ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effectiveness of community advisory panels (CAPs), as perceived by community CAP members and company representatives, across several different measures. It also examines similarities and differences in the effectiveness of the roles played by private sector citizen advisory committees to the chemical industry in the United States and Canada. The chapter draws on the literature on public sector advisory committees to identify factors that may influence effectiveness in the private sector. It discusses several contextual factors, such as the regulatory and policy environment, that may lead to differences in the effectiveness of CAPs in the Unites States and Canada. The common measures for the two studies included effectiveness of the CAP in communicating with the larger community and in making the company aware of community concerns. The chapter concludes that CAPs perform well on some measures, such as building trust between CAP members and the company and helping companies to anticipate issues of concern to the community.
