Benefits-Based Management: Perspectives on Its Development and History

Authors

  • Stephen F. McCool

Abstract

This fundamental question underlies nearly all professional management and research activity on park and recreation administration, whether located deep within the most urban of environments or found in the wildest of earth’s environments. Failures to understand the dynamics and relevancy of benefit production hurts the effectiveness of our management and hampers our ability to see future needs. That benefits are produced is not at issue nor is it that such personal benefits as escape, cardiovascular fitness, adventure, challenge, learning about nature, family cohesiveness, and so on result from recreational activity. What is at issue is how the very idea of benefits is framed, how they are measured, and how the notion of benefits is used in management of leisure and recreation settings. And we must ask how research focusing on benefits advances our management of recreational settings. 

Published

2016-11-15