystems, (2) professional competency, (3) consensus building, (4) care for employee development, (5) responsiveness to local publics, and (6) concern for future generations, are the same as those given in 1989, and similar to the values prominently stated in the 1986 FS vision statement of Caring for the Land and Serving People. Although line officers believe their agency reward system supports more of these "should berewarded values" in 2004 than it did in 1989, this recent survey still illustrates opportunities to improve the FS reward system.

Keywords: Management values, ethics, organizational culture, organizational reward system, USDA Forest Service

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Citation

Kennedy, James J.; Haynes, Richard W.; Zhou, Xiaoping.  2005.  Line officers' views on stated USDA Forest Service values and the agency reward system..   Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-632. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 72 p.