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As the subjects that were brought up in the interviews vary in scale and time perspectives it was
decided to use codes to organize the transcribed content and compare the codes to themes inspired by
the framework of conditional cooperation for sustainable use of common pool resources (Poteete,
Janssen & Ostrom 2010), namely: norm-adopting individuals; reciprocity of other participants;
cooperation and; net benefits (Figure 3). In the analysis process, space was left for categories to
emerge from the resulting participatory diagram (Figure 4 in results).
The theoretical background to the conditional cooperation framework advocates that “humans do
not universally maximize short-term self-benefits and can cooperate to produce shared, long-term
benefits” (Vollan & Ostrom 2010: 923). It provides a pragmatic view of humans as norm-adopting,
learning and dependent on reciprocity in the context that they live and work in. This opposes the
rational-choice model that inspired the conventional theory of the tragedy of the commons where
“individuals are assumed to have complete information about the structure of the situation that they
are in”, and are thus “assumed to select the strategy leading to the best expected outcome for self”
(Vollan & Ostrom 2010: 923). The analysis assesses the degree in which collective action in tourism
in Gunnarsbyn is conditional if the variables support a reinforcing relationship between (1) normadopting individuals; (2) reciprocity; (3) cooperation; and (4) net benefits (Vollan & Ostrom 2010;
Poteete et al. 2010).
Broader contextual
variables
Microsituational
variables
Learning and norm
adopting individuals
Levels of trust that other
participants are
reciprocators
Levels of
cooperation
Net benefits
Figure 3: Learning and norm-adopting individuals are attracted to certain situations, and then are affected by the
behavior of other actors facing the same situation. Source: Vollan & Ostrom (2010).
Research Limitations
The presented results address the perspective of tourist hosts and therefore do not describe the net
benefits for other stakeholders in the community. However, it is important to keep in mind that the
community is small and the interviewees also belong to other stakeholder groups. They are
representatives of residents, residents that have other jobs, and residents that are active in local
politics. The tourism sector is highly dependent on an outside market and is therefore practiced at a
Work Creates Community