Effects of Members’ Relationships on Law-Enforcement Effectiveness and Performance in Protected Areas

This study was set to assess protected area staff’ interpersonal and intergroup relationships effect on patrol effectiveness and performance. Our findings showed members assessed their teams with high scores for interpersonal and intergroup relationships. The four patrol teams showed differences in team performances in the number of patrols organised, number of hours spent on patrols and its resultant effective patrol days (EPDs) achieved per staff. Teams that scored highest in team purpose, goals and roles as well as team skills and competencies were found to spend much more time on patrols. There were no statistically significant variations among the teams’ interpersonal and intergroup relationship versus (1) team purpose, goals and roles, (2) team skills and competencies and (3) team learning and commitment in a Kruskal-Wallis H test. However, there were statistically significant differences among the four teams in the number of animals sighted and illegal activities detected in ANOVA tests. These variations were attributed to ecological conditions rather than differences in the teams’ effectiveness scores.