Mer än bara ord
En kommunikationsstrategi för ökat hållbarhetsarbete i kommuner
SustainabilityMunicipalityMotivationCommunicationWorkshopHållbarhetKommunMotivationKommunikationWorkshop
This study is based on motivation theory, communication theory and knowledge about change management and workshop arrangement. The aim of the study is to develop a communication strategy which increases motivation for sustainability work in municipalities.Main focus of this report is to (1) determine whether motivation theory is applicable on a municipality?s sustainability work, in order to gain a willingness to change and (2) decide if workshops are suitable platforms for communication with municipalities. The opinion that global, complex problems require local solutions is a starting point for this study. The role of municipalities is claimed to be of great importance and is furthermore suggested to undergo a change in order to meet the current demands. The developed communication strategy is based on theories from a literature review and informal interviews with experts and was tested in a case study (with a municipality in south of Sweden). The communication strategy is intended to be useful when wanting to motivate any municipality to sustainability work.The communication strategy includes preparations, workshop arrangements and follow-up work. Every step of the strategy is explained, justified and presented in this report. The results from the case study are displayed and serve as a framework for the improvement discussion. The main result of this study consists of de following 11 steps:Background studies of the municipality.Survey of the existing expectations and needs.Identification of suitable workshop participants.Sending out invitations to the participants.Sending out questionnaires to participants.Adaptation of the communication.Implementation of workshop 1.Sending out reminder of the ?micro-task?.Implementation of workshop 2.Evaluation of the results.Follow-up of the municipality?s work.All participants in the case study stated that the workshops inspired to sustainability work and the self-perceived motivation was considered to be higher after the workshops had taken place (on a scale from 1 to 5, the mean value rose from 4,3 to 4,6). The conclusions of the study are: (I) by paying attention to theories of motivation ? and applying these theories during contact with the municipality - willingness to change occurred amongst the majority of the participants. (II) Workshops are suitable forums for communication with municipalities. To generalize these conclusions, further studies are required.