13 “what we have done and what has happened to us in the past” Davenport and Prusak, 1998: p.7
and can be both professional and personal. Education can be considered the possible education at schools but also the parental education which includes the transfer of values and beliefs as well as
culture and traditions. This can determine the capacity of actors to understand certain information formats, such as text and graphs Van Densen et al., 2010. Someone who never learnt to read will
have a different perception on the same piece of textual information as someone who can read. The background of an actor determines its capacity to handle certain information, but also the context in
which it places new information. Part of an actor’s daily life are its current activities including its functions, tasks and interests which
can also be either professional, personal or both. On the professional level the daily life is determined by what kind of job an actor has and with whom it has contact during the day. On a
personal level this regards the responsibilities of an actor beside its job, like maintaining a family. The daily live is greatly determining the information sources with which an actor is confronted and
therefore shapes the information environment of an actor. A fisher can, for example, get information from middlemen and may usually not speak to suppliers and processors, while a supplier can get
information from both middlemen and processors due to his position in the value chain. Therefore, the structure of the value chain and the established relations between actors within that chain
greatly determine what information reaches an actor – what information it can capture –, because these are part of the daily life of an actor. This is especially an important aspect in FIPs since they use
the value chain to create incentives to change and therefore they have to deal with these established relations within the value chain that determine the flows of information.
Framing is considered a filter for all the information from the information environment. In this study it is considered a ‘black box’, a given that will not be specifically studied. It is included in the figure as
a reminder for taking into account that not all data, information and knowledge from the information environments adds to the perception, because some information is filtered out. All together, the
elements of the information environment add to the creation of an actor’s perception. The existing perceptions that are expressed by actors can therefore be studied through analysing their
information environments. The position of an actor in the value chain will play an essential role in determining its perception, because it determines with what information an actor is confronted and
it influences the way the information is processed.
2.6 Linking the concepts, creating one framework
Choosing certain objectives for solving a problem comes forward from actors’ perceptions. In Figure 2.5, the perception is added to the previously introduced framework of CI Figure 2.2. Adding the
perception to the concept of CI in the context of FIPs allows arguing that CI objectives are not a given, but that they are a choice of the FIP participants. Perception differences can cause difficulties
in arriving at a consensus on appropriate management, because actors can have different judgments of the situation and therefore different views on which management measures will be effective
Verweij and Van Densen, 2001; McClanahan et al., 2005. This is especially relevant in multi-actor settings like FIPs. The FIP is implemented by creating incentives through the value chain. FIP
participants have to deal with differing perceptions, because the actors involved in the fishery have different positions within the value chain. They will capture and process information differently,
14 because they have a different background and daily life. Different perceptions exist along the value
chain that could hamper achieving an appropriate approach towards achieving improvement.
Figure 2.5 Continuous Improvement CI in the context of the Fishery Improvement Project FIP extended with perception.
The arrows show that the perception determines how an actor defines operational and system objectives and that achieving the operational objectives will influence the situation. Left: situation at the start of the project with desired goal
and interim objectives. Right: reproduction of a current situation in which some operational objectives have been met and the gap between current and desired situation is reduced, improvement took place.
Where then in Figure 2.5 can the value chain be integrated? Since perceptions differ for differing actors, a similar figure to Figure 2.5 can in theory be drawn for every actor in the value chain
respectively. However, only the BSC FIP participants determine the objectives set within the FIP and therefore the value chain is not represented in Figure 2.5. The link between the value chains and the
information environment will be used to analyse the implementation of the BSC FIP. It will help identifying the enabling and constraining factors towards achieving improvement by analysing the
awareness of the FIP measures and perception on these measures of actors on different scales of the value chain.
The aim of this thesis is to analyse the capacity of FIPs to lead to improvement via the crab value chain, taking into account the information flow and perceptions of actors. This will be done by
combining three theoretical concepts that are relevant to answer the main question: ‘to what extent has the Indonesian BSC FIP been able to improve the practices of actors in the crab value chain and
what was the influence of information and perceptions on this process?’ Using the terminology of the conceptual framework the question covers the following elements. In the first place, I will analyse
what the BSC FIP is by looking at the BSC FIP participants and their position within or outside the crab value chain. CI will help identifying the pathway chosen by these BSC FIP participants in order to
achieve improvement by distinguishing system and operational objectives. This will also reveal the perception of the BSC FIP participants on improvement. Studying the definition of two BSC FIP
objectives in-depth will give inside in the information that has been used. It will reflect the information environment of the BSC FIP participants. This will later be compared with the way local
actors capture and process information. Were they aware of the taken BSC FIP measures? In other words, was the information about the BSC FP available, accessible and adequate for them? What is
15 their perception on these measures and how can this explain their practices? Comparing the
practices of actors with the BSC FIP objectives will in the end allow concluding if improvement took place and how this is influenced by flows of information and actors perceptions on the FIP measures
and on improvement along different levels of the value chain. The conceptual framework will be applied to the case of the BSC FIP. The next chapter will illustrate
the methodology that will deliver the results on which the framework will be operationalized. It will divide this study in two parts. The first part is parallel with the first sub question and will consider the
scale of fisheries managers; the BSC FIP participants. The second part represents the second sub question and will consider the local actors of the fishery, most prominently being the fishers. The
framework will be applied on these two cases in chapter 4 and 5 respectively.
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3 Methodology
3.1 Introduction
