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1 – 10 of over 11000At present, China’s forestry development is mainly driven by the traditional production factors such as forestry labor force, land resources and capital and thus the top priority…
Abstract
Purpose
At present, China’s forestry development is mainly driven by the traditional production factors such as forestry labor force, land resources and capital and thus the top priority of forestry development is to optimize forestry production factors. Scientific and effective forestry labor input has a significant role in promoting the development of forestry industry. Given that the actual input to forestry labor is not clear, the accuracy of the forestry industry development may be slightly affected. Based on the monitoring project of collective forest tenure reform (RCFT), this paper uses the survey data of 3,500 rural households in seven provinces of China from 2010 to 2014 and 2016 to 2017 to measure the actual labor force in China, and empirically analyzes and studies the factors influencing the development of forestry industry based on the provincial data of forestry in China, and further discusses the heterogeneous impact of forestry production factors on the development of forestry industry.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the generalized least squares estimation model is used to calculate the actual number of forestry labor in China, and then the Cobb–Douglas production function is selected to explore the influencing factors of forestry industry development.
Findings
The results show that the actual number of forestry labor force in China continues to decline and the degree of reduction varies from different regions. The forestry labor is a major factor that promotes the development of the forestry industry, but this promotion is affected by the low matching degree between the forestry production factors and thus further inhibits the development of the forestry industry. Due to the time lag of the reform, the implementation of RCFT first weakens and then promotes the development of forestry production. Further on, the forestry labor input is heterogeneous in land resource endowment, forestry investment source and the proportion of management personnel.
Originality/value
Therefore, researches show that the feasible way to promote the development of forestry industry is to expand the scale of forestry labor force, optimize the mutual allocation of forestry production factors, enhance the input of human capital in forestry and deepen the RCFT.
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Rajat Panwar, Eric Hansen and Roy Anderson
From the standpoint of the future of corporate social responsibility, students' perceptions are an important research proposition. Several studies have been conducted to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
From the standpoint of the future of corporate social responsibility, students' perceptions are an important research proposition. Several studies have been conducted to examine this phenomenon, yet sector‐specific studies are rather scant. The primary purpose of this work is to examine students' perceptions regarding social responsibility in the context of the US forest products industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 257 graduate and upper level undergraduate students from Oregon State University and University of Montana, pursuing different academic majors, were surveyed to examine the differences in their perceptions of the US forest products industry's success in fulfilling its corporate social responsibilities.
Findings
Results suggest that business and forest ecology/environmental science students were least satisfied with industry fulfilling its economic responsibilities. Regarding fulfillment of socio‐environmental responsibilities, forest ecology/environmental science students were significantly less satisfied than any other study major. Additionally, a comparison between male and female students suggested that males and females have a similar level of satisfaction regarding industry fulfilling its economic responsibilities. However, males were found to be more satisfied with industry fulfilling its socio‐environmental responsibilities than females.
Research limitations/implications
Students for the study were not selected randomly and as such the results of the study can, at best, be considered indicative. Study findings have implications for academic curriculum designers as well as for industry policy makers.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to examine students' perceptions about the social responsibility success of the US forest products industry.
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Risto Tainio, Pekka Ollonqvist and Marja Korhonen
This article attempts to understand the dynamics of institutional management processes. This concept is defined here as managerial action vis‐a‐vis emerging political and…
Abstract
This article attempts to understand the dynamics of institutional management processes. This concept is defined here as managerial action vis‐a‐vis emerging political and infra‐structural conditions for business in the nation‐state arena. For this purpose the emerging patterns of relationships between business and politics in the Finnish forest sector are described and analysed. Our focus is on the impact of the four most societally loaded changes in political and infra‐structural conditions of the forest sector: its position in the core of the Finnish economy, the ownership of the key resources, the use of timber as the basic source of welfare, and the logging and transportation infrastructure. These changes become the key issues for the level of institutional management in the forest sector. They have remained significant over the studied long‐term period, but the efforts of their moulding have changed over time. These dynamics of institutional management are found to follow a cycle, divided in seven phases, coined as: (1) offensive confrontation, (2) operational co‐operation, (3) differentiation of institutional management, (4) exploitation of a core position, (5) justification of expansion and growth, (6) legitimation of decline, and (7) defensive confrontation. The authors provide examples and evidence of these changing patterns of institutional management, and offer a proposition about the underlying dynamics of the cycle.
Katja Lähtinen and Tanja Myllyviita
Forest industries affect cultural sustainability profoundly, but little information exists on integration of cultural sustainability aspects into their Corporate Social…
Abstract
Purpose
Forest industries affect cultural sustainability profoundly, but little information exists on integration of cultural sustainability aspects into their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) management. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines comprising assessments of economic, ecological and social aspects are one of the most comprehensive CSR frameworks applied widely also in forest industries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate, how the GRI guidelines encompass cultural sustainability when assessing forestry and forest industry operations in a global context and to recognize the cultural sustainability themes that need additional information in forest industry companies’ CSR reporting.
Design/methodology/approach
In the qualitative analysis, expert interview material on indicators identified for assessing the cultural sustainability of forest bioenergy production in North Karelia was compared with the contents of the GRI guidelines. The focus on classifying the cultural indicators according to GRI contents was to recognize in the context of forest bioenergy production, the links between cultural sustainability and other sustainability dimensions and to illustrate the new themes that cultural sustainability integration would bring to CSR management of the business. In addition, information was acquired from the general themes of cultural sustainability which are currently lacking from the GRI guidelines.
Findings
The results of the show that most of the cultural indicators in the expert interview material were associated with aspects of economic, environmental or social sustainability when classified according to the GRI guidelines. Despite this, it seems that a more profound integration of cultural sustainability evaluations in CSR management is required. The analysis of this study showed that the themes “Impacts on landscape,” “Timeline of impacts,” “Spiritual values,” “Persistence of traditions” and “Adaptability to cultural change” are not approached in the GRI guidelines at all. All of the identified themes approach issues, which have been found to be crucial in forest industries’ operations not only in a local, but also in a global context.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis of this study was limited to cultural characteristics of forestry and forest industries especially in the case of forest bioenergy production in North Karelia, Eastern Finland. Due to this, the results cannot be generalized directly into other CSR management contexts of forest industries in different geographical areas. Despite this, the results of this study indicate that when aiming to enhance the acceptability of forest industries in energy production as well as in other branches of forest industries, new insights are needed on the integration of cultural aspects in CSR management.
Originality/value
The pressures toward using local forest resources are increasing internationally. As a result of this, the managers and politicians responsible for making decisions on forest sector are less seldom familiar with local traditions and the ways of balancing different needs related to forests in various geographical contexts. In enhancing the environmental, social and economic sustainability of forest resource usage it is crucial to ensure that the decisions made do not conflict with cultural values of localities traditionally dependent on forests. Despite this, general information on cultural sustainability issues related to forests and especially CSR management in forest sector is scarce.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the culture in the logging industry in the East Kootenay/Columbia region in British Columbia, Canada, is changing as warm winters…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the culture in the logging industry in the East Kootenay/Columbia region in British Columbia, Canada, is changing as warm winters resulting from climate change drive expansion of a native tree-killing pest, the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae).
Methodology/approach
The paper is derived from historical records and 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted from July 2010 to May 2011.
Findings
This analysis found that the insect outbreaks are generating a heightened sense of economic and physical vulnerability in the logging industry, undermining previous assumptions of sufficiency and confidence.
Research limitations/implications
This paper presents results from a study of a specific region, and caution should be used when comparing these results with similar phenomena in other contexts.
Social implications
The forest industry is an important employer throughout the British Columbia interior; the cultural changes documented here indicate that climate change, manifested in insect outbreaks, is generating cultural dislocation that can have negative consequences beyond the immediate economic impacts.
Originality/value
This paper provides a detailed analysis of how an unanticipated consequence of climate change is driving adjustments in a subculture in a technologically advanced society.
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Tomi Amberla, Lei Wang, Heikki Juslin, Rajat Panwar, Eric Hansen and Roy Anderson
The basic purpose of this research is to compare and describe various aspects related to student perceptions of forest industry CR performance in Finland and the USA.
Abstract
Purpose
The basic purpose of this research is to compare and describe various aspects related to student perceptions of forest industry CR performance in Finland and the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
With a quantitative research method, this study investigated 568 students. CSR and CSR reporting are the fundamental concepts that shape the development of the hypotheses and thus are integral to this empirical study.
Findings
Finnish students have a stronger belief that reporting is reliable and open than their US counterparts. Finnish students show more positive views on the way forest industry companies implement environmental responsibility than their US counterparts. US students show more positive views on social responsibility, especially those connected with stakeholder relations, than their Finnish counterparts.
Originality/value
The obvious connections between reporting views and perceptions of corporate responsibility highlight the significance of reliable reporting in the context of CR. Major fields of study significantly affected student perceptions of CR. The results of the study can help schools and enterprises to design proper CR‐related education courses or programs. Results of this study indicate that the CR weakness of the industry still lies in environmental responsibility. Thus, while forest industry companies should strive to apply a multi‐dimensional CR strategy, emphasis should still be on the environmental component.
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Annukka Näyhä, Päivi Pelli and Lauri Hetemäki
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and provide a synthesis of how services are understood, how they are likely to develop and how future development can be studied more…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and provide a synthesis of how services are understood, how they are likely to develop and how future development can be studied more closely in the forest-based sector (FBS). Services are likely to have an increasing role in the FBS in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings are based on a literature review of FBS outlook studies, strategies and programs and services-related studies in FBS and general services literature. Three case examples of services businesses in FBS companies are presented, and possible foresight approaches related to them are discussed. Foresight methods used in parallel sectors are also discussed.
Findings
The study provides the first systematic introduction, classification and review of FBS services to include both industry- and non-industry-related services. The paper also points out the need for foresight studies and suggests various approaches for an analysis of the potential of FBS services in the future bioeconomy.
Practical implications
The study shows that the role of services in FBS research has been understood too narrowly. As a result, services research has been rather lacking and the future potential of services in the FBS has not been fully acknowledged. The study argues for and points toward the need to use foresight approaches to update FBS strategies, business models and policies to fully benefit from the future potential of services.
Originality/value
The study is a novel introduction, review and discussion of the role of services in the FBS and their future outlook.
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Logging industry fatalities recently became a focus for policy change in British Columbia. Through re-analysis of ethnographic data collected in 2001–2002 this chapter aims to…
Abstract
Logging industry fatalities recently became a focus for policy change in British Columbia. Through re-analysis of ethnographic data collected in 2001–2002 this chapter aims to investigate logging contractors’ attitudes toward workplace danger and to comment on the likelihood of success of the proposed policy changes. The contractors attributed workplace danger to the forest environment and to human error, which shaped their behavior and their attitudes toward taking risks. The contractors accepted the risk of physical harm rather than face almost certain economic loss. The proposed policy changes do not address the conditions that promoted this acceptance.
I examine how four distinct episodes of environmental policy debate have been depicted in the Vancouver Sun, British Columbia's largest daily newspaper. Discourse analysis is…
Abstract
I examine how four distinct episodes of environmental policy debate have been depicted in the Vancouver Sun, British Columbia's largest daily newspaper. Discourse analysis is applied to the Protected Areas Strategy, the Forest Practices Code, the Working Forest and the Results-based Forest Practices Code. The network of power/knowledge constructed through these texts limits debate to the hegemonic alternatives of “ecomanagerialism” and “eco-capitalism.” This textual reality is constructed from three major organizational standpoints: government, industry and environmentalists. The voices of First Nations and forestry labour are marginalized, as are discourses that challenge the hegemony of the “treadmill of production.”
Steven E. Daniels and Gregg B. Walker
The recent impasse over federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been a living laboratory of conflict and its management, and provides…
Abstract
The recent impasse over federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been a living laboratory of conflict and its management, and provides the context for this case study. While most of the media attention has been focused on regional or national events such as President Clinton's Forest Conference of April 1993, a larger number of localized conflicts have shaped the controversy at the grassroots level. This case study focuses on a pivotal meeting in one such conflict: the Shasta Costa planning process. Outside intervenors mediated the meeting, and USDA Forest Service personnel, timber industry representatives, and environmentalists participated Participant observation and a supplemental survey led to the following conclusions: (1) measures of standing (the legal and social basis for legitimate participation) differed between the industry and environmental representatives, (2) reliance on science differed between groups, and (3) the process was not able to overcome a power imbalance. These findings suggest that there may be little hope for local dispute efforts if there is substantial policy uncertainty at the national level. Implications for managing forestry conflict in the region are discussed.