Community management or common-pool resource management is the management of a common resource or issue by a community through the collective action of volunteers and stakeholders. The resource managed can be either material or informational. Examples include the management of common grazing and water rights, fisheries, and open-source software. In the case of physical resources, community management strategies are frequently employed to avoid the tragedy of the commons and to encourage sustainability.

It is expected that community management allows for the management, usually of natural resources, to come from members of the community that these decisions will affect. This should allow for a better way of finding solutions that the community will find most effective since management styles are not always transferable across different regions; and this could be because of cultural, economic, or geographical differences. It is expected that the group members within this setting have the incentive to do the best they can for the community because they live in the community that benefits or suffers from the management they provide. By decentralizing the management of resources, it is also expected that the upkeep that occurs within the services provided is streamlined due to the direct link between the areas that need improvement or regular maintenance and the authority overseeing them. However, these expected benefits of community management are not what we see unfolding within communities that follow this management style.

==Common pool problem==<!--This section incorporated marged material from "Common pool problem", which redirects here, so careful when changing headers-->

Without proper management, a community's material resources may be depleted or rendered unusable. The common pool problem is an economic situation which exists when goods are rival, but non-exclusive (See common-pool resource). Since these resources are owned in common, individuals have no private incentive to preserve them, but rather will seek to exploit them before others can derive benefit. The classic example is of fish in the ocean; anybody can harvest fish, but a fish that has been caught cannot be caught by another fisherman. Therefore, fishermen will seek to maximize their personal profit by catching as many fish as possible, which will ultimately lead to the stock being depleted. It is similar to the free rider problem in that those who do not contribute to the resource may use it without penalty, but the common pool problem is usually considered an economic "problem" since it will eventually lead to the exhausting of a resource. Another example of the common pool problem involves the shared use of limited internet bandwidth, such as in a university network, when the connectivity of all users is slowed by the heavy usage of a few.

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson won the 2009 Nobel prize in economic science for work in this area, where they suggested that with good community management of shared resources, as found in successful firms, the "tragedy of the commons" can be avoided.

Expanding on the foundational work of Ostrom, Roland Perez (2010) observes that the recognition of her research marked a departure from the "presumptive superiority" of both private property and state-led management. According to Perez, Ostrom's findings relativize the conclusions of earlier theories by highlighting the contingency of governance modes; the success of a community-managed system is not a given, but is instead deeply tied to the technical, political, and cultural characteristics of the specific environment. This perspective suggests that there is no universal "blue-print" for collective action.

Furthermore, the "Bloomington School" methodology—which combines multi-actor game modeling with deep anthropological analysis—offers a "third way" known as polycentric governance. This approach encourages the establishment of "rules-in-use" that are developed by the community members themselves rather than imposed by a central authority. This nuanced understanding is particularly applicable to contemporary "anthropized ecosystems" and modern digital shared resources, where independent regulation allows for a more flexible response to complex institutional challenges. Main problems of community management, specifically related to water management, consist of potential maintenance issues, population issues, money collecting issues, and a lack of community engagement.

  • Community management can create potential maintenance issues that are resolved with less expediency and with less efficiency. This often stems as a result of having a lack of a qualified person to perform the repair or lacking a reliable way to collect money in order to hire someone to do the repair.
  • A lack of community engagement is a chronic issue that arises within community management, as well. In order for community management to be an effective strategy of management style the community must be engaged within the management system in order to reap the community benefits. Despite this, most citizens are not interested in the issues community management organizations are looking to improve, meaning these organizations are getting less input from the community which negates the point of community management. Meaning members of the community are involved in the development and follow through of community development projects, which can involve acquiring the funding for projects as well as deciding what plans would be beneficial for the community and which ones would not.