Non-industrial private forest owners’ attitudes towards the operational environment of forestry — a multinominal logit model analysis

The aim of the present study was to relate the attitudes, characteristics and forest management decisions of private forest owners to concepts of strategic management, and by this means, to achieve support for the use of common strategic management approaches in forestry. Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners’ forestry business units (BUs) were grouped into four strategic groups (Stars, Cash cows, Wildcats and Dogs), according to the McKinseyʹs matrix. This grouping was based on the forest owners’ attitudes towards the internal and external operational environments of forestry. Then, the groups were identified by means of a multinominal logit modeling approach that used forest-owner and forest-holding characteristics as explanatory variables. The differences in forestry behavior between the strategic groups were analyzed. The modeling results showed that forest-owner and forest-holding characteristics were in a logical relationship to the basic definitions of the used strategic groups. The behavior of the strategic groups was in accordance with strategies suggested in the tenets of strategic management. The results of this study are supportive of more extensive utilization of common strategic management approaches in forestry. However, the characteristics that make the forest different from other factors of production may require some modifications to be made to these approaches.