COMPETITIVENESS OF COMMUNITY FOREST ENTERPRISES FOR RESOURCE

SUSTAINABILITY AND COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT:

AN ORGANIZATIONAL HYBRIDITY PERSPECTIVE

by

Meike Siegner

B.A. Vienna University, 2011

M.Sc. Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2014

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES

(Forestry)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)

July 2021

© Meike Siegner, 2021

ii

The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate

and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled:

Competitiveness of Community Forest Enterprises for Resource Sustainability and Community

Empowerment: An Organizational Hybridity Perspective

submitted by Meike Siegner in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

in Forestry

Examining Committee:

Dr. Robert Kozak, Professor, Faculty of Forestry, UBC

Co-Supervisor

Dr. Rajat Panwar, Professor, College of Forestry, Oregon State University

Co-Supervisor

Dr. Jonatan Pinkse, Professor, Alliance Business School, University of Manchester

Supervisory Committee Member

Dr. Gary Bull, Professor, Faculty of Forestry, UBC

University Examiner

Dr. Richard Barichello, Professor, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, UBC

University Examiner

Additional Supervisory Committee Members:

Dr. Harry Nelson, Professor, Faculty of Forestry, UBC

Supervisory Committee Member

iii

Abstract

Decentralized forest management is gaining prominence as an effective approach for the

sustainable use of forest resources and to ensure the well-being of rural, Indigenous, and resource-

dependent communities around the world. In many places, decentralized forest management is

carried out through community forest enterprises (CFEs). CFEs are commercial entities which

pursue plural goals including resource conservation, economic development, poverty alleviation,

and preserving local cultural values and traditions. This dissertation seeks to advance our

understanding of how CFEs can overcome management challenges so they can more effectively

meet their goals. First, by conducting qualitative meta-synthesis of key works in the social

enterprise and CFE literatures, challenges and opportunities facing CFEs were identified, and

consolidated to form a set of solutions to management hurdles.

Second, using the theoretical lenses of Organizational Hybridity, Paradox and Tensions

and Dualities, this research also examines approaches to community engagement in CFEs’

decision-making in the Canadian Province of British Columbia. A qualitative research design was

employed which comprised multiple case studies. Results show that CFEs struggle to balance the

need for community engagement in decision-making and demonstrating commercial prudence.

Some managers reconcile this tension by using separation strategies, with others using integration

strategies.

Third, drawing from literature in organizational competitiveness, the dissertation also

tested the relationship between competitive strategy and CFE effectiveness. This was achieved

through the dissemination of a survey among CFEs in Canada and the United States.

iv

Quantitative analyses showed that more effective CFEs were more likely to pursue mixed

competitive strategies which simultaneously focus on efficiency and low costs along with the

exploration of niche markets. Lastly, drawing from upper echelons theory, a sample of CFEs in

British Columbia, Canada, the relationship between managerial personal characteristics, and

organizational outcomes was tested, showing support for the link between manager profile and

performance.

Overall this dissertation identifies interventional approaches to enhance community

participation, and outlines leadership attributes needed for effectiveness in CFEs. Thus, the

dissertation advances knowledge about what CFEs can do, how this can be done, and who can be

entrusted to manage them.

v

Lay Summary

Community forest enterprises (CFEs) are gaining prominence among policy makers,

scholars, and practitioners for their potential to achieve multiple benefits in the sustainable use of

forest resources. This dissertation seeks to assess organization-level challenges facing CFEs and

ways of overcoming these challenges. Three lines of inquiries were pursued: (i) the development

of a solutions framework that identifies and evaluates CFEs as a unique type of social enterprise

model in the forest sector; (ii) the identification of managerial strategies to enhance community

participation in CFEs decision-making; and (iii) the identification of strategic orientations and

managerial characteristics that could enhance CFEs competitiveness.

vi

Preface

This dissertation is my original work. I identified the research objectives, designed the

methodologies, collected and analyzed the primary and secondary data. It was carried out with

guidance from Drs. Robert Kozak (co-supervisor) and Rajat Panwar (co-supervisor), as well as Dr.

Harry Nelson and Dr. Jonatan Pinkse (committee members).

One manuscript has been published in a peer-reviewed journal based on a qualitative meta-

synthesis included in one of the research chapters (2). I am the lead author on this publication,

which was co-authored with my doctoral supervisors, Drs. Rajat Panwar and Robert Kozak. My

role in this publication was to design the study, analyze the data, write the manuscript, make any

revisions required prior to publication and communicate with journal editors. Dr. Kozak helped to

acquire funding to support the research. Drs. Panwar and Kozak provided feedback on the research

design and on several drafts of the manuscript.

• Siegner, M., Panwar, R., & Kozak, R. (2021). Community forest enterprises and social

enterprises: the confluence of two streams of literatures for sustainable natural resource

management. Social Enterprise Journal (available online, ahead of print).

https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-10-2020-0096

All research was conducted with approval from the UBC Behavioral Research Ethics

Board (UBC BREB #H18-01703).

vii

Table of Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii

Lay Summary .................................................................................................................................v

Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii

List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... xii

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. xiii

List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. xiv

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... xvi

Dedication ................................................................................................................................. xviii

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2: Community Forest Enterprises and Social Enterprises – The Confluence of Two

Streams of Literatures for Sustainable Natural Resource Management ...............................11

2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 11

2.2 A Primer on Community Forest Enterprises ................................................................. 13

2.3 Methods......................................................................................................................... 16

2.4 Results and Discussion ................................................................................................. 19

2.4.1 Promises of CFEs and Their Varied Facets Around the World ............................ 19

2.4.1.1 Poverty Reduction ............................................................................................. 20

2.4.1.2 Rural Revitalization .......................................................................................... 21

2.4.1.3 Ecologically Responsible Forestry ................................................................... 22

2.4.1.4 Protection of Indigenous Rights........................................................................ 23

viii

2.4.2 Challenges of CFEs and the Importance of Effective Organization ..................... 28

2.4.2.1 Organizational Identity ..................................................................................... 28

2.4.2.2 Governance ....................................................................................................... 29

2.4.2.3 Scaling-Up ........................................................................................................ 30

2.4.2.4 Performance Measures ...................................................................................... 32

2.4.3 Addressing Challenges: Lessons from the Social Enterprise Literature ............... 34

2.4.3.1 Addressing the Organizational Identity Challenge: Setting Hybrid Goals

and Hiring Strategies......................................................................................................... 34

2.4.3.2 Addressing the Governance Challenge: (Re)Structuring Hybrid Activities ..... 36

2.4.3.3 Addressing the Scaling-Up Challenge: Building Mixed Funding Portfolios ... 37

2.4.3.4 Addressing the Performance Measures Challenge: Quantifying Social Impact 39

2.5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 41

Chapter 3: Unpacking Community Involvement in Social Enterprise Decision-Making:

Evidence from Six Community Forest Enterprises in Canada ...............................................44

3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 44

3.2 Theoretical Background ................................................................................................ 46

3.2.1 Goal Attainment in Social Enterprises .................................................................. 46

3.2.2 Community Involvement in Organizational Decisions......................................... 49

3.3 Methods......................................................................................................................... 52

3.3.1 Research Context .................................................................................................. 52

3.3.2 Sample................................................................................................................... 54

3.3.3 Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 58

3.3.4 Analysis................................................................................................................. 61

ix

3.4 Findings......................................................................................................................... 65

3.4.1 Trade-Offs Between Financial Sustainability and Community Involvement ....... 67

3.4.2 Tensions with the Balancing of Tactics for Community Involvement ................. 74

3.4.3 Overcoming Challenges ........................................................................................ 84

3.5 Discussion and Conclusions ......................................................................................... 91

Chapter 4: Strategic Orientation in Community Forest Enterprises: Implications for

Effectiveness .................................................................................................................................98

4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 98

4.2 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses ................................................................... 102

4.3 Methods....................................................................................................................... 111

4.3.1 Sample and Data ................................................................................................. 111

4.3.2 Survey Design ..................................................................................................... 115

4.3.3 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 122

4.4 Results ......................................................................................................................... 126

4.4.1 Descriptive Information ...................................................................................... 126

4.4.2 ANOVA Results ................................................................................................. 131

4.4.3 OLS Regression Results ..................................................................................... 133

4.5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 135

4.5.1 Limitations and Future Research ........................................................................ 140

4.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 141

x

Chapter 5: The Effect of Managerial Characteristics on Community Forest Enterprise

Performance – Evidence from British Columbia ....................................................................143

5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 143

5.2 Study Aim and Focus .................................................................................................. 146

5.3 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses ................................................................... 147

5.3.1 Managerial Characteristics, Decision-Making, and Outcomes........................... 147

5.3.1.1 Proactive Personality and Performance .......................................................... 149

5.3.1.2 Perceived Work Discretion and Performance ................................................. 150

5.3.1.3 Social Networking and Performance .............................................................. 151

5.4 Methods....................................................................................................................... 152

5.4.1 Measures ............................................................................................................. 152

5.4.2 Sampling and Data Collection ............................................................................ 154

5.4.3 Analysis............................................................................................................... 155

5.5 Results and Discussion ............................................................................................... 156

5.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 162

Chapter 6: Conclusions .............................................................................................................163

6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 163

6.2 Summary of Findings .................................................................................................. 165

6.3 Key Contributions ....................................................................................................... 168

6.3.1 Contributions to the Literature ............................................................................ 168

6.3.2 Managerial Implications ..................................................................................... 170

6.3.3 Policy Implications ............................................................................................. 172

6.3.3.1 The Role of Government ................................................................................ 173

xi

6.3.3.2 The Role of Support Organizations ................................................................ 174

6.4 Shortcomings and Limitations .................................................................................... 177

6.5 Future Directions ........................................................................................................ 180

Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................183

Appendices ..................................................................................................................................197

Appendix A ............................................................................................................................. 197

Appendix B ............................................................................................................................. 200

Appendix C ............................................................................................................................. 203

Appendix D ............................................................................................................................. 219

xii

List of Tables

Table 1 Organizational forms of community-based management of forests .................................. 3

Table 2 Summary of hybrid characteristics of CFEs .................................................................... 16

Table 3 Promises of CFEs around the world ................................................................................ 26

Table 4 Challenges facing CFEs around the world ...................................................................... 33

Table 5 Characteristics of sampled CFEs ..................................................................................... 57

Table 6 Characteristics of interview participants.......................................................................... 60

Table 7 Illustrative examples for experiencing trade-offs ............................................................ 73

Table 8 Two tactics for community involvement ......................................................................... 77

Table 9 Illustrative data for experiencing tension......................................................................... 83

Table 10 Summary of study constructs ....................................................................................... 119

Table 11 List of variables ........................................................................................................... 122

Table 12 Reliability coefficients of variables ............................................................................. 124

Table 13 Pearson’s correlations for observed dependent and independent variables ................. 125

Table 14 Cluster means (n=51) ................................................................................................... 127

Table 15 Results of chi-square analysis with k-means clusters .................................................. 128

Table 16 Descriptive information based on k-means clusters .................................................... 130

Table 17 ANOVA results............................................................................................................ 132

Table 18 Original study hypotheses and test results ................................................................... 136

Table 19 Descriptive statistics and correlations of regression variables .................................... 156

Table 20 Results of the regression analyses ............................................................................... 158

xiii

List of Figures

Figure 1 Organization Framework ................................................................................................ 10

Figure 2 Solutions for Management Challenges ........................................................................... 40

Figure 3 Data Structure ................................................................................................................. 64

Figure 4 Strategies for Addressing Trade-Offs ............................................................................. 86

Figure 5 Tensions and Tension Management ............................................................................... 91

Figure 6 Locations of Survey Participants .................................................................................. 114

Figure 7 Theoretical Framework of the Study ............................................................................ 152

Figure 8 Summary of Key Contributions of this Dissertation .................................................... 176

xiv

List of Abbreviations

ANOVA – Analysis of Variance

BC – British Columbia

BCCFA – British Columbia Community Forest Association

CBM – Community-Based Management

CEO – Chief Executive Officer

CFA – Community Forest Agreement

CFEs – Community Forest Enterprises

CFM – Community Forest Management

FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization

FNs – First Nations

FSC – Forest Stewardship Council

MFLNRO - Ministry of Forests Lands and Natural Resource Operations

NGOs – Non-Governmental Organizations

NIEDP – National Indigenous Economic Association

NTFP – Non-Timber-Forest-Products

PD – Participatory Decision-Making

RRI – Rights and Resources Initiative

SD – Standard Deviation

SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals

SEs – Social Enterprises

SFI – Sustainable Forestry Initiative

xv

UET – Upper Echelons Theory

UN – United Nations

US – United States

VIF – Variance Inflation Factor

xvi

Acknowledgements

The culmination of this thesis relied on the assistance of many individuals. First, I would

like to express my gratitude to my academic supervisors, Professors Dr. Robert Kozak and

Dr. Rajat Panwar. Their commitment to excellence in research and teaching, and their dedication

to interdisciplinarity, gave me the opportunity to learn from true leaders in sustainable business

management and forest sector sustainability. I am grateful for their guidance and am aware of the

privilege I have received in pursuing this research. My committee members at UBC and

Manchester University, Prof. Harry Nelson, and Prof. Jonatan Pinkse, provided insightful and

nuanced advice from which I benefited greatly.

I received professional support in my data collection from the BC Community Forestry

Association, Ms. Susan Mulkey and Ms. Jennifer Gunter. Their professional insights helped me

keep my research grounded in practice, and ensured its relevance outside of the academic

environment. I would also like to thank the community leaders who shared their insights on the

practice of managerial decision-making in community forest enterprises.

While at the university, I had the opportunity to meet many professors, graduate students,

and staff, and have benefitted from the rich and stimulating environment on campus.

Jennifer DeBoer, Maria Murcia, Alice Palmer, and Vilbert Vabi Vamuloh, stand out as graduate

student peers with whom I have engaged in fruitful discussions, and who have supported me during

my time at the university. I learned a lot from them and I am sure I will continue to do so in the

future.

xvii

I also want to thank my wonderful support network, including fellow members of the

Community Alternatives Housing Cooperative, and my dear friends in Kitsilano, where I spent

most of my time living in Vancouver, Rachel Gossen, Ilvs Strauss, Savannah Carr-Wilson and

Sandeep Pai. Special mention also goes to the “Nootka Crew” – a group of inspiring friends who

introduced me to the beauty of British Columbia on an epic hike on the coastal shoreline of Nootka

Island, Katie Beardsley, Jennica Frisque, Bertine Stelzer, Kahlil Baker, and Christian Brandt.

Although my research has often kept me busy and required me to move to a different part

of the world, my family and dear friends in Europe have always been close, and a source of

inspiration to make a positive contribution to society. I would like to specifically acknowledge my

mother, Sigrid Siegner, and my grandmother, Irene Scheithauer, two fierce women who are with

me in spirit. They taught me to be brave, curious, and face society with a strong grounding in

compassion and ethics. I would also like to thank my wonderful father and stepmother, Wolfgang

and Hannelore Siegner, my sister, Katja Jeggle, as well as my host parents in Sweden, Eva and

Sigurd Granström, and my godparents Marion and Dietmar Bicknese, for their continued

compassionate support and companionship.

Lastly, I want to thank the love of my life, Camilo Cortes, who provided me with incredible

strength, support, and encouragement throughout my degree. I am continuously inspired by his

generosity, intellect, and caring towards the most vulnerable members of our society in his work

as a registered nurse. He inspires me daily, and I am grateful to have found my life’s companion.

xviii

Dedication

I dedicate this thesis to my parents. Without their support, this would not have been

possible; without their love, this would not be meaningful. I also dedicate this thesis to

sustainability, that vital concept that encourages us to endure, and to co-exist with one another,

amid the grand challenges of our time.

1

Chapter 1: Introduction

Sustainably managing the world’s forests is key to addressing multiple pressing issues

related to the environment and development. Despite significant efforts to sustainably manage and

protect the world’s forests, progress on this front has been inadequate. The UN Secretary-General,

António Guterres, recently warned that the international community was not on track to meet the

goals from the United Nations Strategic Plan on Forests (UN, 2020). Numerous academic studies

also point out our collective failure to limit deforestation (Lambin et al., 2018; Zeng et al., 2020).

While forest sector sustainability is a complex issue (Levin et al., 2012; Panwar et al.,

2015), it is also evident that pathways to achieve it must involve forest dependent communities

(Hajjar et al., 2013; Kozak, 2009). Without providing incentives for communities to engage in

restoring and sustainably managing forests, and without enabling them access to markets to derive

economic benefits, deforestation and reforestation targets will not be met (Erbaugh et al., 2020).

To enhance community engagement in managing forest resources, governance reforms have been

initiated with a particular aim of devolving power to local people through decentralization and

community-based programs (Berkes, 2010). Over the past two decades, the total forest area under

community administration and ownership has more than doubled (RRI, 2018). Today,

approximately 13% of all forests globally are managed under some form of community forest

management (CFM). CFM is a set of forest governance mechanisms and policy approaches

practiced around the world designed to recognize local communities as key stakeholders and to

ensure their participation in decisions related to the management of forests (RRI, 2018).

2

A considerable body of scholarly work has studied processes and outcomes of CFM

(Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018), with a common key finding being that

CFM has the potential to bring about socio-economic development, community empowerment,

and resource conservation (Agrawal et al., 2008; Persha et al., 2011). A central focus of this

literature has been to analyze the effectiveness of CFM programs and policies for achieving

decentralization in resource decision-making rights and improving forest management outcomes

(Ambus & Hoberg, 2011; Furness et al., 2015; Hajjar et al., 2013; Hajjar, McGrath, et al., 2011).

This literature acknowledges a multiplicity of factors influencing positive outcomes in CBM from

a legal and institutional perspective (Barichello et al., 1995; Teitelbaum, 2016), mostly related to

status and security of access rights for communities to achieve lasting and substantive benefits

from the management and stewardship of local forests (Hajjar et al., 2012; Ribot & Peluso, 2009;

RRI, 2018). With assessments of CBM around the world demonstrating the importance of

community rights and title for successfully managing local forestry initiatives in the long-run

(Agrawal & Chhatre, 2006; Gilmour, 2016), questions around addressing problems with rights,

reforms, and institutional change, are front and centre in the literature that studies devolved forest

governance (Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018).

More recently, however, the focus has shifted to also examine commercial activities under

CFM which are carried out by community forest enterprises (CFEs). While CFM generally refers

to instances where communities have some involvement in the governance, decision-making, and

management of local forestlands, CFEs can be more tightly defined as a form of CFM where

community members and/or local groups actively pursue economic opportunities, adopting an

organizational structure for the commercialization of local forest goods and services (Ambrose et

3

al., 2015; Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018). Indeed, with the transfer of access and management rights to

local communities, the question of how these initiatives support themselves (i.e., cover their costs)

becomes highly relevant. While some CFM initiatives may have a grant-supported model

(Ambrose et al., 2015; Hajjar, McGrath, et al., 2011), many opt to go into business. CFEs are

micro- and small-scale business operations – cooperatives, municipal corporations, limited

partnerships, Indigenous enterprises, and business-generating nonprofit societies, among others –

which, in addition to generating profits, aim to create local employment, preserve the social and

cultural fabric of local communities, and conserve forest resources (Antinori & Bray, 2005).

Importantly, the management and governance of CFEs is done by community members (Ambrose

et al., 2015). Table 1 depicts CFEs, relative to other organizational forms involved in CBM of

forests.

Table 1 Organizational forms of community-based management of forests

Stewardship &

Conservation Initiatives

Community Forest

Enterprises

Private Sector

Sustainability Initiatives

Non-Commercial

Commercial/

Non-Commercial Mix

Commercial

Communities facilitate

subsistence use and resource

conservation under

community-based

management (e.g.

conservation groups,

environmental clubs, citizen

coalitions, and nonprofit

donors)

Communities advance

commercial activities under

community-based management

for the purpose of reinvesting

profits locally (e.g.,

cooperatives, municipal

corporations, Indigenous

enterprises, partnerships,

nonprofit societies)

Communities participate

indirectly, through

corporate sustainability

programs/philanthropic

initiatives, in local forest

management and

economic development

initiatives

4

As a backdrop, this dissertation seeks to enhance understanding about how CFEs can

overcome challenges so they can effectively meet their plural goals. Specifically, this

dissertation seeks to contribute to research on CFEs with a particular focus on the organizational-

level of managerial decision-making, as opposed to an institutional context and the broader market

within which these businesses operate, as has been the emphasis in previous works on CBM and

CFEs. It is well-understood that the broader desired outcomes underlying CFE activities are

threefold and encompass (i) resource sustainability; (ii) community empowerment; and (iii)

competitiveness (Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018). Under the CFE model, each of these goals are to be

balanced and advanced simultaneously (Antinori & Bray, 2005).

Doing so, however, presents these organizations with challenges. For example, CFEs owe

their localized character to their desire to advance resource sustainability, which entails that CFEs

practice successful stewardship to maintain the ecological integrity and long-term availability of

the local resource. Achieving this goal is intricately linked with notions of inclusive and

sustainable development as being advanced through CFEs (de Jong et al., 2018; Nilsson et al.,

2016). However, insights are limited to variations of the CFE model in different contexts around

the world and the factors that would enable their success in fostering localized models of resource

sustainability and sustainable development in the varied circumstances under which they emerge.

The desired outcome of community empowerment equally warrants further exploration to

understand how exactly CFEs can achieve this goal in a way that would not compromise other key

objectives. While community participation in decision-making and collective ownership and

governance as key pillars of the CFE model are frequently acknowledged in research that studies

their activities (Antinori & Bray, 2005; Carias-Vega & Keenan, 2016), systematic insights into

5

how they achieve these objectives, what challenges it may bring, and how to address those

challenges are still missing. Finally, with regard to CFE competitiveness, research has noted the

lack of understanding of factors that influence success in chosen market strategies (Cubbage et al.,

2015; Humphries et al., 2012; Kozak, 2009), and what it is that would enable the scalability of

operations (Macqueen et al., 2020; Villavicencio Valdez et al., 2012). These challenges are not

trivial. It has been noted that without precisely understanding them and without finding ways to

overcome them, the multifaceted potential of CFEs cannot be realized (Sanchez-Badini et al.,

2018).

Given gaps in the current understanding of CFEs in all three central goal dimensions (i)

resource sustainability; (ii) community empowerment; and (iii) competitiveness, this dissertation

draws primarily on the burgeoning literature in social entrepreneurship (Austin et al., 2006; Mair

& Martí, 2006) which seeks to blend economic, social, and environmental objectives. Social

enterprises (SEs) are hybrid organizations (Battilana & Lee, 2014; Billis, 2010) that are structured

to address complex societal and environmental problems, but in ways that they can remain

financially self-sufficient. By considering CFEs as SEs, and studying their activities through a

hybrid organization lens, this dissertation analyzes the varied potential of CFEs with regards to

their plural goals. Specifically, the dissertation is written in a manuscript form and comprises four

separate manuscripts – one literature review study that takes a global perspective on CFE activities

as social enterprises around the world, and three empirical chapters that draw on original data of

the CFE population in Cascadia (British Columbia, Canada, and Washington and Oregon State,

U.S.). This region was chosen for data collection in this dissertation for two reasons.

6

First, data on North American CFEs is scarce, compared to the larger literature that exists

on CFE and their activities in the Global South (Davis et al., 2020; Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018), which

is why this dissertation adds novel insights into the nuances of the CFE organizational form in a

geographic context that is hitherto little understood. And second, the region has seen a surge in

community forestry activity since the late 20th century – albeit under varying degrees of

institutionalization – which allows for the study of varied organizational forms and actor

constellations, allowing insights into varied activities of CFEs, and how they may effectively

address their plural goals.

The provinces and country states forming Cascadia have seen a growing appetite for CFE

activities due to a shared history in forest sector activities, increased focus on environmental

stewardship of pristine natural environments, and ongoing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples

(Davis et al., 2020; Teitelbaum, 2016), albeit amid differing institutional contexts. In 1998, the

Province of British Columbia, Canada, introduced legislation in support of community forestry,

allowing for decentralized forest resource management at the level of local and Indigenous

governments, as well as by community organizations (Ambus, 2016). Over 60 CFEs have since

been established throughout the province under a community forest tenure program. Conversely,

community forestry practices in Oregon and Washington, thus far, exist more informally, with

civil society coalitions forming processes, groups, and organizations to re-orient forest

management practices towards decentralization, sometimes in partnership with county and forest

service authorities (Davis et al., 2020).

7

This has resulted in the formation of a small, but growing, number of CFEs, where

community stakeholders, in partnership with local forestry practitioners, create economic

opportunities through the US Forest Service’s system for selling timber and distributing service

contracts (Abrams et al., 2015). A brief description of each chapter follows below. Figure 1

presents the organizing framework for this dissertation, including chapter objectives, research

questions, and methodological strategies. Chapter 2, entitled: “Community Forest Enterprises and

Social Enterprises – The Confluence of Two Streams of Literatures for Sustainable Natural

Resource Management” uses qualitative meta-synthesis to assess how CFEs could be a means to

secure a localized model that caters to multiple sustainable development objectives (Doherty et al.,

2014; Haugh, 2007).

Using qualitative meta-synthesis of key insights from the decentralization, social

enterprise, and hybrid organizations’ literatures, this chapter presents a set of solutions for CFEs

to manage human resources, market products and services, generate funds, and develop functional

organizational cultures and performance indicators, all the while meeting their plural social,

environmental, and financial objectives. The chapter also identifies opportunities for future inter-

disciplinary research at the intersection of decentralization and social enterprise that could hasten

progress towards sustainable development, not only in the forest sector, but also beyond.

In Chapter 3, entitled: “Unpacking Community Involvement in Social Enterprise Decision-

Making – Evidence from Six Community Forest Enterprises in Canada,” qualitative data from case

studies in the Province British Columbia is used to explore ways for CFEs to ensure local

participation in strategic and operational matters.

8

The study finds that the seeds of community empowerment are planted during the founding

stages of a CFE, and are typically manifested through their mission statements, and that a CFE’s

ownership structure largely dictates how they engage with communities. Moreover, the chapter

provides an enriched tension management framework that describes a set of managerial

capabilities that are required to effectively balance CFEs’ commercial and participatory objectives

respectively.

Chapter 4, entitled “Strategic Orientation in Community Forest Enterprises – Implications

for Effectiveness” reports on a survey that was conducted among CFEs in the Cascadia region

(British Columbia, Canada, and Oregon and Washington State, United States) to better understand

the pursuit of competitiveness in light of CFEs’ plural goals. The study reveals that, in terms of

strategic orientations, CFEs tend to employ mixed strategies that emphasize cost leadership (i.e.,

efficiency gains and growth in forest management and timber sales), while simultaneously seeking

opportunities to practice differentiation (i.e., exploring niche markets for value added activities, as

well as non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and services). Generally, the study finds that having a

strategic orientation pays off, both financially, and in finding alignment between plural goals.

Finally, Chapter 5, entitled “The Effect of Managerial Characteristics on the Performance

of Community Forest Enterprises – Evidence from British Columbia, Canada,” draws from survey

data of managers of CFEs in British Columbia, to better understand personal characteristics of

CFE managers and their influence on performance. Testing a theoretical model that proposes a

relationship between a set of managerial constructs and organizational outcomes contributes novel

insights about key characteristics that allow CFEs to meet their plural goals.

9

A concluding section (Chapter 6) integrates individual chapter findings, and summarizes

lessons learned to inform practices of better managing CFEs, as well as guiding future research to

advance the field. Figure 1 summarizes the overarching motivation of this dissertation and the

objectives, research questions, and methods that were used to contribute towards the main research

objective in the four main chapters.

10

Figure 1 Organization Framework

To create a conceptual foundation for

the analysis of CFEs as social

enterprises that seek to secure localized

versions of forest resource utilization

and sustainable development

To explore the role of community

engagement in CFEs’ pursuit of social,

environmental, and financial goals

To assess whether CFEs’ choice of

competitive strategy affects the

effective pursuit of social,

environmental, and financial goals

To determine the relationship between

the personal characteristics of CFE

managers and performance outcomes

What actionable insights into managing

and growing CFEs can be gained from

their study as social enterprises?

(i) How do CFEs involve communities

in their decision-making; (ii) Do they

face any challenges in doing so, and,

(iii) how do they overcome challenges?

Is there a relationship between CFEs’

strategic orientation and effectiveness?

Do CFE managers’ personal

characteristics influence performance?

Qualitative meta-synthesis of relevant

literatures in the fields of resource

decentralization, forest sector

sustainability, hybrid organizing, and

social entrepreneurship

Multiple Case Studies using extensive

primary and secondary data collected on

CFEs in the Canadian Province British

Columbia

Survey of CFEs in the Cascadia Region

(British Columbia, Canada, and

Washington and Oregon State in the

United States)

Survey of CFEs in British Columbia,

Canada

Ob

ject

ive

Res

earc

h

Qu

esti

on

Met

ho

ds

Overarching Research Motivation: Enable CFEs to overcome challenges so they can more effectively meet their plural goals

Ch.2 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch.5

Des

ired

Ou

tco

mes

Resource Sustainability (i)Community Empowerment

(ii)Competitiveness (iii)

11

Chapter 2: Community Forest Enterprises and Social Enterprises –

The Confluence of Two Streams of Literatures for Sustainable Natural

Resource Management

2.1 Introduction

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, and rising societal inequality have reinforced calls to

protect community rights in accessing natural resources and reduce the negative externalities in

managing them (Erbaugh et al., 2020; Sawyer & Gomez, 2012). Social enterprises or hybrid

organizations (Doherty et al., 2014), which blur the distinction between for-profit and not-for-

profit sectors, are promising organizational structures to manage and govern natural resources in

ways that improve lives of local communities and promote resource conservation (Anderson et

al., 2006; Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2007; Islam & Berkes, 2017). Community forest enterprises

(CFEs) are such organizations in the private sector.

CFEs exist in forested areas around the world where local groups and community members

produce forest-based products (Ambrose et al., 2015; Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018; Wiersum et al.,

2013). CFEs can operate as associations, employee-owned businesses, cooperatives, Indigenous

enterprises, not-for-profit societies, and firms owned by towns and municipalities. With their

emphasis on the local management of resources, democratic participation, and sharing of benefits,

CFEs are thought to represent a viable path to realize the potential of forests in sustainable

development (Chhatre & Agrawal, 2009; Newton et al., 2016; Teitelbaum, 2016).

12

However, there are multiple management challenges which stymie the growth of individual

CFEs, and limit the scalability of the CFE business model as a whole (Humphries et al., 2012;

Macqueen, 2013; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). Against this backdrop, the aims of this chapter are

twofold: (i) to develop a consolidated understanding of those challenges and (ii) find ways to

overcome those challenges using insights from the richness of the social enterprise literature.

Formally, the research question that is being addressed in this chapter is: What are the management

challenges that CFEs face and how can they be addressed?

Qualitative meta-synthesis was used to purposely integrate literatures from both CFE and

social enterprise domains. The CFE literature was used to characterize the varied facets and

organization-level tenets of the CFE business model around the world, as well as to identify critical

challenges that CFEs face. The social enterprise literature was used to distill actionable insights

into addressing those challenges. The chapter makes a unique contribution to enhance

understanding of CFEs, particularly the effectiveness of the CFE model for addressing pressing

issues around sustainable forest management and community development. The chapter also

enriches the social enterprise literature by extending the notion of decentralized decision-making

and community empowerment. While both of these concepts are recognized as important topics in

the social enterprise literature (Finlayson & Roy, 2019; Haugh & Talwar, 2016), they have yet to

be considered in light of collective efforts to plan for and practice stewardship of local, common

resource systems, such as forests. Delineating CFEs’ varied activities, as well as prospects and

challenges, also adds nuance to studies in environmental social enterprise (Vickers & Lyon, 2014)

which emphasize the need to amplify the study of social enterprise beyond social sector contexts,

toward understanding their role in advancing sustainability in natural systems.

13

2.2 A Primer on Community Forest Enterprises

The commercial utilization of forest resources is often carried out by large corporations

(Dauvergne & Lister, 2011). While this can form the basis for development in forest-dependent

communities, it often produces a range of environmental and social externalities, including

environmental pollution, destruction of ecosystems and wildlife habitat, irreversible resource

depletion, community oppression and displacement, and income inequality (Gabaldon & Gröschl,

2015).

Forest sector corporations are, indeed, aware of these social and environmental problems

and seek to address them through a vast array of initiatives, generally under the auspices of

corporate social responsibility (CSR), or corporate sustainability programs. Typically, these

programs are carried out within a ‘win-win,’ or a shared value paradigm, such that there is

alignment with financial gains and Western ideas of sustainability and economic development

(Voltan et al., 2017). CSR and sustainability programs can be purely self-regulatory, such as

voluntary agreements and certification systems (Cashore, 2015), or they can be built around

economy-wide changes, such as those sought through bio- or circular-economy policies (DeBoer

et al., 2020). These programs have helped forest sector organizations mitigate their environmental

impacts (Panwar et al., 2006; Vidal & Kozak, 2008), but they have often proven to be less effective

in making improvements in the livelihoods of rural and Indigenous communities (Sawyer &

Gomez, 2012). Moreover, CSR initiatives can make communities overly reliant on external

support and thus can make them vulnerable in the long-run (Muthuri et al., 2012; Schneider, 2020).

14

Similarly, interventions designed by state bureaucrats, often disconnected with the needs

and realities of forest peoples, fall short of addressing economic and resource sustainability for the

more than 350 million people globally that live within or near forests and forested lands (FAO,

2018; Gilmour, 2016). Centrally administered programs often struggle with the implementation of

stable systems that provide for critical values, such as hunting, hydrological services, recreation,

and traditional practices, in a way that meet the needs of these forest-dependent communities

without threatening the long term sustainability of forest resources (Erbaugh et al., 2020; Newton

et al., 2016). Both private sector companies and governments are limited in their ability to improve

the plight of forest-dependent peoples around the world. Innovations in resource governance that

places forest management responsibilities on a variety of community-owned local institutions,

offer some hope (Berkes, 1995; Weiss, Ludvig, et al., 2020).

These models underpin the notion of ‘decentralization,’ or ‘devolution,’ of forest rights in

that they leave it up to forest-dependent communities to govern local forest resources in ways that

safeguard resource use and sustenance (Agrawal & Ostrom, 2001; Ribot & Peluso, 2009). To a

large extent, decentralization encapsulates the practice of community forestry (Hajjar & Oldekop,

2018), wherein communities manage local forests as a means to enhance sustainable resource use,

consolidate community rights over traditional lands, and provide socio-economic and cultural

benefits. There is mounting case-based evidence that community forestry delivers local benefits

and improves sustainability of forest resources around the world (Agrawal & Chhatre, 2011;

Erbaugh et al., 2020).

15

Community forestry is not limited to forest management practices alone. The commercial

and development aspirations of rural and Indigenous communities that have gained forest access

and management rights resulted in the emergence of CFEs. By incorporating a broader set of goals

and involving diverse stakeholders, CFEs enable rural and Indigenous communities to do more

than just efficiently and collectively pursue the commercial use of forest-based products and

services (Antinori & Bray, 2005). They also focus on redistributing the benefits of these activities

based on locally agreed upon needs and priorities (Ambrose et al., 2015). Thus, CFEs can be seen

to be rural social enterprises (Muñoz et al., 2015) that involve a combination of actors (policy

makers, activists, and community organizers) with a mission of empowering local communities.

CFEs are characteristically hybrid organizations, integrating elements and features from private,

public, and non-profit sector organizations (Doherty et al., 2014).

The main tenets of the hybrid social enterprise nature of CFEs are summarized in Table 2.

Notably, CFEs generate income through manufacturing and selling forest products and services,

and reinvest this income back into social programs, like infrastructure development, education,

healthcare, or resource conservation and sustainability (Antinori & Bray, 2005). They typically

recruit employees from local communities into both staff and management positions (Orozco-

Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2009), but they also bring in local volunteers to provide strategic

direction in planning for the enterprise and defining its purpose. It is not uncommon, for example,

to see a variety of actors get involved in the organizational decision-making of a CFE, including

local residents, business associations, conservationists, employees, environmental NGOs, regional

and/or local authorities, and social groups (Egunyu et al., 2016).

16

Table 2 Summary of hybrid characteristics of CFEs

Organizational Criteria Manifestation of Hybridity

Mission

Profits from the commercial utilization of local

forests are reinvested to advance community

well-being and environmental goals

Employee Composition

Dependence on paid staff and volunteers

Employee Expertise

Both professionals and community members

are engaged in forest management and business

decisions

Despite these promising features and the widespread existence of CFEs in developed and

developing countries around the world, recipes to address their unique structures as social

enterprises, and potential tensions and challenges inherent to the model, are not well-understood.

The following methods section has the approach to qualitative meta synthesis which was

conducted with the intent to shed light on the above problem.

2.3 Methods

Qualitative meta-synthesis (QMS) is a type of second-order analysis that involves

purposefully sampling and analyzing qualitative works on a specific body of knowledge using

qualitative methods of analysis and interpretation (Zimmer, 2006). The method was chosen for

two main reasons. First, research on organizational factors in CFEs is assessed primarily through

17

case-based evidence, rather than quantitative analysis of aggregated organizational data (Clare &

Hickey, 2019; Hajjar et al., 2016), which makes QMS a suitable approach for this study (Glasmeier

& Farrigan, 2005). Second, QMS has the ability to facilitate selectiveness and in-depth analysis in

reviewing previous scholarly works (Suri & Clarke, 2009). Unlike traditional review methods,

such as systematic reviews, QMS is interpretative in nature, not aggregative (Erwin et al., 2011),

which befits my objective of finding actionable insights from one literature and applying it to

another scholarly field. Whereas systematic review procedures emphasize exhaustive sampling of

primary research studies, QMS allows for a purposeful selection of a set of studies to obtain a

comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon of interest (Zimmer, 2006). Rather than relying

on a priori search protocols, the nature of emergent themes during the analysis is what determines

the number of studies included in the QMS procedure (Suri & Clarke, 2009).

While systematic reviews may appraise the entire body of primary research studies

(Petticrew & Roberts, 2008), as well as individual sections, such as reporting on research methods

(Nielsen & D’Haen, 2014; Siegner, Hagerman, et al., 2018), QMS is fundamentally about

considering the findings of qualitative and conceptual works, and constructing interpretations of

proposed themes and concepts that characterize the study problem (Suri & Clarke, 2009).

As a first step, a list of major review studies on decentralization and CFEs was compiled

that collate research conducted on these topics since the 1990s – the period that marks the global

uptake of CFE numbers and activities (Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). Similarly, for the field of

social enterprises, review papers and seminal studies on organizational hybridity and management

of tensions in social enterprises were assembled.

18

These were published in reputable organizational and management journals, and have a

high citation score in the Web of Science and ABIS Inform databases. This list was shared with

five academic experts. Each expert validated the list and provided additional suggestions for

inclusion, which were subsequently incorporated. Next, the list of selected and validated studies

was imported into NVivo qualitative data analysis software (QS Software, Version 11.3.2.

International Pty Ltd., 2016). Each original study was thoroughly read and coded for indicators

that correspond to the characteristics under study. For the literature on CFEs, coding focused on

factors like ‘what social and/or environmental challenges are CFEs offering solutions for?,’, or

‘what are the organizational challenges in delivering set outcomes?’. For the social enterprise

literature, coding focused on the issue of divergence and alignment of plural goals, involving

questions like, ‘how do social enterprises address tensions between divergent sustainability

objectives?,’ and ‘what are the common interventions for addressing tensions stemming from

hybridity?’ During this analytical step, and following a dynamic and iterative approach of

reflecting and creating codes (Zimmer, 2006), additional studies were identified and included if

they were repeatedly referenced in the already included studies. In the final step, initial codes were

aggregated into overarching categories related to the organizational promises and challenges of

CFEs, and characterizations of best-practice recommendations from the literature on social

enterprises and organizational hybridity. The outcomes of this process are explained in the results

and discussion section that follows.

19

2.4 Results and Discussion

The results from the QMS revealed a set of social and ecological problems that CFEs

address through their missions and activities (CFE promises), as well as a shared set of

organizational features that can complicate the ability to effectively achieve plural goals (their

challenges). Sections 2.4.1. and 2.4.2 each elaborate on these identified themes in turn.

2.4.1 Promises of CFEs and Their Varied Facets Around the World

Results from the meta-synthesis confirm previous observations that CFEs do not present a

homogenous group of organizations, but are designed in different ways to address different sets of

problems across forested regions (Ambrose et al., 2015; Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018). For example,

CFEs in the tropics differ in form, primarily as a consequence of the local landscapes and terrain

in which they operate (Clare & Hickey, 2019; Molnar et al., 2007). Those in industrialized

countries (Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018; Teitelbaum, 2014) tend to draw from Western models of

organization, or sometimes incorporate different knowledge systems, most notably Indigenous

knowledge (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2010; Lawler & Bullock, 2019).

Accordingly, the meta-synthesis depicts the versatility of the CFE model across levels of

national development (developed and developing countries), problem type (social, ecological,

cultural, political), actors involved, and geographic expansion (international, national, local). It

also summarizes core promises of CFEs around the world, namely: poverty alleviation; rural

revitalization; ecologically responsible forestry; and/or protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Each theme is elaborated below and summarized in Table 3 at the end of the section.

20

2.4.1.1 Poverty Reduction

Providing opportunities to lift forest-dependent people out of subsistence use toward

processing and trading timber is a core objective of CFEs across many developing countries

(Kozak, 2009). Such is one avenue for CFEs to achieve this goal in forest-rich areas across Africa,

Latin America, and Asia. CFEs in these regions have been shown to provide a formal financial

avenue for poor communities to shift their focus from forest harvesting as a means of subsistence

to making a living from marketing timber products (Tomaselli & Hajjar, 2011). In Mexico, for

instance, where large forest areas have been managed under CBM for many decades, clusters of

CFEs for timber production and wood processing have grown to support mixed subsistence

economies of farming and logging (Antinori & Bray, 2005). Similarly, many subsistence farmers

in Southeast Asia have transitioned to planting and harvesting of tropical hardwood species, such

as teak and mahogany, as a means of providing higher revenues and creating additional

employment opportunities (Hajjar & Molnar, 2016).

CFEs can cover the entire timber processing chain, with some communities running their

own forest management, timber harvesting, sawmilling, and furniture production operations, and

then selling these products through joint retailing efforts (Villavicencio-Valdez et al., 2012).

Certain CFEs have even sought price premiums through certification of their products by the

Forest Stewardship Council (Wiersum et al., 2013). Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) represent

another common strategy sought by CFEs to lift people out of poverty. Growing demand for herbs

and edibles, used in medicines and as ingredients for consumer items like cosmetics, foods, and

drinks, provides opportunities for CFEs to tap into NTFP markets in meaningful ways (Hajjar &

Molnar, 2016). The development of these sorts of financial opportunities goes hand in hand with

21

the empowerment of marginalized groups, most notably women. The gathering of NTFPs for

household use is one of the key gender-differentiated tasks in forest resource use globally

(Sunderland et al., 2014). But when turned into entrepreneurial opportunities, it can provide a

significant source of cash income for women in poor rural areas. Similarly, accounts of CFE

activities also exist where women take on leadership roles in forestry activities traditionally

associated with males, such as timber harvest and sawmilling (Villavicencio-Valdez et al., 2012).

2.4.1.2 Rural Revitalization

CFEs are also growing in number across developed, high-income countries (S. Teitelbaum,

2016), often motivated by redressing the financial hardships faced by rural communities that have

traditionally depended on forestry. Many of these communities have been severely impacted by

mill closures resulting from faltering global timber and wood product markets, technological changes, and

industry consolidation (Dauvergne & Lister, 2011). In this context, CFEs also fulfill important

poverty reduction functions.

They serve as a buffer to address some of the negative social and financial consequences

following industry decline in rural forestry communities in developed countries, notably by

providing local jobs. In Canada, for instance, a system of publicly owned forest tenures remains

primarily focused on long-term licensing arrangements with large companies (Haley & Nelson,

2007). However, rural communities are increasingly finding themselves deprived of access to

financial opportunities – the original promise of that system – as industrial licensees move their

production facilities to regions with cheaper labour, less stringent environmental regulations,

and/or lower harvesting and production costs (Dauvergne & Lister, 2011). CFEs have emerged as

22

a panacea to fill the void left behind by mill closures in forestry-dependent communities. These

CFEs are often established as co-operatives, limited partnerships, or municipal corporations and

provide opportunities for rural revitalization, with an explicit focus on continued employment of

local residents (Ambus et al., 2007).

This typically occurs in the form of timber harvesting operations and log sort yards that

prioritize local employment, emphasize modest and gradual growth, and aspire to break even

instead of maximizing profits (Teitelbaum, 2016).

2.4.1.3 Ecologically Responsible Forestry

Many high-income countries with traditionally strong forest sectors face increasing public

scrutiny to adopt alternatives to industrial forestry systems that maintain the financial optimization

of timber flows (Haley & Nelson, 2007). This comes out of a growing awareness that these

conventional approaches to forestry have created unacceptable levels of ecological degradation, as

well as social and cultural conflicts, including increasing concerns about how the effects of climate

change will impact the health of forests and the quality of life in rural communities (Furness &

Nelson, 2016). To address this, CFEs oftentimes practice innovative and ecologically responsible

silvicultural techniques (Egunyu et al., 2016). Consequently, CFEs represent a shift in the

constellation of actors involved in forestry, with environmentally-minded groups of local people,

often supported by non-profit organizations and local conservation societies, participating in the

generation of commercial opportunities from forest resources, with a particular emphasis on

community, cultural, and environmental values (Ludvig et al., 2018).

23

While local employment is emphasized by CFEs, another important pillar of their activities

revolves around social learning. This can take on many forms, from community education on

forestry and ecological sustainability (Egunyu et al., 2016) to local people becoming trained to

practice alternatives to industrial forest management (Ambrose et al., 2015). A case in point is an

England-based wood community cooperative that trains youth from socially disadvantaged

backgrounds in woodworking, subsidizing part of the costs of the program through small-scale

timber harvesting and firewood sales (Blundel & Lyon, 2015). Similar initiatives also exist in

Canada, for example in British Columbia, where a community forest society runs a partnership

with the province to provide training in local harvesting techniques, small-scale milling, and

carpentry (Egunyu et al., 2016). Notably, CFEs that are focused on sustainable forestry also tend

to seek out value-added activities that are seen not only as a means of innovating and entering new

markets, but as a viable alternative to traditional commodity approaches (Kozak, 2009). These

activities are varied and context-specific, ranging from the marketing of traditional NTFPs, like

medicinals, crafts, and arts, to the custom milling of logs that are harvested on a small-scale

(Egunyu et al., 2016).

2.4.1.4 Protection of Indigenous Rights

CFEs have also been shown to empower Indigenous peoples who face marginalization,

institutionalized oppression, and assimilation of their cultures as a result of historic colonial

practices – both within and outside of natural resources contexts (Sawyer & Gomez, 2012).

Although Indigenous peoples make up only 5% of the global population, they account for 15% of

the extreme poor (The World Bank, 2019).

24

In forested nations with Indigenous populations, the picture is similarly grim. In Canada,

for example, Indigenous populations have lower educational attainment than the national average,

are over represented in low-paying jobs, and are more likely to live in communities that struggle

to attract and retain businesses due to a lack of adequate housing, water, and transportation

infrastructure (NIEDB, 2019). In developing countries across Latin America, where CFEs are

prevalent organization forms, Indigenous peoples are half as likely to work in high-skilled

professions, but seven times more likely to work in the informal sector (The World Bank, 2015).

Indigenous peoples have increasingly turned to entrepreneurial activities as a means of countering

these negative trends (Colbourne, 2017). In forest-rich regions, Indigenous peoples have

historically relied on local forestland for their livelihoods, and critical elements of their cultural

existence, including education, recreation, spirituality, rituals, social relations, to name a few.

These are all tied to the use of forest resources (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2007). For these reasons,

CFEs represent a particularly promising means of enabling Indigenous peoples to draw on their

unique identities, worldviews, and experiences in forest-related businesses.(Colbourne, 2017).

CFEs with Indigenous peoples typically incorporate traditional knowledge into the

operations and decision-making of the business, and can be run under partnership agreements with

non-Indigenous owners or be fully Indigenous-owned (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2007). For

example, traditional approaches to forest management have been observed in many Indigenous

communities in tropical regions (Antinori & Bray, 2005) and have also been expressed in the way

governance is practiced, notably through deploying collective deliberative procedures that allow

members to reflect on community norms and values (Nikolakis et al., 2016).

25

NTFPs such as crafts, medicinal plants, and foods, are some of the more common ways of

expressing traditional knowledge as a financial opportunity in the context of Indigenous CFEs.

They are also an effective means of passing this knowledge on from generation to generation.

Specific examples of such activities include the sale of wild edibles from local forests, or the

production of crafts and ceremonial regalia from wild plants (Colbourne, 2017).

Another way in which Indigenous CFEs draw from traditional knowledge to practice

entrepreneurship is through ecotourism operations, displaying elements of Indigenous culture to a

paying clientele, notably international travelers, while allowing them to retain culturally significant

forest-related traditions and heritage. This includes hunting, fishing, cultural walking tours that

involve sharing forest-related rituals, stories, and visiting important sites, and the use of local

timber for lodging built with Indigenous architectural elements (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2007).

26

Table 3 Promises of CFEs around the world

Promise CFEs Conceptualization

to Deliver Promise Primary Regions

Actors Driving

CFE Model

Examples of

Activities

Poverty Reduction

A framework for the poor to

move beyond subsistence

economies, and instead

become market players in the

trade of forest products and

services (Kozak, 2009)

Developing Countries

Governments; Development

Agencies; Nonprofit

Organizations; Corporate

Philanthropists and Social

Entrepreneurs

Growth and harvest of

tropical timber species on

agroforestry plantations to

supply furniture-making and

other factories (Hajjar &

Molnar, 2016)

Processing of forest-based

edible oils for international

export (Sunderland et al.,

2014)

Rural Revitalization

An opportunity to fill the void

in the loss of forestry jobs

following industry decline

(Ambus et al., 2007)

Developed Countries

Local Government;

Municipal Administrations;

Worker Unions,

Cooperatives;

Public-Private Partnerships

Community-owned timber

harvesting and log-sort yard

facilities (Teitelbaum, 2016)

Ecologically

Responsible Forestry

An opportunity to blend

environmental activism with

formal enterprise logic to

practically demonstrate

ecologically sensible, non-

mainstream, silvicultural

practices (Ludvig et al., 2018)

Developed Countries

Grassroots-Level Groups;

Environmental NGOs,

Cooperatives and Nonprofit

Societies

Training facilities for youth

(Ambrose et al., 2015)

Community-led, small-scale

wood products manufacturing

and marketing of NTFPs

(Egunyu et al., 2016)

27

Promise CFEs Conceptualization to

Deliver Promise Primary Regions

Actors Driving CFE

Model

Examples of

Activities

Protection of

Indigenous Rights

A tool for Indigenous groups

to draw on their unique

identities, worldviews, and

experiences in

commercializing local forest

resources (Berkes & Hunt-

Davidson, 2007)

Developed and Developing

Countries

Indigenous and Western

Governments; Community

Activists; NGOs and

Solidarity Networks

Ecotourism operations

focusing on traditional

forestlands (Colbourne, 2017)

Timber business councils

representing customary forest

norms and values (Orozco-

Quintero and Davidson-Hunt,

2009)

28

2.4.2 Challenges of CFEs and the Importance of Effective Organization

CFEs often struggle to meet their plural goals, something which has been extensively

described in relation to institutional contexts, technical assistance, and the broader market within

which CFEs operate (Antinori & Bray, 2005; Carías Vega & Keenan, 2016; Macqueen, 2013).

The meta-synthesis uncovered similar challenges. However, organizational criteria were used as

the focus of the analysis. This revealed the following themes related to CFEs’ attempts to align

community and commercial demands: organizational identity, governance, scaling-up, and

performance measures. Each challenge is discussed in turn, and summarized in Table 4.

2.4.2.1 Organizational Identity

CFEs, by nature, are rooted in a place and embedded in the features of a particular local

community. However, meeting their goals in an international marketplace requires them to

participate in a complex global business network (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2007). As a result of

this need to resonate with both local and global audiences, they face what could be categorized as

an ‘organizational identity’ challenge. If CFEs opt for an ‘outside-in’ approach, wherein

knowledge and perspectives from the outside are brought into the local community, they run the

risk of undermining their missions and values. If, however, they pursue an ‘inside-out’ approach,

wherein they prioritize local values and connect to the world by keeping those values intact, they

may find themselves disconnected with the realities of external markets, lose customers, and miss

out on advances in technological and market know-how.

29

This need to engage in global markets while engaging local members of the community

from the ground-up presents a major trade-offs for CFEs. While this ‘outside-in’ versus ‘inside-

out’ trade-offs can be reconciled through innovative partnerships and collaborations (Kozak,

2009), this seldom happens. Many CFEs have failed in their efforts to successfully implement far-

reaching marketing efforts at the local level (Wiersum et al., 2013). This is especially true when

CFEs are confronted with making decisions for their product lines and activities. What may be

desired in the market may not necessarily align with community visions and goals in terms of the

use of local forest resources. CFEs in Mexico, for instance, whose practices are rooted in collective

forest harvesting, faced pressures by government experts and donors to seize a market opportunity

by converting parts of their forestland into individualized plots for higher-value tree crop

production. This, however, contradicted with their fundamentally local identity (Orozco-Quintero

& Davidson-Hunt, 2009). Similarly, the adoption of sustainable forest certification by CFEs,

which requires adhering to practices specified by outside agencies, may conflict with the

community-driven decision-making processes. Communities in habited by Indigienous knowledge

holder may have very different views of what constitutes sound forest management practices than

a third-party agency like the Forest Stewardship Council (Wiersum et al., 2013).

2.4.2.2 Governance

CFEs face governance challenges as a result of their community ownership and decision-

making structures. The complication arises from the fact that community members – who may or

may not have business experience – are asked to make key business decisions, alongside staff who

30

are entrusted with the day-to-day operations of the organization (Antinori & Bray, 2005). This

creates a potential conflict between community governing boards and CFE management with

respect to what constitutes adequate courses of action.

A genuine participatory process must incorporate diverse perspectives, but this may pose

a risk to the business. In other words, it may be difficult to reconcile local community interests

with broader growth and production targets, leading to inefficient enterprises. Ideally, CFEs need

to incorporate community participatory mechanisms that ensure a balance between giving voice

to a diverse set of local actors and safeguarding the financial viability of the business. This can be

accomplished with separate management, governance, and community advisory arms formalized

within CFE structures (Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2009). It also requires careful attention

to fair and transparent community deliberation processes. Failure to do so may result in conflicting

mandates informing the strategic direction of the CFE, leaving management with contradictory

prescriptions for various courses of action. For example, local groups may find that conservation

is a central objective for the CFE, but this may be at odds with a mandate that empowers

management with the task of growing forestry operations to maximize local employment (Antinori

& Bray, 2005).

2.4.2.3 Scaling-Up

CFEs, because of their social mission to improve the well-being of rural and Indigenous

communities, seek to scale-up their impacts as a means of broadening and deepening the extent to

which they meet critical local needs (Mair et al., 2016). In the social enterprise context, scaling

31

strategies generally try to replicate the business model, not necessarily grow it (Lyon & Fernandez,

2012). This is because social enterprises tend to focus on building deep and meaningful

relationships with beneficiaries, and pursue a slow approach to building endogenous capacity for

the organization to endure in local contexts in the long-term (Fosfuri et al., 2016).

Similarly, in CFE contexts, past studies have observed that they often partner with other

like-minded organizations, be they for-profit, or non-profit, and explore commercial opportunities

other than the sales of timber in order to tap into unique capacities and strengths in the community

(Macqueen, 2013). For some CFEs, this might entail throughput and production of products and

services in a particular niche market (Villavicencio Valdez et al., 2012), or by clustering with other

CFEs to create economies of scale (Kozak, 2009).

However, scaling or replicating the business model may paradoxically result in a situation

where CFEs are successful at developing their market activities, at the expense of their social and

environmental objectives in the community. This can happen when they are at risk of losing sight

over a core aspect of their social mission, namely ensuring that organizational decision-making

reflects community participation (Antinori & Bray, 2005).

In other words, in the process of scaling their impact, be it through endogenous efforts in

the local community, or through replication of the business model in other regions, there is a

potential for CFEs to drift from their original scope as community enterprises rooted in local

values, towards becoming more conventional for-profit forest businesses. This is exacerbated by

the fact that, as the CFEs scale-up and grow, there is a tendency for them to become more risk-

averse with respect to consulting the broader community. With more capital at stake for making

32

investments in expensive equipment or new business opportunities, many CFEs have deferred to

the leadership of a small number of technically experienced staff and board members, potentially

alienating community members who feel insufficiently consulted in the process (Orozco-Quintero

& Davidson-Hunt, 2009). Small groups of ‘experts’ may not only steer the growth process away

from community interests, but they may also divert funds away from collective community

purposes. This may result in situations where the CFE grows as a business and generates revenues

for the local community, but the collective process disappears. In some instances, this may simply

result in community apathy, where some community benefits are generated, but with less

democratic process for their generation and distribution.

However, in other circumstances, particularly in developing economies where there may

be a lack of institutional oversight, governance by ‘experts’ or steering of the CFE by local elites

can manifest in levels of corruption, mismanagement, and advancing personal business interests

(Carias-Vega & Keenan, 2016). Not surprisingly, this can result in local mistrust, an erosion of

conservation-based values, and even the withdrawal of government and donor support (Kozak,

2009)

2.4.2.4 Performance Measures

Reporting on performance poses an additional difficulty for CFEs. Resource sustainability

metrics used to measure long-term progress towards achieving conservation goals are often at odds

with short-term activities aiming at the generation of revenues and job creation (Macqueen, 2013).

For example, a UK-based CFE was criticized by local environmentalists for increasing logging

33

volumes to finance a training program for unemployed youth and ignoring forest sustainability

metrics (Blundel & Lyon, 2015). Likewise, a group of CFEs in Guatemala that was successful in

growing their operations for sustainably certified timber, experienced pushback from national and

international conservation groups worried about the long-term viability of local conservation areas.

In order to mitigate these pressures and regain legitimacy, the group traded-off higher profit

margins by marketing NTFPs instead of timber (Taylor, 2010).

Table 4 Challenges facing CFEs around the world

Challenge

Manifestation

Organizational Identity

‘Outside-in’ efforts to connect with the market do not

necessarily reconcile with ‘inside-out’ efforts to build a

community business from the ground up

Governance

What may be desired from a community decision-making

perspective may be inefficient viewed through a business

management lens

Challenge

Manifestation

Scaling-Up

More aggressive business operations may come at the cost of

losing sight over community values and local participation

Performance Measures

Long-term metrics for measuring achievement of social and

environmental success are at odds with short-term

measurement of financial indicators

34

2.4.3 Addressing Challenges: Lessons from the Social Enterprise Literature

Outlined below are solutions that were distilled from the social enterprise literature to

address challenges facing CFEs. While these solutions are generic in nature, they can be adapted

and fine-tuned to fit specific contexts and cases of CFEs. Figure 2, at the end of the section,

provides a summary of the proposed solutions.

2.4.3.1 Addressing the Organizational Identity Challenge: Setting Hybrid Goals

and Hiring Strategies

One way for CFEs to reconcile challenges stemming from their ‘outside-in’ market versus

‘inside-out’ community focus could be to formulate goal directives in a manner that is compatible

with the needs and aspirations of their various local constituents.

By formulating a unified set of moral (community-values) and pragmatic (business-

oriented) aims within an organizations’ mission, a foundation is laid such that by-laws and policies

can be continuously adapted as opportunities arise. This can bring the tension between ‘locals’ and

‘outsiders’ to the fore. For social enterprises, this ongoing re-negotiation of organizational goals

among membership has proven to be an effective means of securing the long-term support of

divergent constituents (Ashforth & Reingen, 2014) and may well represent a promising route for

CFEs to take. Alternatively, CFEs may consider formulating longer-term strategic plans for

addressing their goals. Such practices have proven to help social enterprises manage stakeholder

expectations (Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018).

35

A second measure for CFEs to address the identity challenge could be to adopt specific

hiring strategies. Recruiting individuals capable of working at the intersection of business and

community services has proven to be beneficial for social enterprises in protecting their hybrid

features (Doherty et al., 2014; Farmer et al., 2020). One way for CFEs to attract such individuals

could be through adopting a ‘specialized profiles’ approach, which involves recruiting individuals

with past experience in both business and community realms (W. Smith et al., 2013).

Alternatively, they could adopt a ‘mix and match’ approach (Jackson et al., 2018). This

would entail selecting individuals with either a background in business or non-profit organizations

and installing ‘spaces of negotiation’ (Battilana et al., 2015). Targeted meetings can be held to

foster dialogue and address conflict between groups with different backgrounds and contexts.

These hiring strategies could prove particularly useful for CFEs located in developed

countries. These CFEs may have easy access to a large work force with significant industry

knowledge and also a large pool of trained people in social sector organizations. For CFEs in

developing countries and/or Indigenous communities where partnerships are typically catalyzed

by NGOs and government support, recruiting members with no prior experience in either the

business sector or community organizing might be more practical. Adopting such a ‘blank slate’

approach to hiring (Battilana & Dorado, 2010) has proven effective for many social enterprises

because their staff and volunteers become deeply familiar with each organization’s unique needs

and values. This approach of organically developing a home-grown cadre of employees has been

shown to lead to a specialized and loyal workforce over time.

36

2.4.3.2 Addressing the Governance Challenge: (Re)Structuring Hybrid Activities

In order to address challenges around meeting the expectations of various groups of local

beneficiaries (Egunyu et al., 2016), CFEs may want to (re)structure their organizations to

effectively accommodate two distinct social purpose-oriented activities that seem to be common

across most CFEs: employing and training members of the community and reinvesting income to

improve local well-being. The first activity, employing and training community members, places

CFEs in a category of so called ‘integrated hybrids’ (Ebrahim et al., 2014).

These are social enterprises where the social purpose of the organization is advanced with

every business transaction and whose beneficiaries directly participate in the organization. For

social enterprises that adopt such an integrated approach, a function of effective governance is to

ensure that activities involving beneficiaries produce desired empowerment outcomes (Haugh &

Talwar, 2016). For CFEs, this gives members of the local community a voice and allows them to

play a direct role in the organization. This can be achieved, for example, with board representation

or through consultation using targeted surveys and feedback sessions with the community-at-large

(Finlayson & Roy, 2019).

With the second activity, reinvesting income locally, CFEs concurrently fall in the

‘differentiated hybrids’ category (Ebrahim et al., 2014). These are social enterprises that use

commercial operations to directly finance social and/or environmental projects. Setting up

designated units in organizations that steer community reinvestments, or forming separate

organizational arms in the forms of charities or foundations, can help differentiated hybrids

monitor the transfer of income from financial to social and/or environmental activities.

37

For CFEs, this could be achieved through the formation of local steering committees –

comprised of non-employee community representatives – that independently evaluate business

portfolios in light of opportunities for reinvesting funds locally. Having such structures in place

can help to ensure that a CFEs’ aspirations to grow the business (a goal that is typically in the

interest of local leaders and enterprise employees) do not take a disproportionate precedence over

financing projects in the community, or vice versa (Carias-Vega & Keenan, 2016).

Alternatively, in instances where CFEs are set up as businesses that pay a tax to the local

government, elected bodies of village officials may use those payments towards local development

projects. Thereby they avoid the need to set up internal structures to organize the redistribution of

revenues for socially and environmentally desirable projects (Benner et al., 2014).

2.4.3.3 Addressing the Scaling-Up Challenge: Building Mixed Funding Portfolios

CFEs may seek to address challenges related to scaling their business and social impact by

attracting multiple funding sources, such as private investors, government agencies, and charity

donors. For social enterprises across different sectors, it has been found that their hybrid nature

can help them in building up such mixed funding portfolios. This can serve to provide a buffer

against economic cycles (Mazzei, 2017). Diversifying the funding base can be achieved in a

number of ways. For example, CFEs could foster an individual approach to scaling, whereby they

endow a unit, or position in the organization, with the specific purpose of fundraising.

38

An important function then becomes matching the market potential of products and

services identified with detailed knowledge of potential funding programs and agencies (Mazzei,

2017). CFEs may emphasize opportunities for networking and collaboration by seeking the

‘strength in numbers’ formed through associations and collaborative networks. Working in tandem

with other like-minded organizations at conferences, trade shows, marketing forums, and

fundraising events has been shown to offer social enterprises opportunities to build and cultivate

connections, access opportunities to secure novel funds, and learn about the strategies of other

social enterprises (Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018). Pursuing such a collective strategy has also proven

to be an effective way for social enterprises to approach scaling beyond the boundaries of

individual organizations, vis-à-vis collective efforts to access shared funds, build and grow

associations, and joint branding and marketing efforts (Lam et al., 2020; Muñoz et al., 2015).

Success in these types of joint initiatives typically takes a long-term view, where the focus is on

growing a particular social cause-oriented organizational form, rather than on individual

organizations only (Hervieux & Voltan, 2019; Slee, 2020).

Some CFEs are already organizing themselves into networks and associations of sorts

(Mulkey & Kenneth, 2012; Villavicencio Valdez et al., 2012). Building on these opportunities for

collaboration and joint growth could strategically help CFEs in extending their reach and impact

in local communities.

39

Taking the lead from many social enterprises which adopt both short- and long-term

approaches to managing their funding portfolios, CFEs can focus on scaling-up in the short term

(growth of operations and number of beneficiaries served) , while targeting scaling-out in the long

term (replication of the broader social mission beyond the one organization) (Siegner, Pinkse, et

al., 2018).

2.4.3.4 Addressing the Performance Measures Challenge: Quantifying Social Impact

Many CFEs face challenges in aligning their short-term financial objectives with their

long-term social and environmental goals. One of the key issues is how to track and measure

seemingly irreconcilable goals. In the context of social enterprises, it is generally recognized that

the measurement of social impact constitutes an important means to evaluate their practices. It has

even been posited that coming up with criteria for assessing social impact, in ways that challenge

common practices for the measurement of organizational success, in and of itself, constitutes an

important deliverable in terms of bringing about societal change (Hervieux & Voltan, 2019). To

that end, some social enterprises have successfully experimented with separating their financial

goals from their social and environmental goals in discrete time and space intervals to allow for a

better tracking of progress on each of these plural activities (W. Smith et al., 2013). CFEs could

also adopt their own indicators for social and environmental accounting. This approach has

allowed social enterprises to signal their dual purpose to stakeholders and encourage collective

deliberation among different interest groups (Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018).

40

CFEs can also follow the path of many other social enterprises that participate as members

of prosocial organizational categories such as ‘B Corp,’ an independent certification mechanism

that allows SEs to track their social performance (Stubbs, 2017). Whether it makes sense for CFEs

to sign up for B Corp certification will depend on an assessment of the advantages gained.

This is not unlike the scrutiny that is applied to forest certification schemes (like the Forest

Stewardship Council), which are widely promoted and used by many CFEs, but often fail to

produce anticipated market benefits and are costly to maintain (Wiersum et al., 2013).

Figure 2 Solutions for Management Challenges

CFE Challenges

Organizational Identity

Governance

Scaling-Up

Managing Hybridity

Performance Measures

Setting Goals:

• Unison

• Separate

Adopting Hiring Strategies:

• Specialized

• Mix and Match

• Blank Slate

(Re)Structuring Activities:

• Integrated

• Differentiated

Building Mixed Funding Portfolios:

• Individual

• Cooperation-based

Measuring Social Impact:

• Internal

• Facilitated though Certification

41

2.5 Conclusions

Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs) represent a growing and promising business model

that facilitates the achievement of financial, social, and environmental goals in the forest sector.

While CFEs’ plural goal structure is well-documented in the literature, meta-synthesis shows the

diversity among forms, structures, and activities of CFEs. The chapter further illustrates how CFEs

are contextually defined and place-based entities that heavily draw on surrounding knowledge

systems (e.g. Indigenous and local knowledge), despite sharing a common set of hybrid

organizational characteristics,. Thus, there is a great diversity within what is typically considered

a singular business model. Finally, meta-synthesis illustrates that CFEs face four major

management challenges that are related to organizational identity, governance, scaling-up, and

performance measurement respectively. The chapter also demonstrates that these challenges can

be targeted through specific interventions identified in the social enterprise literature (Fig. 2).

Overall, the results point to valuable lessons and insights for CFEs to effectively manage

human resources, market products and services, generate funds, develop conducive organizational

cultures, and deploy performance indicators in a manner that is congruent with the simultaneous

pursuit of financial, social, and environmental goals. These findings can help associations, rural

agencies, Indigenous governments, cooperative networks, and supporting institutions to manage

and scale CFEs. Indeed, the findings would also serve practitioners and policy-makers who are

entrusted to increase the likelihood of success for this innovative business model.

42

This chapter not only draws from the social enterprise literature, it enriches it as well, by

infusing it with research on decentralized decision-making, community participation, and CFEs.

While previous studies have noted how governments support social enterprises as a means to

community empowerment and decentralized decision-making, the unique context of CFEs

demonstrates how these principles can actually be put into practice in forest-dependent rural and

Indigenous communities. The context of CFEs, in particular the promise to manage natural

resources, provides fertile ground to further validate proven approaches in the social enterprise

literature (Kerlin, 2013). For example, the contributions that social enterprises can make to

improve social and environmental conditions must be understood in light of historic developments,

political and cultural factors, and governance and economic characteristics of institutions that form

and evolve over time (Millar et al., 2013; Nicholls, 2010; Roy et al., 2015).

This could explain, for instance, why it is that donors and nonprofits are the dominant

actors behind the development of CFEs in the Global South, where state institutions may be weak

and the primary objective is to alleviate poverty in forest-dependent communities. The social

enterprise literature also demonstrates that, for many sectors, the search for alternative

organizational forms is common in an increasingly complex global environment, but is, by no

means, a novelty. Indeed, it has been shown that such ‘alternative circuits’ (Moulaert & Ailenei,

2005) – institutional initiatives that offer solutions to social and environmental problems beyond

those produced by the state and the market – have been a common occurrence throughout history

(Galera & Borzaga, 2009).

43

While these analyses are typically linked to social sector contexts (Haugh, 2021; Pinch &

Sunley, 2015), CFEs provide an example of how the social enterprise literature could leverage

these approaches to provide insights on the historical progression of novel organizational forms

that address sustainability in the natural resource sector. Taken together, this chapter offers a novel

cross-fertilization of scholarly fields with a shared interest in sustainable development. It seeks to

stimulate discourse at the intersection of these two fields as a promising path to contribute to

greater interdisciplinary efforts and cross-sectoral dialogue, both of which are needed to redirect

progress towards addressing the multitude of sustainability challenges.

44

Chapter 3: Unpacking Community Involvement in Social Enterprise

Decision-Making: Evidence from Six Community Forest Enterprises in

Canada

3.1 Introduction

Business and society scholars have long recognized the need for companies to involve local

communities in developing corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs (Banerjee, 2003;

Valente, 2012). However, the ways to effectively ensure community participation are not well

understood (Boehm, 2005; Fujimoto et al., 2019; Gold et al., 2018). This lack of understanding is

problematic for all companies which aspire to be socially responsible; but it is particularly relevant

to social enterprises (SEs) which espouse community empowerment as one of their central goals

(Haigh & Hoffman, 2014; Haugh, 2007). Without meaningfully engaging surrounding

communities and empowering them to participate in a broad range of economic, social, and

environmental initiatives, SEs can make only limited progress toward achieving their social and

environmental goals, whether they be related to climate change, poverty, or indecent work

conditions (Ferraro et al., 2015; Seelos et al., 2011). Given the central importance of communities

for SEs, the lack of research to help them engage communities and ensure their participation in

strategic and operational matters is perplexing (Lumpkin et al., 2018; Mair et al., 2016). Perhaps

it can be explained by the fact that SE scholars too often presume social entrepreneurs to possess

extraordinary abilities to connect with communities (Bornstein, 2007, Nicholls, 2010).

45

Then again, it is now commonly understood that SEs, like any other organization, face

tensions in balancing their multi-faceted goals (Smith et al., 2013) and make trade-offs in

achieving them (Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018).

What are the challenges that SEs face in engaging local communities? Are these challenges

overcome through systematic managerial interventions or the serendipitous ingenuity of social

entrepreneurs? Given the importance of these questions and the lack of guidance that previous

literature offers, this paper investigates (i) how SEs involve communities in their decision-making;

(ii) whether they face any challenges in doing so, and; (iii) how they can overcome these

challenges. To answer these questions, this chapter explores a unique context of community forest

enterprises (CFEs) operating in the Canadian forest sector. CFEs are an emblematic case of SEs

that have evolved as a result of decentralized decision-making for sustainable utilization of natural

resources. CFEs are owned and operated by communities that reside within or near forest areas.

Like a typical SE, CFEs pursue multiple social, environmental, and financial objectives (Anderson

et al., 2006; Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2010). This study is based on six cases of CFEs in the

Canadian Province of British Columbia.

46

3.2 Theoretical Background

3.2.1 Goal Attainment in Social Enterprises

A much studied characteristic of SEs is their hybridity, which refers to organizations that

borrow elements from established organizational categories and combine them into novel forms

(Battilana & Lee, 2014). In the context of SEs, hybridity involves blending aspects of the private

and non-profit organizational form, variably combining a commercial logic with social,

environmental, and/or development logics (Doherty et al., 2014). A main concern in the literature

on SEs as hybrid organizations is the assertation that the combination of organizational forms and

logics has potential for innovation but also causes conflict and tension (Battilana & Lee, 2014).

Drawing from paradox theory (Smith & Lewis, 2011) and tension frameworks (Hahn et

al., 2015; Van der Byl & Slawinski, 2015), a rich literature has emerged that describes the varied

nature of competing demands stemming from logic multiplicity in SEs, notably the commercial-

social tension (Smith et al., 2013), but beyond that, also comprises studies that identify tensions

within SEs’ social missions (Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018) or scopes of activities (Kannothra et al.,

2017). In this chapter, it is suggested that the current understanding of the hybrid nature of SEs

can be further enriched by drawing the distinction between outcomes and process in goal

attainment, which is well described in the literature on team adaptation and performance in for-

profit organizations (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996; Woolley, 2009), but has been used only to a

limited extent to understand SEs.

47

An outcome focus is emphasized in the literature on SEs’ organizational missions, namely,

setting up and running commercial operations with the specific intent to tackle pressing social or

environmental ills (Mair & Martí, 2006). Common examples are microfinance organizations that

seek to alleviate poverty through the provision of loans to poor borrowers (Battilana & Dorado,

2010), or fair trade organizations working to empower smallholders in supply chains (Mason &

Doherty, 2016). An outcome focus also refers to monitoring progress toward final products and

results – the ‘what’ in organizations (Woolley, 2009). In the case of SEs, these are often intangible

in nature (Austin et al., 2006), requiring evaluation metrics and definitions of success that capture

elements of social change beyond just the bottom-line (Ebrahim et al., 2014). In short, an outcome

focus involves prescriptive steps to reach a desired state, which, in the case of most SEs, is the

intent to scale up and increase the reach and number of beneficiaries, while remaining financially

viable and maintaining quality social deliverables (Bauwens et al., 2019; Ometto et al., 2019).

In contrast, a process focus refers to devoting attention to means, or the ‘how,’ of attaining

organizational goals (McGrath, 1984), and employs conscious steps and reflective measures in

light of changing environmental conditions (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996; Woolley, 2009). It has

been well described, for instance, that SEs employ cultural and behavioral tactics that are uniquely

distinct from conventional businesses (Haigh & Hoffman, 2014). SEs have also been observed to

‘do things differently’ than traditional businesses, be it in the way they appeal to their customers

as allies in contributing to the betterment of society (Fosfuri et al., 2016), or that they attract a suite

of employees that accept lower pay in exchange for value-alignment (Lee & Jay, 2015).

48

In the context of traditional organizations, the relative emphasis placed on either an

outcome focus or a process focus in goal attainment has consequences for performance. An

excessive process focus (e.g., method centrism in large, mature organizations) can come at the

expense of agility and dynamism. A strong emphasis on an outcome focus (e.g., target-centrism in

high-velocity environments) may compromise long-term strategizing and innovation potential,

notably by making room for enlisting diverse perspectives and foci (Woolley, 2009). Due to a

mutual dependency of both outcome and process foci in attaining organizational goals, it has been

emphasized that effective organizations ultimately have to balance both simultaneously (Tushman

& O’Reilly, 1996). Similarly, SEs may espouse process in maintaining close partnerships with

other organizations in their industries as a means to enlist societal change, beyond the boundaries

of the single organization (Lee & Jay, 2015). Yet, doing so excessively may distract from achieving

set outcomes in terms of achieving set targets for products sold, beneficiaries served, and financial

goals met.

This chapter suggests that distinguishing between an outcome focus and a process focus in

goal attainment is useful for the study of SEs and hybridity. The commercial-social tension in SEs

indicates the prevalence of competing demands between business venture and social mission, as

expressed through challenges in SEs’ structures, governance models, and operations that warrant

management (Smith et al., 2013). The distinction between an outcome focus and a process focus

in goal attainment completes the commercial-social tension framework by allowing a

determination of whether the ‘social’ in any given tension situation is related to a desired final

state (e.g., eradicating poverty) or to steps taken to reach that state (e.g., in a democratic and

49

empowering manner). Thus, the chapter argues that both an outcome focus and a process focus

can be parsed out in SEs plural goal structures and be individually examined. Doing so can help

them thrive amid competing demands stemming from hybridity. In particular, it is suggested that

combining the distinction between an outcome focus and a process focus with the commercial-

social tension framework helps illuminate operational realities of SEs in regard to empowerment

of constituents. This includes issues pertaining to the involvement of local communities in

organizational decisions. So far, the community-centric nature of SEs has mainly been examined

through descriptions of democratic organization (Ashforth & Reingen, 2014; Mitzinneck &

Besharov, 2018), as well as direct members and employees (Battilana et al., 2015; Ometto et al.,

2019). however, local communities’ involvement in SEs and the operational realities of SEs

seeking such local involvement, remains largely unexplored.

3.2.2 Community Involvement in Organizational Decisions

Today, the scientific management paradigm, with its two core tenets of managerial

hierarchies and functional specialization (Scott & Davis, 2016), is increasingly being supplanted

by cross-sectoral and cross-societal collaborations to address grand challenges facing society

(Ferraro et al., 2015). Many of these can only be achieved through greater community

involvement. For example, public sector organizations, such as government agencies and service

providers, are increasingly charged with involving communities in the decision-making process.

In doing so, they hope to foster citizenship values, help achieve better decisions, and improve trust

(Irvin & Stansbury, 2004). Similarly, private companies that form partnerships with local

50

communities as part of their CSR programs increasingly turn to participatory strategies (Muthuri

et al., 2009) to maintain legitimacy (Panwar et al., 2014) and goal attainment (Waddock & Smith,

2000). Community participation has also become a near-ubiquitous theme in the area of

international development, where more and more development aid organizations promote a social

change model that emphasizes community involvement and empowerment (Mansuri & Rao,

2013).

Organizations foster community involvement and participatory decision-making in many

ways. Some develop in-house mechanisms through dispersing information to local community

members, undertaking surveys to gather opinions, and establishing community forums and

advisory committees (Bryson et al., 2013). Others choose to use third parties to carry out these

functions (Idemudia, 2014). Some use direct, in-person meetings with community members, while

others make use of the widespread availability and rapid progress of digitization and information

sharing tools, searching for ways to facilitate dialogue with local community members online

(Fujimoto et al., 2016). Whether in-house or through third parties, in-person or digitally,

organizations allow for community involvement in organizational decisions to varying degrees.

Work that has studied community activities generally classifies these efforts into weaker

versus stronger forms of participation, building on the original work by Arnstein (1969) who

proposed a ladder of participation in four stages. The first two stages – informing and consulting

– encompass information-sharing and community hearing activities. And, stages three and four –

collaboration and empowerment – entail various types of community partnerships, and ultimately,

community control of the decision process. Aside from the many ways that community

51

involvement can be sought, one problem facing all organizations is how to make community

involvement in decision-making harmonious, and ideally, complimentary with decisions made by

professionals and area experts (Glew et al., 1995). Involving community members in decision-

making may not always be compatible with the competency and accountability of professional

experts (Webler, 1999). For example, community members may simply not know enough about

an issue to make informed judgements. Or they may lack necessary group-decision making and

communication skills, making it difficult to arrive at consensual decisions (Irvin & Stansbury,

2004). Worst still, community members may not even be willing to fully and regularly participate

in decision-making sessions. This could make it difficult for an organization to move forward with

set timelines and proper use of available resources to facilitate participatory decision-making

processes (Muthuri et al., 2009).

Because of these difficulties, organizations often compromise community involvement in

decision-making, even when they do not want to. This is true for private businesses that typically

take a cost-benefit view (Pfeffer, 2013), but also for government organizations that are increasingly

subjected to similar pressures (Bryson et al., 2013). Many nonprofit organizations, in turn, strongly

embrace participatory decision-making, and are generally able to justify it to their stakeholders,

including donors (Saxton, 2005). But, how do hybrid organizations, like SEs, handle the tension

between adopting participatory decision making and being professionally and profitably run? One

could argue that they would behave similar to private businesses and government organizations

because they are judged by stakeholders based on the ability to remain financially viable (Pache

& Santos, 2013).

52

One could also make an equally strong case that they would behave much like nonprofits,

because community empowerment is a defining characteristic that is often espoused in their legal

form and mission statement (Haigh & Hoffman, 2014). The next sections describe the case of six

community forest enterprises (CFEs) in the Canadian forest sector that have been purposefully

selected to explore these relationships.

3.3 Methods

3.3.1 Research Context

CFEs are small-scale production and processing entities owned and operated by forest-

dwelling rural and Indigenous communities. They produce a range of timber and non-timber forest

products and occur in all forested regions of the world (Antinori & Bray, 2005). CFEs emphasize

local development by fostering employment and directing revenues into community projects,

while also emphasizing the long-term sustainability of local values and resource systems (Haugh,

2007). In combining financial, social, and environmental goals at their core, they resemble other

hybrids that incorporate logics and practices from commercial businesses, as well as community

organizations and environmental groups (Huybrechts & Haugh, 2018).

The six organizations that were studied for this chapter are all based in the Canadian

Province of British Columbia (BC). In BC, CFEs arose during the 1990s under the leadership of a

loose coalition of activists (labour, environmentalists, communities, and First Nations). These

groups sought changes in the forest sector during a time when the provincial government was

searching for policy responses to mass protests against old-growth logging (Ambus, 2016).

53

A decentralized, community-based model was put forward as a means to generate local

jobs and experiment with alternatives to industrial-scale logging. The model enabled First Nations

to strengthen control over their traditional territories (Bullock et al., 2009). CFEs were

subsequently shaped under the Community Forestry Pilot Project and forest tenure program (1997,

1999, 2004). In 2002, CFEs gained a collective voice with the creation of the BC Community

Forestry Association (BCCFA) that has since helped them to consolidate their position as a social

enterprise model in the domestic forest sector. Across BC, CFEs emerge under a variety of

governance structures and forms, including local governments, First Nation Bands, cooperatives,

community nonprofits, associations, or a mix of partners (Mulkey & Kenneth, 2012; Pinkerton &

Rutherford, 2021). As of 2018, there were 58 CFEs operating in BC that hold management rights

over 1.6 million hectares of forests, approximately 2.5% of the total forest area in the province

(British Columbia Community Forest Association, 2020). The provincial government fulfills an

important role as a gatekeeper, granting CFEs the right to operate, setting annual harvest rates, and

monitoring through audits whether CFEs meet their obligations.

The Forest Act is the main piece of legislation that governs logging activity in BC’s

publicly-owned forests. Under the Forest Act, license holders are awarded Community Forest

Agreements (CFAs)1 that facilitate logging rights to decentralized actors engaged in forest

management in the province. This includes nonprofits societies, municipalities, and First Nations

1Source: BC Forest Act, Division 7.1 – Community Forestry Agreements

http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/96157_03#division_d2e7917,

accessed January 20, 2020.

54

bands, to name a few. If a local CFA holder chooses to set up a commercial structure, (i.e., a CFE),

to make use of the forest harvest rights, the organization has to pay royalties for harvested timber

(so-called stumpage) that are significantly below posted rates. This is to compensate for the high

costs of logging and difficulties in accessing markets as small licensees2. In return for these

financial concessions, the Forest Act demands that certain social requirements be met, such as the

condition that CFEs carry out activities that involve the public. This is to ensure that CFEs conduct

their pursuits according to locally identified values and needs. Specifically, CFEs are required to

report on their community involvement strategies when filing the initial CFA license application,

as well as any request for license renewal (BC Forest Act, 2018: part 3, division 7.1, paragraph

43.3). This mandated requirement to involve the community makes BC an information-rich

context to understand how CFEs, as a particularly locally-centred type of SE, enable community

involvement in organizational decisions.

3.3.2 Sample

Data collection occurred between March 2016 and October 2018. Purposeful sampling was

employed to achieve in-depth understanding of the research objective – namely to understand

issues of community involvement in decision-making in CFEs amid plural goals (Patton, 2002). I

followed a two-step strategy wherein I first identified a set of organizations from a database that

2 CFEs that are issued a CFA in the interior region of British Columbia pay 15 percent of posted rates calculated for

other licensees, and 20 percent in coastal regions (Ambus, 2016).

55

lists all currently active CFEs in BC. I then consolidated the choice of organizations by consulting

with key informants, including personal visits to the BC Community Forest Associations’

(BCCFA) annual meetings, and follow-up conversations with BCCFA executives. This ensured

that my selection, which targeted multiple forms of organizational structures and goals, would

meet those criteria.

A total of six CFEs from across the province of BC were included in the study. They ranged

in age from 5 to 21 years. Three organizations were founded bottom-up by community activists,

mainly under a society or cooperative structure. Their principal goal is to protect local watersheds

from industrial logging activity. To a great extent, these CFEs have maintained a grassroots

identity. They are located in community gathering facilities, such as an old school building. They

have a focus on voluntary, rotating member involvement and they are catalysts for alternative

forest management philosophies based on ecological integrity and sustainability. The other three

CFEs emerged in a top-down fashion, led by municipal governments, one in partnership with the

neighbouring First Nations governments. Following local declines in the forest industry, the

motivation for their founding was to foster employment, , or, in the case of one CFE, to set aside

forest land to provide opportunities for tourism and recreation.

For the most part, these CFEs projected more of a company image. They were mostly set

up as limited partnerships or community corporations, and occupied designated offices either

within, or in close proximity to, the municipal administration. All six CFEs engaged in commercial

logging activities, with some generating additional revenues from value-added activities, including

sawmilling, land leasing, and trading ecosystem services. All CFEs had a full-time manager, with

56

some employing a few additional administrative and operational staff, mostly on a part-time basis.

None of the CFEs employed more than six permanent staff at a time. Their revenues ranged from

$60 thousand to $8.7 million dollars annually. They all aimed to contribute funds to community

development, after making reinvestments in the organization.

Three of the CFEs operate formal community grant schemes, and the other half give on a

case-by-case basis. In-kind donations ranged from $50 thousand dollars annually to small amounts

in the $3 thousand to $6 thousand dollar range. Some of the CFEs provided additional services to

the community, such as donating firewood or offering guided tours. One CFE offered discounts

on its custom-milled products to all community residents. Thus, the CFEs blended a range of

aspects in terms of organizational origins and philosophies, legal structures, as well as location,

type and size of activities. Table 5 summarizes the details of the six studied CFEs.

57

Table 5 Characteristics of sampled CFEs

Age &

Size Origin Ownership

Revenue

Streams

Community

Giving

CFE

1

20 years;

5 staff

Bottom-Up

Cooperative

Log Sales;

Sawmilling

Recreation;

Education

CFE

2

21 years;

2 staff Bottom-Up

Community

Corporation

(Partners: Town,

local NGOs and

Associations)

Log Sales Grant

Program

CFE

3

5 years;

1.5 staff Bottom-Up

Nonprofit Society

Log Sales Recreation;

Firewood

CFE

4

11 years;

4 staff Top-Down

Community

Corporation

(Municipality)

Log Sales Grant

Program

CFE

5

11 years;

6 staff Top-Down

Ltd. Partnership

(Municipality)

Log Sales;

Industrial Park

Grant

Program

CFE

6

9 years;

2 staff Top-Down

Nonprofit Society

(Partners:

Municipality/ First

Nation Band)

Log Sales;

Carbon Offsets

Recreation;

Education

58

3.3.3 Data Collection

Given the limited theory that addresses responses to community involvement in SE

decision-making, this dissertation chapter draws on the qualitative research paradigm and adopts

multiple case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989), a method which allows for the study of a real-life setting

(the ‘case’ aspect), while allowing for breadth in the analysis through within-case as well as cross-

case comparisons (the ‘multiple’ aspect) (Yin, 2017). Thus, a variety of data collection techniques

were used in this chapter. Semi-structured interviews of CFE managers provide the primary data

source to gather information about the key questions in this chapter, namely: (i) how CFEs involve

communities in organizational decision-making, (ii) whether CFEs experience tensions in doing

so, and (iii) how such tensions might be addressed.

This form of inductive research is appropriate in instances where themes and theory in

extant research is underdeveloped or inconclusive (Creswell, 2013). Another advantage of the

qualitative case study method is that it allows for the study of complex, interrelated phenomena in

a real-life setting (Yin, 2017). This includes the lived experience of managers making decisions in

the community-owned enterprise, enlisting forms of engagement, and balancing multiple goals,

beyond just profitability. From an epistemological (nature of knowledge) point of view, narratives

and accounts provided by the respondents is seen as legitimate form of data that shed novel and

unique insight into understudied social phenomena (Creswell, 2013). This implies that study

participants are regarded as the ‘experts’ of their own views and opinions, whereby the systematic,

corroborative approach taken by the researcher ensures verification and careful cross-validation of

the gathered information though consulting additional sources.

59

In this study, interviews with managers and multiple other actors in the CFE, as well as

extensive documentary evidence and archival sources, were collected about each studied case. The

semi-structured interview format was chosen to provide interview data that is rich and comparable

across cases (Rubin & Rubin, 2011). It was facilitated using an interview protocol. Interviewing

commenced with the CFE managers, who provided detailed accounts of the roles they pursue in

regards to balancing community involvement with other key goals in the organization. The focus

in the interview protocol was, thereby, to enlist respondent-centric narraitives through broad

questioning, rather than asking specific details that use the words ‘tension’ or ‘balancing goals.’

Use of such specific language was avoided in an effort to minimize bias in the respondents’

answers. The broader questions were used to prompt a discussion about balancing goals in the

organization, or experiences with community engagement. For example: ‘Can you describe your

professional journey that brought you to this position?’ Or: ‘Can you describe a typical day in the

organization/the conduct of a community engagement activity?’ (See Appendix B for the interview

guide).

Gathering this information from the CFEs’ managers provided further leads, yielding an

additional 37 face-to-face interviews with board members, staff, contractors, and local residents.

These actors either had a substantial role in the organization related to community involvement,

or they could provide further insight into the broader nature and importance of community

involvement in organizational decisions. Also, two retired CFE managers, and two key-informants

on the emerging CFEs sector in BC, were interviewed over the phone.

60

This helped to parse together elements in the history of each CFE in regard to their efforts

to practice community involvement in decisions. Table 6 shows a summary of research

participants. Each interview lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. All interviews were conducted in

English, were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Taken together, the data collected from

the semi-structured interviews allowed for deeper understanding of each CFEs’ practices,

opportunities and challenges related to involving the community in organizational decisions.

Table 6 Characteristics of interview participants

Interviewees

Position

CFE 1 11 Management; Board; Staff

CFE 2 11 Management; Board; Staff; Community

Members

CFE 3 7 Management; Board; Staff

CFE 4 5 Management; Board; Staff

CFE 5 7 Management; Board; Staff; Consultants

CFE 6 5 Management; Board; Staff; Project Partners

Field-Level 2 Key informants on CFEs in BC

Total 48

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Non-interview data was also collected in each CFE, consisting of: (i) notes taken during 2-

7 day field visits to each CFE office and forest site; (ii) notes taken from locally available records

(printouts of meeting minutes, organization charts, newsletters, annual reports); (iii) a collection

of archival records (pamphlets, leaflets, posters and announcements with information on

community involvement activities posted on bulletin boards); (iv) the creation of a database listing

online and print records of all CFEs that were reviewed (websites, financial statements, promotion

videos and documentaries as well as examining articles and case studies written on the CFEs in

newspapers, magazines, books, academic journals). This collection of field notes, organizational

records, archival sources, and audiovisuals resulted in 1930 written pages and 153 minutes of case

material. Combined, the non-interview data provided context for the information obtained from

interviews. It allowed me to crosscheck details and piece together descriptions for each case with

respect to how community involvement unfolded (Eisenhardt, 1989).

3.3.4 Analysis

Data was analysed using the software package Nvivo (QS Software, Version 11.3.2.

International Pty Ltd., 2016). As is common in case study research that investigates complex

phenomena (Yin, 2017), an inductive approach was used. Specifically, the grounded approach by

Gioia et al. (2013) was employed. This is a 3-step process wherein iterations between the data and

the literature took place (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). The approach commenced with the

identification of empirical themes through line-by-line coding of the interview data.

62

This entailed consulting interview transcripts of respondents’ answers from the interview

protocol pertaining to the pursuit of multiple social, environmental, and financial goals broadly,

and also specifically with respect to community involvement objectives. Archival sources were

used to contextualize the emerging themes (Step 1). This step provided insights about CFEs’ ability

to identify and follow up on expectations for involving the community in organizational decisions

(i.e., establishing roles and responsibilities). It also provided initial leads as to where CFEs

struggled in terms of aligning financial realities with participation. Next, empirical themes were

synthesized into conceptual categories (Step 2).

Finally, further analysis, coding, and aggregation of themes and concepts resulted in

analytical categories (Step 3) that show how CFEs assume practices in regard to community

involvement, and how they experience challenges and take measures to address those challenges.

Figure 3 provides a summary of the data structure. In a final step, connections between the

aggregate dimensions in the data structure were established by means of embedding existing

theory. This helped to inform relationships between the constructs. These data and literature

resulted in a description of CFEs navigating trade-offs between community involvement and

commercial demands. It also shows a model of managers navigating a paradoxical tension that

emerged from their practice of identifying a set of tactics for involvement that warranted balancing

in light of CFEs’ plural goals.

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The emergent categorization of trade-offs and tensions in the model of managerial

decision-making in the CFE was shared with three peer researchers to clarify theoretical insights.

To ensure accuracy of the description of the encountered phenomena, member checks were also

conducted (Creswell, 2013) with three informants holding leadership roles in the studied CFEs.

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Figure 3 Data Structure

Empirical Themes (Step 1) C onceptual Categories (Step 2) Aggregate Dimensions (Step 3)

• Community involvement goals enter strategy,

website, promotion material

• Identifying managers as responsible for community

participation

• Gathering local crowds in official and

recurring manner

• Arranging gatherings with individuals

and groups around specific issues

Integrating community involvement with daily business

realities:

• low quality timber

• remoteness of operations

• costs of low-impact resource harvesting

• accessing markets for niche products

• Altering between public and semi-public fora

• Addressing controversies in both scheduled and

spontaneous encounters

• Soliciting feedback formal and informal

• Board members speaking on behalf of their

respective constituency

• Releasing information to the local press and media

• Accommodating varying types of knowledge

• Setting rituals as reminder to involve community

Identifying Organizational Criteria

for Community Involvement

Discovering Tactics for

Community Involvement

Acting fast on

Market Opportunities

Applying Tactics for

Community Involvement

Delegating Involvement

Balancing Goals

Establishing a Structure

for Community Involvement

Causing Dilemma between

Community Involvement and

Financial Goals

Triggering Tension

Addressing Dilemma

Managing Tension

65

3.4 Findings

The findings on how SEs – in the form of CFEs – experience issues involving local

communities in organizational decisions is presented in this section. These findings focus mainly

on how it is that SEs establish systems for the participatory engagement of local communities that

are intended to benefit from their activities. The specific effects of these mechanisms help elucidate

what hinders and fosters meaningful involvement of local people in decision-making for SEs.

What stood out across the CFEs is that management was in charge of enlisting community

involvement. There was an understanding among the membership that management held a

leadership position within the local community. The position of the CFE manager was equated

with that of a town counselor, or school principal. There was an expectation that management

would carry out the duties of their jobs, keeping in mind the well-being of the community, forming

relationships with the people in town, and familiarizing themselves with the intricacies of the role

and values that local forestry activities have for diverse local stakeholders. As a local citizen

explained:

“His [the CFE managers] responsibility is so great. Because it’s our forest and our water.

He is presenting the idea of what we are going to sign off on, as a community. There are

public meetings, there is input.” (Community member-CFE 1)

The expectations bestowed upon the position of the CFE managers were reflected in the

hiring practices used to fill the role in the organization.

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There was an understanding among hiring committees, which typically consisted of board

members and representatives from the local community, that these individuals needed to bring a

set of social skills that would enable them to build strong relationships in the community. There

was an expectation that they would have to be good listeners, capable of balancing diverse

stakeholder needs. Ideally, the manager would be someone with prior experience in community

contexts. The following description given by a board member with a managerial position is a good

illustration of this:

“Someone with some kind of community experience would be an asset. There are diverse

interests at the table and you have to be able to listen to all of those.” (Board member-

CFE 2)

Aside from attracting management with previous experience in community settings, there

was an expectation among members of CFEs that managers would need to be skilled in

communicating to diverse audiences and addressing multiple constituents in their formulation of

strategies and tasks. Honesty, credibility, and the ability to be comfortable amid conflict, were all

seen as a desirable qualities in CFE managers. With competing expectations around forest

practices, the nature of the commercial activities, and reinvestment of funds being common in CFE

settings, there was an expectation that managers would take the responsibility to listen to local

groups and to engage in an honest and thorough assessment of diverse needs and points of view in

the decision-making process. As a board member summarized:

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“Involvement with the community has to be authentic. They can tell in a heartbeat when

you're passing them off. They can tell if you're trying to make it seem nice and it's not really

that nice. And if you don't take the public's concerns into regard, it'll fester somewhere.”

(Board member-CFE 1)

These expectations associated with the managerial position led CFEs to attract a suite of

eclectic forestry professionals, many of which had transitioned to the forestry resource sector from

a prior background in the social sciences, including criminology and history degrees, or

environmental sciences, before obtaining a degree in forestry and venturing into community

management and leadership roles in their careers.

Others had worked in traditional large forest companies where they weren’t comfortable

with the distance that existed between local groups and industrial-scale logging activities. This

lead them to look for opportunities with small forest tenures of the kind allotted to CFEs. Despite

the dynamic profile and experience in community settings, at times CFE managers did struggle

with the mandate to involve the community in organizational decisions. Notably, they experienced

trade-offs in enlisting this goal, relative to the commercial obligations of their jobs. They also

faced tensions with the particular approaches to engagement that they assumed. Both types of

challenges will be described below.

3.4.1 Trade-Offs Between Financial Sustainability and Community Involvement

All CFEs experienced instances where they found it difficult to stick to their plans for

involving the community in organizational decisions amid financial demands. This manifested

differently depending on the CFEs’ particular context of origin.

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Some of the CFEs had emerged in the context of efforts to revitalize local forest economies

in rural areas. Those communities had often prospered economically before major mills and other

natural resource industry wandered off to other areas, leaving the places with high rates of

unemployment, lack of infrastructure, ageing populations, and deteriorating availability of general

services in health care and education. In those communities, CFEs were perceived as a means to

(re)gain control over timber operations, to create jobs, and revitalize a suffering local economy.

The focus of these CFEs was to adopt timber operations that would provide work, attract skilled

and younger workers to the area, and provide funds to funnel back into critical local infrastructure,

with the opportunity to support growth of other economic activities, such as tourism and small

businesses. As a board member of one of the employment focused CFE explained:

“There were something like twenty saw mills in this area… Everybody cuts something

different, lots of people employed. And then it consolidated, and when one goes down,

you're hooped…The place crashed in 2008 and they dismantled the mill and went away.

So what we'd like to do is get back to that model of a diversified economy instead of just

one big sawmill where everybody works.” (Board member-CFE 5)

Upon embarking on their timber operations, those employment focused CFEs realized the

limitations of the forestry model in areas that lacked road access and proximity to an industrial

infrastructure that would allow them to perform logistics at a reasonable cost. In addition, the

quality of the timber was often low, with the most valuable stands being harvested by former

industrial licensees that had left the area.

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Under these difficult economic contexts, it was perceived as a necessity in the CFEs to act

quickly on any opportunity to harvest, or ship logs with logistics operators in the area when they

were present. The speed of decision-making that CFE managers had to apply in order to make a

profit, often stood in direct contrast to the mandate to perform community involvement in

organizational decisions, notably decisions pertaining to forest management and logging activities

in community-managed forestlands. What characterized the employment and revitalization

focused CFEs was a tendency to place economics before other objectives out of a desire to rebuild

the local economy. Dialogue over different forest value, be they recreation, or environmentally-

focused, tended to take a backseat whenever a commercial opportunity was to be gained. The

tendency to place economic objectives front and center, above the need to consult with the

community, was particularly extreme in the case of a CFE that had an ownership structure through

which local government was directly involved with the CFE. With the municipality having the

power to appoint and fire members of the CFE board, there was limited room for diversity of

opinion as it relates to balancing economic and social needs and involving the community in

decisions.

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Although improving issues around transparency over time, that CFE had a reputation in

the community of not opening meetings to the public and not sharing with interested locals some

basic information about contracts and terms of business. As a former consultant to the organization

explained:

“The small market logger program. What it essentially meant was that the CFE manager

went out with the loggers and they went: ‘Hey, see that good timber over there, I really

want that!’ And he would go let them get it, with a single cutting permit. No consultation

of the public whatsoever. Just like that […] And the board was really focused on making

money to give back to the community, you know. Helping out with the water treatment

plant, and, you know, putting people to work.” (Consultant-CFE 4)

Overall, these employment focused CFEs faced trade-offs between commercial activities and

community involvement. This came as a result of a preoccupation with profits that would help re-

build a dwindling local economy. Another set of CFEs experienced trade-offs due to a particular

mission to practice an ecologically sensitive, more progressive type of forestry, and a strong focus

on sustainability and environmental values.

Those CFEs were located in more economically diverse southern parts of the Province of

British Columbia, with access to forests that had higher-value timber stands, well-developed

infrastructure, and a fairly large small and medium sized wood products sector. The location

allowed for involvement in markets for value-added products and services. Those CFEs didn’t

experience trade-offs due to external economic and market constraints. Rather, they experienced

trade-offs between commercial activities and community involvement due to their origin.

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This was based in the local environmental movement that sought CFEs as an opportunity

to preserve local watersheds and to experiment with ecologically progressive forestry techniques

in opposition to industrial practices and traditional forestry. A local community member

summarized the vision and goals that drive the activities of the environmentally focused CFEs:

“It was different. It was unusual. It wasn’t just pure business thinking. It was a lot of

community minded thinking and water, preservation and conservation. And basically just

much wiser for the planet and communities than just getting there and maximize your

return and leave again.” (Community member-CFE 1)

Although these CFEs were largely founded bottom-up, they struggled with to involve the

community in situations where financial pressures arose from the effort to practice

environmentally friendly, yet more costly approaches to forestry and timber production. This had

to do, for instance, with difficulties in marketing forest goods and services with sustainable

attributes. Once of the CFEs had set up a non-timber forest products (NTFPs) operation with a

focus on marketing herbs and local medicinal plants. Developed initially as a charitable initiative

that drew primarily on the volunteer work of local citizens, the operation grew over time and was

managed professionally by staff. Reaching commercial scale, however, proved difficult as a result

of low production volumes and demand fluctuations. With the NFTP arm presenting a liability to

the business activities, the leadership of the organization was faced with a need to make swift

decisions without consulting the community about the future of the NTFP commercial arm. As

former board member explained:

72

“I became chair and it was just all these loose ends hanging around and I'm the person who

was in charge…It was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do…People

eventually understood [the closure of the herb business].” (Board member-CFE 1)

Trade-off situations between commercial activities and practicing community involvement

also arose where equipment and skills were needed to produce forest products with sustainable

attributes. In the same CFE that had to close its NFTP operations, practicing certified sustainable

timber harvesting required contracting services from outside the community, as the skills and

machinery were not available locally.

The executive decision to contract externally was contested among locals, since local

employment presented a core value of the organization. Community input on plans to forest

products with sustainability was also being compromised where financial activities suffered as a

result of local opposition to the CFEs’ focus and practices. Due to the CFE having environmental

activists and other local advocates of sustainability among its membership, traditional industry was

skeptical to engage in trade relations with the organization due to differences in ideology and to a

lack of trust that the organization would honor standard business practices and professionalism.

Particularly in one CFE, leadership spent considerable effort to win the trust of surrounding

timber processing facilities as a credible business partner. They did this by compromising

community involvement, and instead fully concentrate on the demands posed by local mills and

manufacturers in the area that embrace traditional forestry industry practices . Table 7 includes

additional illustrative data on trade-offs between commercial activities and community

involvement that occurred among the different kinds of CFEs.

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Table 7 Illustrative examples for experiencing trade-offs

Empirical Themes

Data Excerpts

Trade-Offs experienced

by CFEs focused on

employment and

economic revitalization

“There are trade-offs…Right this summer the log prices are good and we're logging up

a site valley that has fairly decent spruce in it and we just decided to cut everything pretty

much that's available there…We haven’t had any complaints so far. But we certainly had

them in the past.” (Board member CFE 3)

“A tremendous amount of work has to be done with the public. This is a community

forest. The harvesting activities is only one component of it. But when I was hired, all

they [the CFE board] were talking about was the one component, the harvesting, the

harvesting. Now, if you can't make money at that, you can't do any of the rest of it. So

there's a reason for that.” (Manager-CFE 4)

“I remember talking with the manager from [another CFE] and asking them how they

could operate like they do. Their trucking costs are $15 a meter or so, versus $35 to $40

for ours. And this makes all the difference in the world.” (Board member-CFE 3 )

“The new mayor and council, they fired the board and appointed themselves as the CFE

board. They never remembered what hat they were wearing. That it’s the job of the board

to hire a manager to be a accountable for the day-to-day business, and the shareholders

stay out of that. So a lot of infighting was the result, and a reluctance to talk about the

business of the organization with the public.”(Consultant-CFE 4)

Trade-Offs experienced

by CFEs focused on

sustainability and an

ecologically sensitive

(progressive) version of

forestry

“Part of the initial financial difficulties was a bunch of rhetoric about: ‘we’re gonna show

them how to do forestry better!’ That created some reaction among the traditional folks

and I think that financially hurt the organization. The local sawmills were reluctant to

buy from us to start with and it took us some convincing to change their perception.”

(Board member, Case 2)

“We didn't have much local input for harvesting our first block. We chose a logger out

of [a community 50 km away from the forest site] who is known for doing sensitive

logging…We ran into some difficult times with the community having somebody from

outside doing the logging.” (Board member-CFE 1)

“The operating costs were too high so we struggled financially to get the thing started,

but we had to prove to the community that we could do an entirely different kind of

forestry that is responsive to local input or we would have been history. Those are tough

decisions to make.” (Manager-CFE 2)

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3.4.2 Tensions with the Balancing of Tactics for Community Involvement

The data revealed that the managers used two broad tactics (generalized and individualized

involvement) to enlist community involvement in organizational decisions. The first tactic –

generalized involvement – served the overall purpose to gather large crowds (i.e., plan community

outreach activities with a focus on maximum community turnout). Those activities included open-

houses, annual general meetings, public consultations, or celebratory events. Generalized

involvement also entailed public outreach, such as feedback surveys, newsletters, updates on the

website, or weekly office hours held by the manager.

The activities that managers organized as part of generalized involvement occur with

relative frequency, or are planned intentionally and well-ahead of time. They are predictable

activities that are officially announced, for example, through local media and community

billboards. Gatherings with a general-involvement character typically occur in public settings, such

as town halls, libraries, farmers markets, public parks or town squares. They involve structured

activities, guided by a particular agenda (e.g., “meet the manager”, “gather feedback on a planned

project”) and they facilitate dialogue that touches upon aspects of the event purpose. Tools, such

as presentations, questionnaires, or mapping exercises, were intended to gather a breadth of

opinions to inform decision-making.

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In sum, while generalized gatherings require the manager to plan well-ahead, develop a

structure and outline for the kind of activities, the ultimate responsibility to make these activities

informative and successful rests with the community members that are invited to accept the offer

to become involved. Individualized involvement, in turn, required that CFE managers identify a

set of activities that are largely geared toward specific stakeholders and community groups to

deepen the discussion about controversial issues, gather second opinions, and mediate between

conflicting parties. Many activities marked by the individualized tactic occurred unplanned,

focusing on groups that represent specific interests in the community, such as recreation, farming

or hunting. This tactic for community involvement was semi-informal. It involved spontaneous

encounters as well as planned activities that were unofficial in nature. It included visits by the

manager to the private homes of community members, organizing small field tours, or arranging

meetings with community associations and interest groups. These encounters may be initiated

either by the CFE manager, or by community members. The nature of these interactions was often

marked by a series of meetings that allowed managers to build on ideas and identify stakeholder

specific solutions or compromises. Overall, the focus was to make engagement comfortable and

accessible for community members that sought to resolve specific matters with the organization.

Table 8 summarizes the two tactics alongside supportive quotes.

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The two tactics complemented each other and provided opportunities to build synergies

between goals. They knew that both tactics, if applied in unison, could make their efforts to

practice community involvement more successful. It allowed for successful relationship building

with a variety of constituents. The generalized tactic allowed management to obtain a sense of the

general sentiment of the community towards organizational practices, whereas individualized

involvement, instead, allowed decision-makers to build personal relationships with community

members and work through specific issues as they arose. As described by a CFE manager:

“I have a public meeting in March, and I have discussions with people before that.”

(Manager-CFE 3)

Managers were aware in which situations a generalized versus individualized tactic proved

more successful, and what type of steps ought to be taken to apply both tactics in sequence.

Informal participation in decision-making also allowed to further illustrate to the community

members the information provided during general engagement activities, thus allowing for the

emergence of trusting connections for particular organizational decisions. As described by a

manager who experienced the benefit of applying both tactics when he faced the task of

communicating logging plans for a pest-infested forest site:

“It was the first major road building. So, I wrote a plan and we had a number of community

meetings. Lots of specific concerns were raised by specific people. So then after we go

back, review it again and see who we need to talk to more.” (Manager-CFE 1)

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Table 8 Two tactics for community involvement

Generalized Illustrative Quotes Individualized Illustrative Quotes

Expectation

The community

follows the

invitation to be

consulted

“We try to have at least two open houses a year. And

we actually even committed to that in our forest

stewardship plan.” (Manager-CFE 6)

CFE managers

approach

individuals and

groups

“What we have been doing in the last

few years is to do some more targeted

meetings with local interest groups.

The off-road cycling association, for

example. We will meet directly with

their board… And, one of the

recreations operators. He has opinions

but wouldn’t come to the open houses.

We go and we meet at his office. We

don’t make him come to us.”

(Manager-CFE 4)

Purpose Demonstrate high

public turnout

“We have an attendance sheet and track how many

people come.” (Staff-CFE 5)

Build trusting

connections

“He [the manager] left us with his

phone number. And we would call him

if there is any kind of problem... He is

a very good listener. He is kind and

fund.” (Community member-CFE 1)

Activities Gather crowds

“There were community invites. They set up a BBQ,

have a meet and great … It’s kind of an educational

thing.”(Contractor-CFE 2)

Create informal

interactions

‘So what you do is you work with these

groups. So that they understand our

mission. You keep in touch with them

on a steady basis.” (Manager-CFE 4)

78

Generalized Illustrative Quotes Individualized Illustrative Quotes

Frequency Recurring

“We advertised his [the manager’s] office hours in

the newspaper. There’s always been an invite. He has

put himself there so that he is available.”

(Accountant-CFE 3)

Incidental

“I involved her family and trained one

of her sons in mapping out areas. So,

that’s been my goal, not isolate people

but to make them understand that there

is a lot of aspects to these kinds of

things and let them know they can have

input.” (Manager-CFE 3)

Contact Mode Official (Newsletter,

Website)

“We established a website that people could refer to,

and also get our minutes from our meetings.”

(Board member- CFE 4)

Direct (Phone,

Email, Visits)

“Letters, individually to these

homeowners, were dropped off door to

door.”(Manager-CFE 2)

Setting Public

“So, the community forest hosts an annual community

barbecue. We all gather at the centennial park in the

middle of town and all levels of government are

invited… it gives community members the opportunity

to meet with those people on a one-on-one

basis.”(Board member-CFE 5)

Private;

Semi-Private

“There was about 20 different farms.

We got their names and stuff…If you

can’t get a hold of them on the phone,

go and see them!”

(Manager-CFE 4)

Nature

of Interaction

Structured; Breadth

in Opinions

“We took it [the logging proposal] to the community

in a series of community meetings. Having

discussions, power point, visuals around the

dynamics of our forest.” (Manager-CFE 1)

Unstructured;

Depth in Opinions

“People came in to the area where we

are working several times. We shut

down the work for a couple of minutes.

Take the people for a walk. Show them

around and talk to them.“

(Contractor-CFE 2)

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While useful for the manager in their overall organization of community involvement,

members of the local community also appreciated the opportunity to interact with the CFE through

various formal and informal channels. This created a sense of belonging and trust that the

organization does its best to listen to the public for the development of the resource. As a

community member summarizes:

“Our open-houses, you know the stuff that he shows. The maps, the charts, the whatever,

satellite photos, it’s all really informative…but he [the manager] is willing to have more

individual level interaction also. They had to get some machinery photographed. I could

just tag along. We had a bunch of people standing, chatting, and looking at the operations

being formalized.” (Community member-CFE 1)

Alternating between both tactics was also seen to be helpful for the managers. They received

information about topics and discussions from local groups pertaining to the CFEs’ activities.It

also allowed them to accommodate the needs of different stakeholders early on, before conflict

could build up. This was particularly the case for information about recreational preferences (e.g.,

mapping trails), but also about fire-prone forest sites, information about sensitive watersheds, and

the needs that local residents have for their usage. As the following quote illustrates:

“Sometimes people would just walk in and we go: ‘oh, wow. We weren’t expecting you,

but sure, come on in!’ And we show them what we are doing and planning. And they say:

‘Oh, you missed a waterline there!’ Well, that’s important information for us to consider

in our next announcement to the community.” (Employee-CFE 5)

80

Being aware of both tactics and applying them evenly was seen as a useful mechanism to

turn community involvement from a chore to a benefit. Community involvement became seen as

a useful tool that managers used to make quicker, and potentially more locally-befitting decisions.

Despite the advantages and mutual synergy between both generalized and individualized

tactics for community involvement, tensions surfaced where excessive reliance on one tactic

created an imbalance when addressing stakeholders needs, or the simultaneous use of both tactics

occupied so much of the capacities of management that other critical goals, notably financial

stability, were at risk. For example, excessive reliance on generalized involvement prompted CFEs

to overlook the needs of specific segments of the local community. This happened largely because

activities with only generalized involvement were often characterized by low attendance, or a very

selective regular attendance. For example, one of the CFEs that had emerged bottom-up with the

grassroots engagement of environmentally minded citizens, wanted to foster ecologically

sensitive, local commercialization of timber, which would be operated by people within the

community. The environmental rhetoric that dominated discussions about goals and values in the

organization, however, tended to attract only like-minded segments of the community. As the

manager explained:

“I think that is a bit of a self-selection process. There is a large component of the

community that’s quite sort of environmentally minded and social community minded as

well. The sort of old school logging and road building folks haven’t really been

represented.” (Manager, case 1)

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Other CFEs faced the opposite problem when relying heavily on the generalized

involvement tactic. Namely that logging-friendly groups would attend and engage in the matters

of the organization, whereas recreational users and environmental groups tended to have little trust,

or interest in engaging with the organization. As a result, events of the generalized tactic focused

strongly on employment opportunities and development of a local industrial site to sort and market

raw logs. The CFE only became aware of the environmental groups as it was about to log an area,

causing public protest among environmentally concerned community members. This prompted the

CFE to put its logging operations on hold (and caused the CFE to make financial sacrifices). As a

board member recalled:

“We wanted to do some treatment just across the road there. We wanted to cut some more

trees because they were high risk for fires. And the community members went: ‘No way!

You guys are raping and pillaging’. And we went, what? You're not happy with us? Some

people think that we're just about clear cutting and making profit and we don't care. I was

a little surprised.” (Board member-CFE 5)

The above examples thus provide instances where CFEs relied too much on the information

received through formal community participation. They received a one-sided perspective with low

participation rates. These tendencies can be counteracted by individualized engagement. However,

some CFEs were so deeply engaged with this information that they became almost coopted by the

needs and values of a few particular groups. This posed a risk to the time and energy of the manager

that was left to manage other critical goals of the organization, notably financial stability. In one

CFE, for example, the organization undertook a 2-year mapping exercise with a group of local

naturalists with the aim of identifying old-growth forest areas that the organization would not log.

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When the CFE launched their logging plans after considering the needs of the engagement

process, the local group demanded more areas be spared. This is in addition to the sites identified

during the mapping exercise, causing the CFE to experience financial setbacks. Table 9

summarizes empirical themes for tensions caused by enlisting community involvement in

organizational decisions.

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Table 9 Illustrative data for experiencing tension

Empirical Themes

Data Excerpts

Imbalance (Type 1):

Excessive use of the

Generalized

Involvement Tactic

“Sometimes it felt like we were not necessarily getting the view of those

communities aside from just the economic interests of those communities. Only

the operators showed up.” (Board member-CFE 6)

“I'm trying to get people involved in the larger community. We've had several

informational meetings that haven't been well attended.” (Board member-CFE 3)

“It’s our responsibility, that word of mouth thing. We haven’t done enough of that.

We should really set up some field days where we take people and say: ’look, this

is what logging is, this is a good looking logging block. And this is what we do

for brushing and weeding. We cut this five years ago and see how well the trees

are growing?’” (Board member-CFE 4)

Imbalance (Type 2):

Excessive use of the

Individualized

Involvement Tactic

“[The CFE manager] has been fairly friendly with the snowmobile companies. He

built a bridge that was needed for the harvesting, but it maybe could have been

done a different way. Not just building a road and they're like: Ooh, surprise, a

bunch of snowmobiles went down there and now have access to an area they were

not supposed to get into.” (Board member-CFE 6)

“Getting them on our land base helps. They don't like something and they come

talk to us, you know, and we take them out. But you can get overwhelmed if you're

not careful with it.” (Manager - CFE4)

“A considerable amount of time and labour is invested. Lot’s of letters and invites

[…] I would say he [the manager] is doing way more than he has to. So he still

has serious pushback from the public. Over two years he was sending out notice

and looking at the block and trying to figure out how he could overcome the

environmental concerns and also work with the public. He approached me about

this time last summer and he said: ‘I am trying to figure out how I can implement

a treatment in this challenging block we have, where there is public opposition

[…] conventional harvesting doesn’t work here’.” (Contractor-CFE 2)

“So we made this whole layer of voluntary areas. The areas that they are now

protesting didn’t come up in the list. So the board is saying: “Come on now! You

can’t just keep adding places!” You know, we went through this process and, we

were hoping that would be the end of it, in a way […] So we just decided to put

that on hold for a year until we can talk with them more […] We were supposed

to harvest the block this year. ” (Staff-CFE 6)

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3.4.3 Overcoming Challenges

When faced with financial demands that seemed irreconcilable with community

involvement, CFEs adopted strategies for delegating participatory activities. This allowed them to

maintain some level of connection with the community, even if proper involvement, as such, was

not sought. The choice of these strategies differed by ownership type, depending on whether there

were multiple owners., The CFE had been formed by several local government and community

organizations, each holding board representation, or they were made up by a single owner, such as

the municipality or a limited partnership with the town as principal shareholder. In the former case,

the strategy for resolving the trade-offs between community involvement and financial demands

was to refer to the board members representing the different owner groups, endowing them with

the task to ‘report back’ to their respective constituents. Those CFEs that operated under the single

ownership structure, instead, focused on establishing relationships with the media, such as

newspapers or television channels, as a means of passing on information to the community.

Figure 4 illustrates the trade-offs between the expectation of community involvement on

the one hand, and financial obligations on the other, which came about regardless of whether the

CFEs emerged with a mandate to provide economic recovery or practice environmentally

progressive approaches to forest management. In both cases, impasses arose where community

involvement suffered. This was addressed by the CFEs through the strategies described above for

mediating involvement and delegating it to particular actors.

85

In the case of CFEs with multiple owner structures, this was done by means of delegating

the task to the board members that held representation duties with their respective constituents,

and in the case of single-owned CFEs, by means of forming relationships with the local press.

86

Figure 4 Strategies for Addressing Trade-Offs

Community

Involvement:

Ought to be

applied

continuously

CFEs focused

on economic

revitalization

Challenge:

Trade-Offs

arise between

community

involvement

and financial

objectives

CFEs with

progressive

environmental

agenda

Solution:

Mediated

Involvement

is sought to

address

trade-offs

Relationships

with the local

media is formed

CFEs with

Single

Owner

Board members

‘report back’ to

their respective

constituents

CFEs with

Multiple

Owners

“He [the manager] actually struggles with

public involvement. But, that being said, he

doesn't have to because he has a community

board of directors who represent the

different values. He just has to work well

with his board.” (Board member-CFE 2)

“The people on the board, they're all

involved in either community associations or

some other local group. So, in a sense they

represent the community in various ways.”

(Board member-CFE 3)

“We had the newspaper lady come out with me

a couple of weeks ago and I showed her around.

She is really good and we need to do that more

regularly.”

(Board member-CFE 5)

“We have community television. That served us

really well in the past when we ran out of time.”

(Employee-CFE 5)

“The local press, I have them on my stakeholder

list and we make sure they write something in

the newspaper.” (Manager-CFE 6)

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With respect to the second encountered challenge of keeping a balance between generalized

and individualized tactics, CFEs responded in two ways. In one practice, managers made different

choices as to how they would communicate the outcomes from involvement activities, whether

they were characterized by the generalized or individualized tactics for involvement that were

described in table 8.

These choices predominantly meant that managers avoided jargon so that themes and outcomes

would be easy to understand by the community at large. This is the case in both large public forums

and with small groups of specialists. Some managers and staff did this by removing professional

jargon from reports and meeting minutes, or adding a glossary with definitions. As the following

quote by a manager illustrates:

“So what I would do for example, in a report, I have like five categories or so and I do it

in a narrative style so that it’s fairly easy to read and it flows and it’s more conversational

than it would be if you were doing bullets. And so, every time I would use a term, I would

put the acronym behind it and then I’ll explain it… The feedback I have gotten is that people

like it because they all have become a lot more informed.” (Manager-CFE 3)

Other CFEs opted to improve their online presence and the regularity with which they

shared documents that were gathered when engaging with the general public, versus smaller

groups though individualized engagement. That way the whole community was able to access

information and stay involved. At the same time, it saved time for the CFE, as written information

on the website would prevent 87nnecessary calls or personal visits to clarify information. A board

member described this approach to handling updates on the website:

88

“We didn't have a good website. So we established a website that people could refer to,

and get our minutes from our meetings. We've improved the way that we write up the

minutes so that they're clearer and easier to understand.” (Board member-CFE 4)

Sharing information between outcomes of the generalized and individualized tactic for

engagement also involved oral tactics, which largely related to the ability of CFE managers to

communicate with a variety of stakeholders using jargon and language familiar to these diverse

audiences. For example, one CFE often saw itself in a position to mediate between the needs and

demands of loggers and local environmental groups, making it necessary to find the trust and

credibility of each side and then take insights from these meetings back to the respective other

groups, trying to foster dialogue and understanding for each position. As described in the following

quote:

“I hear from the old-school environmental folks and sometimes I have to explain to the

public what the operators are saying and what their frustrations might be, and vice versa,

explain to the operators: ‘look, I realize that this seems silly to you, to leave those trees, or

to have to wait before we do something, but that’s what you are working with here.’”

(Manager-CFE 1)

What this quote illustrates is that the CFE manager possessed the necessary terminology

and social behavior that fit the respective setting, whether it was an intimate setting with

environmentally-minded groups, or forest industry focused groups, or public meetings with the

average citizen that were versed in ecological and technical forestry jargon.

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A second practice that helped CFEs apply generalized and individualized tactics for

involvement in moderation, relative to other goals, was to routinely consult physical and digital

artefacts that had a meaning to the organizations’ history of enabling community participation in

organizational decisions. The presence of these artefacts in the work environment of CFE leaders

and staff, provided cues as to the amount of time to be spent overall on a particular community

involvement process, as well as when to apply each tactic – generalized and individualized.

Common examples were print-outs of documents, or photographs, that had a connection to the

practice of community involvement in the history of the organization, as illustrated with the

following quotes:

“If you look up here in the corner. Those red framed sheets. That’s bad press from the

early days. Written by the recreation operators. They didn’t feel properly consulted by the

community forest. Whenever I feel like: ‘Oh, I don’t have time, I am just going to take a

shortcut’, I look at them and say: ‘No! This is a community forest, we have an obligation

to consult these people.’” (Manager-CFE 6)

“I keep a collection of photos from our logging operations. I often bring them to our open

houses. The environmental group that didn’t want to have anything to do with us looked at

them and said: This is logging? I said, yeah, this is what we've been doing and this is what

we're about and I want to invite you to come up and look at what we're doing. And so that

happened. They all came!” (Board member-CFE 2)

The presence of these artefacts in their physical form would provoke changes in behavior

related to the practice of community involvement, both by the CFE in charge of practicing

involvement, and for community members that are being engaged.

90

The following set of quotes illustrate the presence of artefacts and how they would structure

interactions such that cues could be obtained as to when a particular form of engagement ought to

be taken up, prolonged, stopped, or altered in its path:

“If you can base your argument on science I find that’s probably the only thing that you

have left. One person in particular was so opposed to this it was alarming. That’s when

you listen to the majority of the people who had approved of this. It’s the community forest

in the end. And you say, I go ahead with this!” (Manager-CFE 2)

“When the community forest started, there was a survey. What do you want this community

forest to do? That survey serves as mandate in difficult situations.” (Manager -CFE 1)

Figure 5 shows how individualized and generalized tactics for involvement are kept in

symbiosis though the targeted behavior of CFE managers. The dotted arrows represent the

trajectory that CFEs take if one tactic is applied excessively, causing imbalance and the risk that

community involvement overrides other critical goals. This tension can be managed either by

ensuring flow of information between the respective audiences associated with each tactic (i.e.,

the general public versus selected groups) using altered ways of communicating, so called

translation practices. On the other hand, the tension can also be addressed by strategically

consulting physical and digital artefacts, so called signaling devices, that provide cues on how to

proceed with a decision process that has community involvement. Both practices, translation and

use of signaling devices, help balance the emphasis on generalized and individualized engagement

(the thin dotted lines cycling back to the center circle).

91

Figure 5 Tensions and Tension Management

3.5 Discussion and Conclusions

This chapter asked how CFEs involve communities in organizational decision-making,

what challenges they may face in doing so, and how they can overcome challenges. This was done

based on a set of six case studies of CFEs in the province of British Columbia in Canada that

differed in their mission, structure, and original values, emergence and activities. The insights that

were generated through the qualitative case study approach, allowed for depth in observation

(internal validity) (Creswell, 2013), and revealed unique insights into the richness, and complexity,

of the managerial experience, as it relates to running an organization with a focus on community

participation practices, and shared decision-making.

Individualized Involvement

Generalized Involvement

Involvement

in decision-

making

needs to be

generalized, to

include the

community at

large,

yet

individualized,

to allow for

trusting

relationships to

emerge

Triggering Tension

Use of ‘signaling

devices’

Too much

generalized

Too much

individualized

Physical +

digitized

artefacts

directing action

Translating

Addressing

diverse

audiences in

speech and

writing

Management of TensionManagement of Tension

92

While future studies may explore the insights of this research in other regions, or types of

social enterprises, beyond the CFE context, the unique observations that were made in regards to

tensions facing the CFE managers in the process of community involvement, and management of

set tensions, provides useful insights that shed light on this understudied phenomenon in the

literature. The findings also provide practical guidance for managers in social enterprises, and their

boards. Specifically, the study results show that the six CFEs were able to establish structures for

enlisting community involvement in decision-making using individualized and generalized tactics

that complemented each other, allowing the organizations to tap into unique local resources.

Yet, despite their best intentions, the need for financial sustainability prevented the CFEs

from constantly upholding their commitment to practicing community involvement given

economic constraints. What stood out was that all CFEs, regardless of whether they were founded

top-down, by local governments, or bottom-up, as a result of citizen groups and environmental

activism, faced difficulties upholding their commitment to community involvement at times. The

fact that the bottom-up CFEs equally faced trade-offs is interesting in light of common

assumptions in the literature. A common observation in the literature on bottom-up, grassroots

driven initiatives is that an inclination towards organizational democracy, especially in the

cooperative model, prevails amid financial pressures (Defourny & Nyssens, 2006; Rothschild-

Whitt, 2017). The results, however, show a different experience. For CFEs, this is not necessarily

the case, likely the nature of natural resource sector is such that costs of capital, equipment, and

the dimension of the resource operations make it difficult to uphold this ideal, relative to other

social enterprise models.

93

However, where the top-down and bottom-up CFEs did differ, was in their approach to

addressing trade-offs between community involvement and financial objectives. Here, the CFEs

with a bottom-up structure, characterized by broad representation of diverse groups in the

governance of the organization, had a more direct means of communicating fallouts in engagement

activities with local stakeholders. The top-down driven CFE only had media and press channels at

their disposal, due to a lack of diversity in the ownership of the organization that would allow for

direct communication. The data also showed that even in the instance where CFEs practiced

community involvement, tensions surfaced as management sought a balance between two distinct,

yet interrelated tactics for involvement (generalized and individualized). Excessive efforts made

by managers to attend to both tactics consumed their attention to an extent that caused financial

risk in terms of missed market opportunities. Yet, the CFEs remained cognizant, at all times, of

the expectation that they ought to maintain a certain level of community participation. This was

the case even in times when formal community involvement was not possible. This prompted CFEs

to identify forms of mediated (weaker) community involvement until more resources became

available to practice full participation, the choice of which was influenced by organizational

ownership structure.

In addition, CFE managers, over time, learned to clarify for themselves ‘outcomes’ versus

‘process’ in attaining plural goals by improving their communication with the community through

translation practices and intentionally consulting artefacts that have a meaning in the

organizations’ history as it relates to practicing participation.

94

Both these practices provided CFE managers with cues when to switch between the

generalized and individualized tactics for involvement, and when to cease a particular community-

involving process to safeguard other critical goals. As such, setting up and running activities for

community involvement, and addressing challenges in that regard, can be understood in relation

to both the role of management executing these participatory practices, and the particular

ownership structure of the organization.

So far, research on SEs has studied the alignment of diverse constituents only with regards

to direct membership and employees (Battilana et al., 2015; Mitzinneck & Besharov, 2018; Ometto

et al., 2019), but not focusing on the local community at large. Using CFEs as a study context, this

research complements traditional analyses of SEs with a key distinction between a focus on

‘outcomes’ versus ‘process’ in goal attainment (Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996; Woolley, 2009).

Specifically it adds to studies of competing commercial-social demands resulting from hybridity

in SEs and how these are addressed (Smith et al., 2013). Previous literature has highlighted the

important, but paradoxical, role of SE leaders in managing the commercial-social tension in

different aspects of the organization, from hiring (Battilana & Dorado, 2010) to growth (Kannothra

et al., 2017; Siegner, Pinkse, et al., 2018) to interpretation of outcomes (Jay, 2013).

The findings of this study highlight another characteristic of leadership in SEs: the ability

of management to recognize their own outcome foci (the ‘what’ in terms of problems the SE seeks

to tackle in a given locale) as well as their process foci (the ‘how’ of applying tactics and tools

with a social character, such as community involvement) in addressing plural goals.

95

This recognition leads to an important second step: the ability to apply communicative

tactics – translation – and consult physical and digital artefacts, both of which allows for

alternating between individualized and generalized tactics for community involvement – a process

focused goals – , and other – outcome focused – goals. Past research has alluded to the role of non-

human objects and paradox in addressing competing commercial-social demands in SEs (Michaud,

2014). However, this has been done through a focus on communicating about objects, rather than

strategically consulting artefacts that prompt management to enlist certain behaviors, as shown in

our findings.

To summarize, rather than contradicting previous research, the findings of this study enrich

insights into the study of SEs as hybrid organizations. It suggests an enhanced tension framework

that accounts for the distinction between an outcome focus and a process focus in attaining plural

goals (social and commercial). More importantly, through documenting how both management

and ownership structures influence SEs’approach to community involvement, we contribute to

emphasizing the importance of the qualities of leadership – notably paradox management – in

reconciling competing demands between commercial and social objectives. In addition, the

findings on managerial paradox as it relates to the task of community involvement in CFE

decision-making also contributes to the wider literature on public participation. That work largely

proposes that identification and adoption of locally befitting participatory activities solve the

‘involvement challenge’ (Bryson et al., 2013; Muthuri et al., 2012).

96

This study shows, however, that locally adapted tactics for participation are by no means

straightforward activities. They are riddled with tensions and contradictions that warrant active

alleviation with managerial strategies and practices of the kind identified in the chapter. This

research comes with the usual limitations of qualitative inquiry, notably context specificity and

issues with generalizability of findings, which were addressed through the sampling of cases that

depict variation in the phenomena of interest. The focus was on gathering rich and detailed insights

into the specifics and experiences of enlisting participatory process in a set of case studies of CFEs

in BC, Canada. Although the findings cannot definitely support or deny the viability of

participatory practices in SEs, the work points to more of a tension management and paradox

perspective, in which SEs identify strategies for involvement that are mutually enforcing, if

balanced well against other goals that form their social mission. Having an investigation into a

larger sample of SEs with regards to their community involvement could be the subject of future

studies. Moreover, attention could be paid to the interaction of non-management actors in enlisting

community involvement, such as employees (Depedri et al., 2010) or networks supporting SEs

(Huybrechts & Haugh, 2018). Therefore, future work may investigate SEs’ strategies for

community involvement in contexts other than developed economies, where strong institutions

and civil society structures encourage a culture of citizen engagement. Enlisting trust between

communities and organizations in contexts of deep poverty and inequality requires long-term

approaches to building trust (Mair et al., 2016).

97

Seeing how this would shape SEs’ strategies for community involvement could also be a

future avenue to explore. Around the globe, SEs, like CFEs, have an increasingly important role

to play in empowering marginalized rural and Indigenous communities by means of engaging them

in local businesses. The hope is that this chapter will spur further research into the practicalities of

SEs enlisting their participatory mandate in the local communities in which they operate, bringing

further insights and answers to this important characteristic of SE activity.

98

Chapter 4: Strategic Orientation in Community Forest Enterprises:

Implications for Effectiveness

4.1 Introduction

Community forest enterprises (CFEs) are social enterprises engaged in the trade of forest

products and services with the primary goal of fostering resource stewardship and economic

development among rural and Indigenous communities (Ambrose-Oji et al., 2015; Antinori &

Bray, 2005; Kozak, 2009). Their unique and innovative decentralized organizational structures are

well-suited to address sustainability concerns in natural resource extraction, as well as the

marginalization of some forest-dependent communities (Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018).

While CFEs are increasing in number around the world, their growth and ability to scale-

up have been longstanding issues (Macqueen, 2013; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). It has been

widely noted that CFEs frequently struggle financially, often having to rely on government

agencies and nonprofit organizations for financial support (Hajjar et al., 2012; Humphries et al.,

2012). As many of these agencies themselves lack adequate funds, it has been suggested that CFEs

need to find ways to become more competitive (Cubbage et al., 2015; Macqueen, 2008). Previous

literature defines two main strategies for CFEs to become more competitive, namely a growth- and

a niche-focused strategic orientation (Antinori & Bray, 2005; Macqueen, 2013). Proponents of the

growth-focused strategic orientation argue that CFEs must look for ways to lower the costs of

doing business, especially those related to production (Gomes-Casseres, 1997). In short, a growth

focus is a strategic orientation where CFEs would harvest and sell logs (Kozak, 2007).

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This strategic orientation is premised upon an assumption that CFEs are vulnerable to

competition from larger forest companies that have inherent economies-of-scale advantages

(Benner et al., 2014; Macqueen, 2013). Indeed, CFEs are generally categorized as small and

medium forest enterprises (Kozak, 2007), typically having less than 50 full-time staff and

generating much smaller revenues than average sized forest sector firms (BCCFA, 2018;

Humphries et al., 2012). A growth-focused strategic orientation suggests that CFEs can overcome

scale disadvantages, for example, by seeking ‘strength in numbers’ and forming clusters with

similar organizations engaged in the trade of wood products (Villavicencio-Valdez et al., 2012).

Growth-orientation is also practiced by CFEs emerging in developed, forest rich, economies in

Europe and North America, where government-issued forest management licenses and timber

permits facilitate logging activities and timber sales in existing forest markets, often by means of

catering to nearby sawmills and wood manufacturing facilities (Pinkerton & Benner, 2013; Stoian

et al. , 2009). Because these CFEs sell to the same markets as large firm competitors, efficiencies

in harvest operations and identification of low-cost access for transport – sometimes through

forming agreements with larger forest sector firms (Bullock et al., 2009) – become important

components of their business strategies (Pinkerton & Benner, 2013).

However, adopting a growth-focused strategic orientation may be at odds with the multiple

goals of CFEs. For instance, a focus on growth may come at the expense of nimbleness, impede

CFEs from quickly adapting to the shifting demands of buyers and other changes in the

marketplace (Gomes-Casseres, 1997).

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Moreover, a focus on growth may also serve to undermine CFEs’ founding values,

specifically those related to local participation, decentralized decision-making (Hajjar et al., 2011),

and the preservation of cultural and ecological values (Taylor, 2010).

The second strategy, a niche-focused orientation, suggests that CFEs should try to enter

lucrative niche markets to avoid competition from large firms, rather than focusing on lowering

costs. Technological innovations, service integration where non-timber forest products (NTFPs)

are being developed alongside experiential services (e.g. guided tours), and a shift from wild-

harvest to semi-cultivation, offers rising prospects for growth in marketing those products

(Meinhold & Darr, 2019; Weiss, Emery, et al., 2020). Proponents of the niche orientation (Ambus

et al., 2007; Kozak, 2009) argue that CFEs must position themselves in those markets with a focus

on product differentiation and higher value-added goods. CFEs may also look into investing in

specialty and custom production facilities which allow them to efficiently manufacture their

chosen product mixes (Tomaselli et al., 2014). For example, a niche-focused orientation has

allowed CFEs to appeal to targeted markets of environmentally conscious consumers with the sale

of environmentally certified wood products (Ambus et al., 2007; Kozak, 2009). A particular

strength of the niche-focused orientation has to do with strategies for scaling-up CFEs.

Specifically, a niche-focus can allow CFEs to achieve lasting impacts in a location without

necessarily having to grow, if they can identify a niche of loyal customers that are willing to pay

a premium price on the services offered by a CFE. Thus they can generate enough revenue to better

serve a larger number of local beneficiaries, i.e., community members (Ambus et al., 2007;

Macqueen, 2013).

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In other words, in a CFE context, successfully scaling-up refers to the opportunity in CFEs

to develop business models, other than selling raw logs (Kozak, 2009; Macqueen, 2013). However,

there are also competitive risks inherent in a niche-focused strategic orientation, in so much as

niche markets can very quickly become attractive and vulnerable to the entry of larger firms

(Aragón-Correa et al., 2008). Further, this orientation requires that employees and managers

possess the entrepreneurial capacity to identify and retain niches (Ebben & Johnson, 2005), which

may be challenging for resource-constrained organizations like CFEs.

While there is a paucity of literature specifically devoted to the strategic orientations of

CFEs, what does exist parallels the discourse for the for-profit sector, where the pursuit of

competitiveness has traditionally been conceptualized in terms of cost leadership and creating

unique value through differentiation (Porter, 1980). The effectiveness of cost leadership and

differentiation strategic orientations – particularly in the for-profit forest sector – has typically

been conceptualized in terms of financial performance (Hansen et al., 2015; Korhonen et al., 2018;

Panwar et al., 2016). In the context of CFEs, however, the use of financial performance to measure

the effectiveness of strategic orientations is far too limiting. As described in Chapter 1,

effectiveness in the CFE refers to the simultaneous pursuit of plural social, environmental, and

financial goals. Specifically, the social enterprise nature of CFEs is such that performance must

be conceptualized in terms of attaining a plurality of goals – social, environmental, and financial

(Antinori & Bray, 2005).

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While the extant CFE literature provides descriptions of the general nature and broader

benefits associated with the pursuit of competitive strategies (Cubbage et al., 2015; Frey et al.,

2019; Vega & Keenan, 2014), what has yet to be provided is a more nuanced picture of what it

actually means for CFEs to pursue competitiveness in light of plural goals. Thus far, it is not known

how the adoption of a particular competitive posture aligns with CFEs’ abilities to achieve

effectiveness in the form of balanced social, environmental and financial goals. The principal

objective of this chapter is therefore to address this gap through investigating the strategic

behaviour of a population of CFEs in the Cascadia region (British Columbia, Canada, and

Washington and Oregon, USA) and its relationship with the attainment of plural social,

environmental, and financial goals.

4.2 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

Theories on competitive advantage explain how and why organizations acquire superior

performance compared to similar organizations within their specific industry. Building on seminal

works from the mid-20th century (Ansoff, 1965; Chandler, 1962), competitive strategy has evolved

to become a central concept in the business planning process (Guerras-Martín et al., 2014;

Hoskisson et al., 1999). It encompasses decisions that an organization makes to become profitable

and relates to the efforts of a business to stake out a position of comparative advantage in a given

market.

Often, this is reduced to a choice between producing at a lower cost than competitors, or

obtaining a premium price. Porter (1980) famously recast this choice as two generic competitive

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strategies, namely ‘cost leadership’ and ‘differentiation.’ Cost leadership is associated with a

strong focus on efficiency (notably through investment in state-of-the-art production equipment

and technology) and economies of scale. It can involve the removal of non-essential features from

product lines to maintain a low price in the marketplace. Airlines like EasyJet or discount grocers

like Alfie’s No-Frills are examples of companies that cut costs to a minimum and pass their saving

on to customers. Sophisticated supply chain management and business information systems also

play a role in the pursuit of cost leadership. For example, Walmart’s supply chain strategy involves

investing in advanced technology for tracking inventory and stocking shelves, allowing it to keep

consumer prices consistently low (Liechtenstein, 2009).

Porter’s second generic strategy, differentiation, refers to the creation of unique products

and services that cannot easily be imitated by competitors in the same market. A differentiation

strategy can be achieved through product designs which enhance the value of the relationships that

a business forms with its customers. The Apple iPhone, for instance, became globally successful

largely because of its features that spur loyalty, joy of use, and even passion among its users (Noble

& Kumar, 2008). Differentiation can also involve the creation of a user experience. IKEA is an

example of a company that integrates in-store appearances, layouts, and entertainment to appeal

to customers’ hedonic values with the intent of catalyzing higher levels of consumption

(Anderbygd & Asawapittayanon, 2011). The strategy field has demonstrated a link between

Porter’s generic strategies and firm outcomes (see Campbell-Hunt (2000) for a meta-analytic

review from 1983 to 2005, a well as Allen & Helms (2006) for a review of the link between generic

strategies and performance).

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Research on competitiveness has shown that organizations can benefit from cost leadership

and differentiation, but also from the integration of both strategies. Indeed, despite Porter’s initial

claims that superior outcomes eventually necessitate a clear choice between either cost leadership

or differentiation, and despite empirical support for this assertation (Dess & Davis, 1984; Robinson

& Pearce, 1988), there is growing evidence that firms can effectively pursue hybrid strategies,

reaping rewards from combining premium prices with lower costs (Gopalakrishna & Subramanian,

2001; Hansen et al., 2015; Pertusa-Ortega et al., 2009).

The literature also points to negative performance outcomes associated with a lack of

strategic focus and past work has identified failing organizations that do not possess what can best

be described as ‘strategic thrust’ (Robinson & Pearce, 1988). When businesses forego

opportunities associated with the pursuit of competitiveness, the result has decisively been overall

lower performance (Bowman & Ambrosini, 1997; Hansen et al., 2015; Lechner & Gudmundsson,

2014). The bulk of the literature on the strategy-performance link is focused on financial

performance, where it is assumed that outcomes associated with strategic orientation are generally

positive. Research that studies goal plurality in organizations has pointed to a more nuanced link

between strategy and performance that may not be universally positive. Studies on firms’

community engagement activities, for instance, observed a positive relationship between the

adoption of a differentiation strategy and the ability to reap business benefits through social

activities (Boehe & Barin Cruz, 2010; McWilliams et al., 2006), a practice commonly denoted as

the ‘business case for corporate social responsibility’ (Orlitzky et al., 2003). However, it could not

uncover such a relationship with regards to cost leadership strategies (Banker et al., 2014; Panwar

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et al., 2016). In some instances, like the energy and waste efficiency sectors, a focus on cost

leadership may be commensurate with environmental initiatives (Orlitzky et al., 2011), but this

focus has generally not been found to favour the advancement of the core community and

sustainability objectives that many other nonprofit and social enterprises espouse (Austin et al.,

2006; Weerawardena & Sullivan Mort, 2012).

In nonprofit organizations and social enterprises, differentiation, rather than cost

leadership, is seen as commensurate with the simultaneous pursuit of social mission-related and

financial objectives. It has even been emphasized that social enterprises possess certain resource

advantages that allow them to naturally benefit from differentiation (Haigh & Hoffman, 2014).

Notably, attention has been focused on their favourable public image. They are seen as

organizations that are built from the ground up to empower marginalized communities (Fosfuri et

al., 2016), Attention is also on their proactive attitude towards partnerships and collaborations, for

instance, in programs for sustainability and ethical certification of products and services (Lee &

Jay, 2015).

On the other hand, it has been suggested that nonprofit and social enterprises have a certain

proclivity to place a low emphasis on overall strategic orientation (Battilana et al., 2012), putting

these organizations at a somewhat higher risk to miss out on market opportunities. Lack of business

savvy (Moizer & Tracey, 2010), or an internal culture that rejects ‘mainstream’ approaches to

business and marketing (Weerawardena & Sullivan Mort, 2012), have been posited as reasons for

a tendency to place a lower emphasis on strategic orientation.

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Competitive strategies for CFEs generally focus on growth and niche orientations, with the

former resembling elements of Porter’s cost leadership generic strategy and the latter being akin

to differentiation (Cubbage et al., 2015; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). Cost leadership, in a CFE

context, is inherently part of the clustering activities of many CFEs based in the Global South,

which form producer associations and joint ventures in wood manufacturing and distribution

(Cubbage et al., 2015; Tomaselli et al., 2014; Villavicencio-Valdez et al., 2012). Through the

sharing of resources and production capacities, these CFEs managed to achieve scale advantages

allowing them to enter mainstream forest product markets in their respective countries (Macqueen,

2013), with some even exporting internationally (Villavicencio-Valdez et al., 2012).

Differentiation strategies in CFEs revolve around the pursuit of a range of value-added activities

in markets for timber products and NTFPs, which has been documented in case studies involving

CFEs around the world (Ambus et al., 2007; Carías-Vega, 2019; Kozak, 2009). Here, CFEs

leverage unique local resources, notably the relationships they form with networks of community

and NGO partners, to explore product and service offerings that reflect CFEs’ nature as locally

and sustainability oriented social enterprises (Smith et al., 2018; Tomaselli et al., 2014)

Overall, the existing accounts of CFEs’ competitive strategy behaviors have generally been

associated with positive benefits. First, in developing a particularly competitive posture, be it cost

leadership or differentiation, CFEs are expected to gain more independence from government

grants and charitable donations as a prime source of income, positioning these organizations as

financially sustainable organizations in forest-based markets (Cubbage et al., 2015; Sanchez-

Badini et al., 2018).

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Second, adopting competitive postures can also enhance CFEs’ image as business savvy

organizations (Macqueen, 2013), making it more likely to attract investments and develop business

partnerships beyond the circle of NGOs, government agencies, and the other ‘usual suspects’ that

support community forestry, such as researchers and community organizations. Yet, while the

extant CFE literature provides descriptions of the general nature and broader benefits associated

with the pursuit of competitive strategies, what has yet to be provided is a more nuanced picture

of what it actually means for CFEs to pursue competitiveness in light of plural goals. Just as in any

type of SE, CFEs’ structures and activities must support a balancing of plural goals (Diochon &

Anderson, 2009), and avoid ‘skewness’ in achieving financial sustainability at the expense of core

environmental and community objectives (Cornforth, 2014). CFEs seek a much larger goal of

addressing pressing challenges around social marginalization, responsible environmental

stewardship, and sustainability of forest-dependent communities (Bullock & Hanna, 2012). While

this certainly involves the need for financial sustainably, possibly even profitability, it is not the

primary motivation for their existence. Rather, they emphasize the importance of collective

governance structures that support community participation (Taylor, 2010). CFEs also emphasize

rotating available employment amongst locals (Hajjar et al., 2013) and, if CFEs are owned by

Indigenous groups, there is a focus on incorporating traditional ontologies and epistemologies in

the organizational process (Antinori & Bray, 2005). Thus far, however, it is not known how the

adoption of a particular competitive posture aligns with CFEs’ abilities to achieve effectiveness in

the form of balanced social, environmental and financial goals.

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This lack of insight is also striking insofar as the majority of research on the growth

potential and competitiveness of CFEs focuses on developing countries (Carias-Vega & Keenan,

2016; Cubbage et al., 2015; Kozak, 2009; Molnar et al., 2008). What strategic choice looks like

for CFEs in high-income countries, such as Canada and the United States, where they are

embedded in an industrialized forestry context (Teitelbaum, 2014), is not yet known.

The small body of work on CFEs in high-income countries has focused on community-

managed woodlands in England (Ambrose et al., 2015; Ludvig et al., 2018), but does not extend

to Canada and the United States. This is not to say that scholars have not provided valuable case-

based evidence of CFEs operating as part of community forestry initiatives in Canada and the

United States (Belsky, 2008; Bullock et al., 2009; Teitelbaum et al., 2006), and the identification

of these multiple benefits. But more concerted efforts are warranted where insights from

management and organizational theory are drawn to explore prospects and challenges of CFEs in

this part of the world, with a particular focus on the business practices that allow them to deliver

on these outcomes while remaining competitive. Therefore, this dissertation chapter asks: What is

the relationship between CFEs’ strategic orientation and organizational effectiveness?

A focus on differentiation seems conducive to CFEs’ pursuit of plural goals as locally-

rooted, small organizations. Because of CFEs’ built-in features, such as collective governance and

rootedness in place, they may evade competition from larger timber producers if they explore

markets for specialty wood products, NTFPs, or recreational services, to name a few examples

(Bliss & Kelly, 2008).

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Indeed, the localized character of CFEs might even be a strategic resource in and of itself

(Rangone, 1999) that allows them to reach a loyal customer base that values their focus on

community and locally-produced goods. For example, many CFEs supply timber to local sawmills,

as opposed to selling to faraway markets, and partner with other local actors in exploring

opportunities for business (Frey et al., 2019). In these instances, logging practices by CFEs have

been shown to be more acceptable to the public because their smaller scale is seen to be more

conducive to a stewardship orientation and ‘caring’ for the land (Bliss & Kelly, 2008). For all the

above reasons, this chapter will systematically assess this assumption by testing the following

hypothesis:

H1. Pursuit of a differentiation strategy is related with CFE effectiveness

An interesting question revolves around whether the two extremes of pure differentiation

or cost leadership are the only options available for CFEs to position themselves competitively.

Some CFE accounts report instances where the focus on efficiency in operations is accompanied

by a simultaneous exploration of value-added opportunities (Ambus et al., 2007; Villavicencio

Valdez et al., 2012). Adopting a hybrid strategic orientation could mean that CFEs not only engage

a variety of activities to be financially self-sufficient, but do so in a manner that is responsive to

local social and environmental objectives by engaging in value-added activities. This should, in

theory, translate into sustainable outcomes on all three sustainability dimensions. However,

whether these efforts can be regarded as intentional in terms of CFEs’ strategy-making is not

understood.

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Therefore, this chapter will also explore the relationship between the pursuit of hybrid

strategies and the ability to perform well on plural dimensions by testing the following hypothesis:

H2. The relationship between strategic choice and effectiveness is higher in mixed CFEs,

compared to others

Some research on CFEs has observed that there may not only be a lack of business savvy within

the CFEs, but a certain reluctance amongst community members to fully engage with the

commercial mandate of the organization out of ideological convictions that CFEs ‘do things

differently’ than traditional forest businesses (Macqueen, 2013). However, being successful in the

marketplace has generally been found to be positively correlated with the ability to remain

commercially viable and accumulate the necessary resources to advance their broader social and

environmental objectives (Cubbage et al., 2015). In other words, CFEs that pursue some sort of

strategic orientation are expected to be better off than those that lack such a strategic thrust.

Therefore, this chapter will also assess the general claim that the pursuit of competitive orientations

will generally translate well into an ability for CFEs to meet their plural performance objectives

with the following hypothesis:

H3. There is a positive relationship between strategic orientation and effectiveness

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4.3 Methods

4.3.1 Sample and Data

Data collection took place over a four-month period and began in May 2019. An electronic

survey was distributed to the managers of 89 CFEs in the Cascadia region (British Columbia,

Canada, and Oregon and Washington, United States) who have managed a working forest for at

least one year. The relatively large total number of active CFEs, and the diversity of organizational

forms, activities, and actors involved, make Cascadia a suitable region to investigate the research

questions in this chapter.

The region has seen a surge in community forestry activity since the late 20th century, albeit

under varying degrees of institutionalization. In 1998, the Province of British Columbia introduced

legislation in support of community forestry, allowing for the decentralized forest resource

management at the level of local and Indigenous governments, as well as by community

organizations (Ambus, 2016). Over 60 CFEs have since been established throughout the province

under a community forest tenure program.

Community forestry practices in Oregon and Washington, thus far, exist informally, with

civil society coalitions forming processes, groups, and organizations to re-orient forest

management practices towards decentralization, sometimes in partnership with county and forest

service authorities (Davis et al., 2020). This has resulted in the formation of a small, but growing,

number of CFEs, where community stakeholders, in partnership with local forestry practitioners,

create economic opportunities through the US Forest Service’s system for selling timber and

distributing service contracts (Abrams et al., 2015).

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Despite differences in institutionalization, both Canadian and US CFEs in Cascadia receive

support from industry associations that provide training, business mentoring, and advocacy for

established and aspiring CFEs; these include the British Columbia (BC) Community Forest

Association (BCCFA) and the Northwest Community Forestry Coalition in Washington and

Oregon State.

The BC sampling frame included CFEs identified through consulting a publicly available

government list (dated January 10, 20193) of community forest agreement (CFA) holders, as well

as web searches and, when necessary, phone calls to the organizations to verify commercial

activity of CFA holders, which yielded 61 CFEs that fit the study criteria. The US CFE population

data – given the absence of an official community forestry policy in the states of Oregon and

Washington – was sought from a list published in a 2018 community forestry report commissioned

by the WA State legislature4.

A list of CFEs in Oregon and Washington, administered by the Northwest Community

Forest Coalition, served as additional source of information5. Cross-comparison of both lists and

verification of CFE status (i.e., commercial activity criterion) yielded a total of 28 CFEs for the

3https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/forestry/timber-tenures/community-

forest-agreements/current_cfa_status_report.pdf, accessed Feb 2, 2020. Two CFEs are not on the government lists of

CFA agreement holder because they are run under a Tree Farm License, but were included in the study because of

their nature as municipal forests and members of the BCCFA (British Columbia Community Forest Association,

2020). 4https://apps.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Home/GetPDF?fileName=Community%20Forest%20Program%

20Development%20Report%20%28Packaged%29_39eb763b-4fcd-4657-b4e0-a55511e9573e.pdf, accessed Feb 3,

2020. 5 This database also contained information on a few community forestry initiatives in Alaska, Idaho, and Montana.

However, initial assessment revealed that neither of these projects is currently involved in active forest management

to generate revenue, which is why they were not included in the study.

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two US States combined. The email addresses of the managers for all of the 89 CFEs identified

(61 BC-based and 28 US-based) were obtained for the online survey through web searches or

phone calls to the organization. The survey was designed using Qualtricsxm software provided by

the University of British Columbia and distributed under the auspices of “CFE Manager Survey”

with the following e-mail subject line: “Help us identify effective business strategies for CFEs.”

Data collection followed the general principles of the Tailored Design Method (Dillman et al.,

2014), which included sending a second and third wave of reminders to participate in the online

survey (sent three weeks after the first and second wave, respectively)6.

A total of 55 questionnaires was received (Figure 6), 53 of which were online survey

responses and two were conducted via the telephone. The response rate for the US based CFEs

(39%) was lower than the BC sample, but still within the typical range of survey responses

(Dillman et al., 2014). One questionnaire was incomplete and three came from organizations that

indicated that they do not engage in any commercial activities, leaving a number of 51 complete

questionnaires that met the study criteria for the analysis, with an adjusted total response rate of

61%. Figure 6 shows the location of survey respondents on a map. Nonresponse bias was tested

by comparing early and late respondents (those that responded in the first wave, versus those

responding in the final, third wave), as recommended by Armstrong & Overton (1977).

6 An offer was also made to participants to conduct the survey via telephone instead during follow-up rounds.

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Using a t-test, no statistically significant difference between the two groups was found in

any of the main study constructs7 (p>.05).

.

Figure 6 Locations of Survey Participants8

7 The main study constructs were competitive orientation (IV) and a three-dimensional – social, environmental,

financial – sustainability performance variable (DV). See Table 3-2 for an overview of the study constructs. 8 Location markers represent the geographic location of participants’ IP addresses at the time they completed the

survey and may not represent the locations of the CFEs themselves.

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In a second test, a separate continuous variable (days taken to respond) was created and

included as a continuous variable in a regression model with performance as the dependent, and

competitive orientation (differentiation and cost leadership) as the independent variable (Lindner

et al., 2001). The model did not yield statistically significant results, providing further indication

that early and late respondents did not differ in the study.

4.3.2 Survey Design

Because of CFEs’ small size, effectiveness was not assessed using readily available

indicators (e.g., KLD scores9) which are typically used for large firms. Instead, a self-report

instrument was developed, as recommended in previous studies (Wall et al., 2004), alongside

collecting information on organizational demographics (e.g. age, location, sized, and type of

ownership) that are understood to affect strategic orientation and performance in the context of

small firms and social enterprises (Liu et al., 2014; Weerawardena & Sullivan Mort, 2012). Self-

reporting was also deemed appropriate based on recommendations by Dess and Robinson (1984),

who note that the use of subjective measures lends itself well to the operationalization of broader,

non-economic dimensions (p.271). Scale items were primarily taken from the peer-reviewed

literature to increase content validity (Nunnally, 1994).

9 KLD standard of performance criteria were created by KLD Research & Analytics Inc., which became part of

Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) in 2001. Scores are awarded to companies which demonstrate social

and environmental commitment based on 5 key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. Over 90 percent

of index holdings are dedicated to large companies. https://www.nbs.net/articles/msci-kld-scores, accessed September

16, 2020.

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In the absence of a commonly accepted measure to study effectiveness in social and

nonprofit enterprises (Herman & Renz, 2004), multiple sources informed the development of scale

items. An initial pool of scale items was then reduced to those that focused on the operational

definitions used for the dependent and independent variables in this study. Traditionally, constructs

used to measure social enterprise effectiveness have been adopted from the literature that studies

for-profit enterprises, adding or amending items as applicable (Chen & Hsu, 2013; Herman &

Renz, 2004; Morris et al., 2007).

However, research on scale development has also focused on novel constructs that are

reflective of the dual social and commercial nature of social enterprises, capturing important

notions around moral principles, self-help, equity, and provision of long-term training and

education benefits (Coombes et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2014; Miles et al., 2014). In line with the

former approach, this study measured effectiveness using scale-items that examine subjective

opinions on CFEs’ performance in several broader areas related to their mission, rather than

measuring specific performance indicators (revenues, assets, fundraising ratios etc.). The scale that

best fit the above criteria was deemed to be a multi-item, dual-construct performance scale by

Miles and colleagues (2014). This uses six social performance and four financial performance

items to assess effectiveness in social enterprise organizations. Aside from measuring the

constructs of interest in the study, it was assessed for construct validity, yielding good results, with

coefficient alphas of 0.73 and higher (Bhattarai et al., 2019; Miles et al., 2014).

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The use of simple, straightforward language was another criterion in incorporating scale

items that unambiguously measure constructs of interest. Examples of broader questions revolved

around respondents’ perceptions of “improvements in financial sustainably,” or “mobilization of

interest for the social benefits of community forestry.” Respondents were also asked to evaluate

statements of long-terms benefits, such as “advocating for local needs” or the extent of “positive

change brought to the community.” Since no applicable measures of the effectiveness of

environmental outcomes could be found, six scale items were developed for this study by drawing

from environmental indicators identified in the community forestry literature, such as “practicing

environmental advocacy” and “championing sustainable forest stewardship” (Hajjar et al., 2011;

Pagdee et al., 2006; Teitelbaum, 2014).

The wording of these items was then modeled based on formats used in published scales

on the social effectiveness of social enterprises (Miles et al., 2014). The new scale items were

assessed and approved by two senior academics with expertise in forest sector and management

research fields. Furthermore, scale items from widely used scales that operationalized Porters’

generic strategies (Dess & Davis, 1984; Robinson & Pearce, 1988) were re-worded to capture

central terminologies familiar to actors in the context of CFEs (e.g. value-added activities; sales of

primary commodities). The choice was to assess cost-focus and differentiation as two distinct

dimensions of strategic orientation, measured via separate scales, as opposed to two ends of a

continuum. This choice was motivated by the intent to capture pure, but also mixed strategies, as

well as CFEs with few strategic priorities (Bowman & Ambrosini, 1997). This resulted in a total

number of 24 scale-items, not including organizational demographics.

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In total, three main constructs were used with a minimum of four positively-worded,

closed-ended questions (see Table 10). Response formats included measures of the levels of

agreement (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”) on a 5-point Likert scale, which helped reveal

underlying variances in participant responses (Miles et al., 2014). Information on organizational

demographics (e.g., CFE age, size, and location) was collected at the end of the survey using

categorical and open-ended question formats, such as “what is the form of ownership of this

organization?” or “what products/services does the organization offer?” (See Appendix C for the

survey instrument in its entirety).

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Table 10 Summary of study constructs

Construct Description References

Published

Scale

Effectiveness

Perceived opinions of the organizations’

performance

in areas related to the broader (social) mission

(Coombes et al., 2011)

(Liu et al., 2014)

Yes

Yes

Effectiveness

Contributions to long-term value creation

through moral principles, self-help, empathy,

training, and empowerment

(Miles et al., 2014)

Yes

Effectiveness

Perceived opinions of CFEs’ contributions to

environmental sustainability

Hajjar et al., (2011)

Pagdee et al., (2006)

Teitelbaum, (2014)

No

No

No

Strategic Orientation Perceptions of strategic priorities executed in the

organization

(Bowman & Ambrosini, 1997)

(Dess & Davis, 1984)

Yes

Yes

Strategic Orientation

Perceptions of internal importance ratings for

different sources of competitive advantage

(Miller & Friesen, 1986)

(Robinson & Pearce, 1988)

Yes

Yes

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A number of steps were taken to minimize respondent fatigue and complacency. The

survey instrument was pre-tested through an internal expert review (Presser & Blair, 1994), using

ten research colleagues who were not affiliated with the study. This step resulted in minor revisions

for improved readability. Social desirability bias can be an issue in organizations focused on

demonstrating community and environmental responsiveness (Liu et al., 2014) In this study it was

minimized by asking CFE managers to rate performance during a certain time period in their own

organization, rather than enlisting comparisons with competitors in the same industry, as is

common practice in the study of for-profit organizations (Bowman & Ambrosini, 1997; Dess &

Robinson, 1984) .

Use of five-point response scales for the main constructs offered the opportunity for

participants to express a neutral response, rather than being forced to respond positively or

negatively (Nadler et al., 2015). As the same respondents were asked to rate both dependent and

independent variables in the same self-administrated survey, measures were taken to reduce risk

for common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This involved guaranteeing confidentiality of

responses, as well as strategically distributing variables in the questionnaire and altering question

formats. For example, constant-sum questions were used (where participants were asked to allot

100 points to the relative importance of social, environmental, and financial objectives in the

organization) and semantic differential questions (which sought additional information on CFEs’

strategic orientations). The presence of a common method bias was assessed with Harman’s single

factor test on the main study constructs (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

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Harman’s single factors model specifies that all of the items in the research model should

be subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, using unrotated principal axis factors analysis (fixed

one-factor only). Results showed that the single factor explained less than 50% of variance

(23.7%), a level that cannot invalidate the relationship between dependent and independent

variables (Fuller et al., 2016), and confirming that a common method bias was not an issue.

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4.3.3 Data Analysis

Upon completion of the data collection, participants’ responses were exported into IBM

SPSS Statistics 26 program to conduct univariate and bivariate statistical analyses. First, mean

scores were computed on the Likert scale constructs in the study (Boone, 2012). A list of variable

names is included in Table 11.

Table 11 List of variables

Variable Name Variable

Dependent Variable

SP

EP

FP

Independent Variables

Diff

CostLead

Organizational Demographics

Size

Age

Location

Ownership

Certification

Performance

Social Performance

Environmental Performance

Financial Performance

Strategic Orientations

Differentiation

Cost Leadership

Size in forest hectare

Age in years

Location (Canada/US)

Form of ownership

Participation in forest certification program

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To assess scale reliability, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (a) were computed for the first-

order, multi-item constructs (Table 12). The performance constructs all indicated reliable measures

above the minimum value of 0.70, as suggested by (Nunnally, 1994). Cost leadership and

differentiation scales were below the recommended threshold, but still above 0.50, and therefore,

moderately reliable (Hinton et al., 2004, p. 364). Responses to the open-ended survey questions

were grouped into categories, whereby information about products and services offered was used

to create binary (yes/no) variables to distinguish between CFEs with multiple versus unitary

revenue streams, and to identify CFEs engaged in value-added activities and/or those which

participate in a forest certification program. Information about organizational ownership (closed

and open-ended question formats from the questionnaire) was re-grouped into five categories. CFE

age and size were measured as continuous variables, and reported as such.

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Table 12 Reliability coefficients of variables

Factors and Items Means Std.

Deviations

Cronbach’s

Alphas (a)

a

if item deleted

Social Performance (SP)

SP_1

SP_2

SP_3

SP_4

SP_5

SP_6

Environmental Performance (EP)

EP_1

EP_2

EP_3

EP_4

EP_5

EP_6

Financial Performance (FP)

FP_1

FP_2

FP_3

FP_4

Cost Leadership (CostLead)

CostLead_1

Costlead_2

CostLead_3

CostLead_4

Differentiation (Diff)

Diff_1

Diff_2

Diff_3

Diff_4

24.94

24.93

16.84

14.10

13.4

2.85

3.15

2.96

2.54

2.73

.766

.828

.821

.545

.695

.749

.721

.782

.724

.690

.711

.810

.798

.813

.810

.789

.777

.806

.726

.757

.810

.575

.542

.369

.409

.616

.656

.727

.486

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Pearson’s correlation coefficients (Table 13) showed that there were correlations between

financial performance and the main observed independent variables. The results also showed that

there were significant correlations between CFE location and CFE age, and between CFE location

and forest certification. However, these did not affect the main observed variables as the variance

inflation factor (VIF) was below 2 (O’Brien, 2007).

Table 13 Pearson’s correlations for observed dependent and independent variables

Specification A B C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A. Social

Performance 1 .67** .45** .13 .06 013 .11 -.19 .15 -.13

B.Environ.

Performance 1 .26 .03 .03 -.04 .22 -.11 -.09 -.10

C. Financial

Performance 1 .456** .32* .04** -.16 -.22 .04 .10

1.Cost

Leadership 1 .06 .17 -.20 .23 .01 .03

2.

Differentiation 1 -.01 -.17 .13 -.07 -.02

3. CFE

Ownershipi 1 -.13 .01 .09 -.06

4. CFE

Locationii 1 -.24 .35* -.31*

5.CFE Size 1 -.09 .07

6. CFE Age 1 -.19

7.Forest

Certificationiii 1

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level

*Correlation is significant at the .05 level i1=Nonprofit, 2=Indigenous, 3=Cooperative, 4=Partnership, 5=Municipality/County ii1=Canada, 2=US iii Yes=1, No=2

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4.4 Results

Analyses were based on the sample of 51 CFEs. Results of statistical techniques applied to

test each of the study hypotheses are reported below.

4.4.1 Descriptive Information

A k-means cluster analysis was performed to divide the CFEs in the sample based on their

effectiveness in balancing social, environmental and financial performance. The analysis was

performed on the composite mean scores of the sixteen survey items that measured performance.

A three-cluster solution was derived, based on comparing the iteration histories and F-values with

two and four cluster solutions respectively. Separately conducted ANOVAs further confirmed the

three-cluster solution. These were done with performance composites as the dependent variable

and the clusters as factors, using a post-hoc Tukey test. Cluster one (Balanced Performers) consists

of a large number of effective CFEs who did manage to perform well financially, while also doing

well socially and environmentally. Cluster two (Skewed Performers) comprises a relatively large

set of less effective CFEs that performed well financially but achieved only moderate social and

environmental performance. Finally, cluster three (Low Performers) is a small group of less

effective CFEs that performed well socially and environmentally but had very low financial

performance.

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The k-means clustering methodology was also applied to the eight differentiation and cost

leadership items, which yielded a three-cluster solution using the same cluster validation

procedures as above (see table 14 for mean scores). Cluster 1 (Pure Differentiators) is a small

group of CFEs that strongly emphasized differentiation, with a low focus on cost leadership.

Cluster 2 (Mixed Strategists) includes CFEs that placed high emphasis on both differentiation and

cost leadership. Finally, Cluster 3 (Strategically Irresolutes) is a moderately sized group of CFEs

that have a low focus on differentiation, as well as cost leadership.

Table 14 Cluster means (n=51)

Performance Clusters Mean SP Mean EP Mean FP

Balanced Performers

Skewed Performers

Low Performers

4.53

3.91

3.75

4.51

3.79

4.00

4.64

4.32

3.03

Strategy Clusters Mean Diff Mean CostLead

Pure Differentiators

Mixed Strategists

Strategically Irresolutes

4.13

3.53

2.54

2.83

4.02

3.07

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Both sets of clusters were then compared to each other using a chi-square test with the

Fisher’s exact test for small sample sizes (n=51, p=.013). In so doing, support could be found for

the first hypothesis, namely that the pursuit of differentiation is associated with effectiveness in

attaining a balancing of social, environmental, and financial performance dimensions. Half of the

CFEs that comprised the Pure Differentiators were also classified as Balanced Performers (Table

15). Additionally, the majority of the Strategically Irresolutes were also Low Performers,

indicating that low strategic orientation is associated with lower effectiveness in balancing social,

environmental, and financial performance.

Table 15 Results of chi-square analysis with k-means clusters

Pure

Differentiators

Mixed

Strategists

Strat.

Irresolutes

X2

n % n % n % .013*

Balanced

Performers 5 50% 14 52 4 22%

Skewed

Performers 3 30% 12 44 3 28%

Low

Performers 2 20% 1 4 7 50%

TOTAL 10 100% 27 100% 14 100%

*Results significant at the 0.05 level; Fisher’s Exact Test

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The performance clusters were also compared with each other using descriptive

information (Table 16), providing further support for Hypothesis 1. Not only were Balanced

Performers the group with the largest share of Pure Differentiators, they were also the ones that

engaged the most in value-added activities and forest certification programs, two activities

commonly associated with the pursuit of differentiation in CFEs.

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Table 16 Descriptive information based on k-means clusters

Characteristics Balanced

Performers

Skewed

Performers

Low

Performers

Strategic Orientation (%)

Pure Differentiators 22% 16.5% 20%

Mixed Strategists 61% 67% 10%

Strategically Irresolutes 17% 16.5% 70%

Average CFE Age (years) 17 18 12

Average Community Forest Size (ha) 22.000 31.200 37.000

CFE Location (%)

British Columbia 83% 89% 70%

Oregon & Washington 17% 11% 30%

Organization Form (%)

Nonprofit/Society 8,7% 16.7% 50.0%

Indigenous Ownership 13.0% 0.0% 10.0%

Cooperative 8,7% 0.0% 0.0%

Partnership 8,7% 22.1% 10.0%

Municipally/Country-Owned 60.9% 61.1% 30.0%

Forest Certification (%)

yes 13% 11% 10%

no 87% 89% 90%

Value-Added Activities (%)

yes 30.0% 17.0% 10.0%

no 70.0% 83.0% 90.0%

Multiple Revenue Sources (%)

yes 48.0% 50.0% 30.0%

no 52.0% 50.0% 70.0%

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4.4.2 ANOVA Results

To test the second study hypothesis, one-way ANOVAs (α = 0.05) were conducted on all

sixteen individual performance items, using the k-means strategy groupings as the predictor

variable. The results indicate significant differences between CFE strategic orientations on all

financial performance items. However, only one social and one environmental performance item

(out of six each) showed statistical significance. In other words, there exists a weak association

between CFEs’ strategic orientations and these two performance dimensions.

With regards to financial performance, post-hoc Scheffe tests indicated partial support for

Hypothesis 2 (Table 17). For all financial performance variables, FP1 through FP4, the mean

scores for the Mixed Strategists were significantly different than the Strategically Irresolutes, but

not from Pure Differentiators, with the exception of FP4, where Mixed Strategists also differed

from Pure Differentiators at the 0.10 level. Thus, support can be found for the hypothesized

difference in financial performance between CFEs that adopt mixed strategic orientations versus

those that lack strategic thrust. However, only limited statistical support can be found for the

hypothesized difference in performance between Mixed Strategists and Pure Differentiators.

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Table 17 ANOVA results

Variable

Pure

Differentiators

(PureDiffs)

Mixed

Strategists

(Mixed)

Strategically

Irresolutes

(NonStrats)

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Sig.

Scheffe post-

hoc

FP1” […] generating

funds to support local

benefits”

4.40 0.69

4.48

1.21

3.64

0.75

0.031*b

Mixed differ

from NonStrats

(.024*)

FP2 “[…] we have

increased our

effectiveness”

4.40 0.69 4.44 0.10

1 3.50 0.68 0.002

Mixed differ

from NonStrats

(.003*)

FP3 “[…] our financial

situation has improved”

4.30

0.83

4.56

0.99

3.71

0.57

0.006*

Mixed differ

from NonStrats

(.006*)

FP4” We are financially

sustainable"

3.80

1.13

4.59

1.22

3.57

0.57

0.016*b

Mixed differ

from PureDiffs

(.072**) and

from NonStrats

(.005*)

EP5 “[…] we have met

our environmental

objectives”

3.8 0.91 4.41 0.61 4.07 0.57 0.041*

Mixed differ

from NonStrats

(.056*)

SP4 “[…] mobilize

interest for the social

benefits of community

forestry”

4.50 0.70 4.07 0.74 3.64 0.67 0.017*

PureDiffs differ

from NonStrats

(.018*)

SP5 “[…] met

objectives in terms of

local needs served”

4.1 0.87 4.26 0.72 3.71 0.59 0.066*

*

Mixeddiffer

from NonStrats

(.067**)

*Results significant at the .05 level; ** Results significant at the .10 level bBrown-Forsythe test See Appendix D for a full list of ANOVA results

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4.4.3 OLS Regression Results

To test the third study hypothesis, simple linear regressions (ordinary leased squares OLS)

were used to predict CFE social performance (model 1), environmental performance (model 2),

and financial performance (model 3) based on strategic orientations using the mean composites of

the differentiation and cost leadership variables. Community forest size, CFE age, location, forest

certification status, and ownership were also included in the models as additional predictors. The

models for social, environmental, and financial performance were as follows:

Model 1: Social Performance = differentiation + costleadership + OrgSize_ha + OrgAge

+ Sustainability Certification + OrgLocation +OrgOwnership + e

Model 2: Environmental Performance = differentiation + costleadership + OrgSize_ha +

OrgAge + Sustainability Certification + OrgLocation +OrgOwnership + e

Model 3: Financial Performance = differentiation + costleadership + OrgSize_ha +

OrgAge + Sustainability Certification + OrgLocation +OrgOwnership + e

Models 1 and 2 on CFE social performance (F(7,41) = 0.696, p > .05, R2 = .106) and

environmental performance (F(7,41) = .792, p >.05, R2 = .119) were not statistically significant.

However, Model 3 indicated a good fit with the data and explained over 50 % of the variance in

financial performance (F(7,41) = 8.079, p < .001, R2 = .580). Therefore, partial support was found

for Hypothesis 3, that there exists a positive relationship between the pursuit of competitiveness

and performance in CFE.

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The higher CFEs’ cost leadership (ß.442 p<.001) and differentiation orientations (ß.332

p<.001), the higher financial performance. Regression Model 3 also showed a positive relationship

between the type of CFE ownership and financial performance (ß.327 p<0.001)10. And, a

statistically significant negative relationship was found between CFE forest size (in hectare) and

financial performance, with smaller forestlands yielding higher financial outcomes (ß -.407

p<.001). This finding is in line with previous work that found evidence of decreasing returns to

scale, where smaller CFEs yielded relatively higher productivity per unit of input (Frey et al.,

2019). Case-based evidence from past literature demonstrates that CFEs, and similar small forestry

businesses that operate on smaller land areas, are more innovative with respect to environmental

practices (Egunyu et al., 2016; Panwar et al., 2016). Although, the regression results in this work

do not provide statistical evidence for the link between competitive strategy and environmental

performance. As for the Cascadia region, size of forest area allotted to CFEs does not imply more

timber harvest rights. In BC, some of the CFEs with the largest forest area hold relatively low

annual allowable cut rates, compared to CFEs that operate on small forestlands (British Columbia

Community Forest Association, 2020). With CFEs being small organizations, having oversight

over large forestlands, major parts of which might be reserved for conservation, can post a liability

in terms of the costs of oversight (Davis et al., 2020; Pinkerton & Benner, 2013).

10Ownership was computed as categorical variable, where 1 = Nonprofit, 2 = Indigenous-Owned, 3 = Cooperative, 4

= Limited Partnership, 5 = Municipally-Owned. In the regression model, the positive relationship connotes that the

higher financial performance, the higher the rating in the categorical ownership variable (i.e. limited partnership and

municipal ownership, as opposed to lower number categories) .

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4.5 Discussion

CFEs are generally perceived to generate positive socio-economic and environmental

effects in the communities where they exist. Yet, few studies have investigated empirically the

viability of CFEs in terms of their strategic positioning on markets for forest products and services

(Cubbage et al., 2015; Frey et al., 2019). The main objective in this chapter was to assess the

relationship between CFEs’ competitive positioning and performance in the North American

Cascadia region where CFEs are on the rise amid a declining forest industry and increased public

demand for policy towards greater sustainability in forest management. This was done by: a)

situating CFE competitiveness within classic competitive strategy frameworks, b) identifying

types of strategic orientations in CFEs in Cascadia, and c) establishing whether the pursuit of these

strategies is commensurate with CFEs’ effectiveness in terms of attaining plural social,

environmental and financial goals. Table 18 summarizes the study hypotheses that formed the

basis of the investigation. The results reveal that all three hypotheses were supported, but the latter

two only partially so.

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Table 18 Original study hypotheses and test results

Hypotheses Analysis Result

H1. Pursuit of a differentiation strategy is related to CFE

effectiveness

k-Means Cluster

Analysis &

Chi-Square Test

Supported

H2. The relationship between strategic choice and

effectiveness is higher in mixed CFEs compared to others

One-Way

ANOVAs

Partially

supported

H3. There is a positive relationship between strategic

orientation and effectiveness

Linear

Regressions

Partially

supported

The results of this study inform ongoing debates about the need for CFEs to become more

competitive, while being able to also meet their wider community and environmental goals (Frey

et al., 2019; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). For example, this study found support for the assertion

that the pursuit of differentiation strategies, where CFEs compete through tapping niche markets

for value-added products and services, are a particularly suitable strategy given CFEs’ focus on

plural goals (Ambus et al., 2007). The CFEs that indicated a strong focus on differentiation in their

strategic postures reported consistent outcomes across social, environmental, and financial

performance (the ‘Balanced Performers’ in the cluster analysis).

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Notably, many of these ‘Balanced Performer’ CFEs were cooperatives and/or Indigenous-

owned, yet only comprised a small group (ten organizations) within the Cascadia region. The

descriptive statistical analyses revealed that the majority of the CFEs in the study sample were

municipally and/or county owned and classified as Mixed Strategists. That is, they predominantly

indicated cost leadership in their strategic orientation, emphasizing efficiency gains and growth in

forest management and timber sales, while also exploring opportunities for differentiation. The

literature has suggested that CFEs largely follow either a cost leadership or a differentiation path

(Cubbage et al., 2015; Macqueen, 2013) – that is, they make a choice between obtaining scale

advantages, for instance, through clustering with similar organizations (Villavicencio-Valdez et

al., 2012), or by tapping into novel niche markets, like those for custom-manufactured and

sustainably-grown wood products (Ambus et al., 2007; Kozak, 2009). This chapter shows,

however, that CFEs in the Cascadia region appear to do a bit of both, albeit with a stronger focus

on cost leadership orientation.

The attention that was given to cost leadership may seem expected, considering the

industry that CFEs belong to. Forest sector organizations, by and large, are known to emphasize

cost leadership (Hansen et al., 2015; Toppinen et al., 2013). Yet, the findings still surprise. Given

that CFEs stand for a different approach in the forest sector, one that emphasizes community and

stakeholder participation in sustainably utilizing forestlands, one may expect differentiation to be

more prevalent in CFEs’ competitive orientations.

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A possible explanation why this was not the case might be the context of this study. In the

Cascadia region, CFEs emerge against a backdrop of a declining forest industry, which results in

the closure of large mills and high rates of unemployment in traditional forestry towns (Abrams et

al., 2015; Pinkerton et al., 2008). While many large companies have ceased operations,

experienced workers and industry professionals still reside in these communities, and some are

finding employment with newly created CFEs (Bullock et al. 2017). Previous research has

recognized that behaviours reflecting organizational and industry-specific norms, once

internalized, are remarkably resistant, even under changing environmental conditions (Wright &

Geroy, 2001). Thus, for the CFEs that operate in the forestry-centric Cascadia region, selling raw

logs through existing markets – a practice associated with cost leadership in CFEs – may simply

appear to CFEs as the most feasible option because of its obvious alignment with adopted norms

and skills amongst the workforce. It’s also a relatively easy and fast way to achieve financial

sustainability (Benner et al., 2014). Furthermore, given that CFEs in the Cascadia region exist

within an established forest sector, they can draw from a wide pool of experienced professionals

that know how to translate strategic orientations into financial success. The above context can thus

provide some cues as to why cost leadership dominated in the hybrid strategic mix. It was the most

prevalent in the study sample, and was statistically associated with gains in financial performance,

but not with social and environmental performance.

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Neither the ANOVAs nor the linear regression models indicated that social and

environmental improvements made by CFEs have anything to do with the strategic postures that

they adopt. On the upside, this means that the types of decisions that CFEs take with regards to

their strategic orientations do not put their social or environmental missions at risk.

However, it also means that any measures associated with the pursuit of differentiation,

cost leadership, or a mixed strategy, do not necessarily lead to investments in any particular social

or environmental measures. CFEs are small and relatively novel organizations. Much more work

is needed to develop these sorts of skills, be it through training their own staff or attracting savvy

leaders that know how to translate strategic postures into performance benefits, beyond mere

financial outcomes. Despite the limited conclusions regarding the relationship between strategic

orientation and plural performance outcomes, it seems that it can still pay off for CFEs to adopt

strategic orientations. The results clearly showed that those CFEs that lacked strategic thrust (i.e.,

the Strategically Irresolutes) were predominantly owned by non-profit societies and consistently

performed worse financially, compared to CFEs that emphasized pure differentiation or hybrid

strategic orientations.

Similarly, the linear regressions showed a positive relationship for the pursuit of cost

leadership, differentiation orientations, and financial performance. That is, those CFEs that scored

low for strategic orientation dimensions seem to be missing out on financial opportunities. Past

research has shown that social enterprises, which are typically formed at the community level,

often face a mistrust of the adoption of business-like behaviours among their staff and boards

(King, 2004).

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Conscious attempts to develop a competitive posture might simply not be regarded as

necessary out of a conviction that the organization ‘does things differently’ than traditional

companies (Weerawardena & Sullivan Mort, 2012). However, the chapter shows that it still pays

off for CFEs to adopt a strategic posture. It enhances their financial sustainability and, as shown

by the small group of Balanced Performers identified in the surveyed CFEs, it can lead to success

in achieving social, environmental, and financial goals.

4.5.1 Limitations and Future Research

While this study has its limitations, the data can lead to future research opportunities. First,

the overall population of CFEs in the studied region is small. While the response rate was

acceptable with respect to the population of total CFEs in the studied region, it was a small sample,

and results must, therefore, be approached with caution. Also, this study represents CFEs in

developed countries. Hence, extrapolation of these results to developing regions must be done with

care and caveats, if at all.

To that end, studies that compare CFEs’ strategic orientation and performance implications

across different regions would be very useful. So would studies that co pare different types of CFE

clusters (e.g. differences in forest markets, forest species compositions, economic systems and

policy environment). Follow-up studies could also look at the boundary effects of both CFE

strategic orientation and effectiveness. The study cannot explain with full clarity, for instance,

whether there exists an intentional match between a CFEs’ general mission and vision and its

strategic orientation.

141

In-depth, qualitative research may reveal further insight on this matter. Such studies may

also help further reveal why some CFEs seem to rely on cost leadership (e.g., a focus on selling

logs), despite increased argumentation in the literature of the potential advantages of

differentiation, particularly in the form of value-added opportunities.

4.6 Conclusions

Although they increase in numbers around the world, CFEs are widely perceived to lack

competitiveness due to their small size and high costs of operations. This is partly owed to the fact

that CFEs hold community and environmental objectives at their core, such as providing stable

employment for locals. An important question facing the CFE sector is thus how these unique

organizations can compete in national and international markets, while successfully pursuing the

community and resource sustainability goals that they desire. This chapter furthered the analyses

of competitiveness in CFEs with the largest survey sample of CFEs in U.S and Canada, and

demonstrated that CFEs indeed adopt strategic orientation, and benefit financially from doing so.

Aside from case studies that explore pathways toward market success for CFEs, there is a

lack of studies that systematically assesses the relationship between CFEs’ competitive

orientations and their ability to effectively attain plural social, environmental, and financial

performance objectives. The few studies that do exist in this realm portray the pursuit of

competitiveness for CFEs largely as a choice between the adoption of growth strategies to save

costs (i.e., clustering with similar organizations) or to tap into niche markets.

142

Contrary to these findings, this chapter shows that a mixed strategic posture in fact allows

CFEs to enhance their performance. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that pursuit of differentiation

is associated with effectiveness in balancing plural social, environmental, and financial

performance objectives. Finally, it is shown that overall, having a strategic orientation pays off for

CFEs. Understanding the factors that enable CFEs to succeed as a social enterprise model must

continue, as has been done in this chapter. Only with this understanding can these unique

organizations – which must be profitable – successfully pursue the community and resource

sustainability goals that they desire.

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Chapter 5: The Effect of Managerial Characteristics on Community

Forest Enterprise Performance – Evidence from British Columbia

5.1 Introduction

The multiple goals that community forest enterprises (CFEs) must simultaneously pursue

pose unique and nontrivial management challenges for CFEs. Created under non-traditional

governance models, whereby authority over forests is shifted towards community-based

management of forests, CFEs engage local people in operating forest businesses and reinvest

revenues within communities for financing projects in education, recreation, health, and other

domains that a community might deem important for its well-being and flourishing (Ambrose et

al., 2015; Molnar et al., 2007). In other words, CFEs involve local people to make decisions related

to sustainable use of forest resources – i.e., generating revenues that must be channeled to advance

interests of the surrounding communities while also protecting the integrity of local ecosystems

(Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018; Siegner et al., 2021). Thus, the senior staff of CFEs must have skills

and mindsets atypical of managers of commercial firms (Antinori and Bray, 2005). They must not

only be good at generating revenue, but also skilled in using that revenue for good. Indeed, they

must be excellent community workers too, who must masterfully engage community members for

making important decisions. The finding of the second chapter in this dissertation highlighted the

important role that managers play in making decisions for the organization that suits their identity

as social enterprises pursuing plural goals.

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This chapter delves further into the managerial profiles of managers in CFEs, specifically

inquiring about the characteristics that position senior staff in CFEs to deliver on these plural and

complex goals better than others. Despite a rich body of literature on CFEs, this important question

– with profound staffing implications – remains largely unaddressed, and thus motivated the study

for this final chapter.

Research suggests that the role of the CFE manager resembles that of small business

owner-managers (Carias-Vega and Keenan, 2016), specifically highlighting the importance of a

strong personal commitment to use intuition over formal planning in organizational decisions

(Gibb and Scott, 1985). The employees, volunteers, and support staff that comprise the typical

CFE workforce are familiar with their local forests and environment, but often lack technical skills

and competencies to run a successful business (Macqueen, 2013). Consequently, the CFE manager

is often like a novice owner-manager (MacMahon and Murphy, 1999). They have to perform

multiple roles, ensure that their organizations operate smoothly, train people, understand market

conditions and adapt to changes, all the while learning on the job (Antinori and Bray, 2005). In

addition, CFE managers must be adept at building and maintaining relationships with many

different actors, proactively creating opportunities for their organizations and caring for the values

and aspirations of the communities that they serve (Ambrose et al., 2015). Research has also shown

that CFEs are not homogenous, but rather a diverse group of businesses that differ in the objectives

they aspire to achieve and the structures that they employ to accrue community benefits from local

forests (Furness et al., 2015; Hajjar et al., 2011).

145

Some CFEs apply a consensus-based approach to business processes and place a strong

emphasis on environmental stewardship of the land by employing cooperative forms of

organization (Egunyu et al., 2016; Teitelbaum, 2014). Others primarily exist for the creation of

economic opportunities, operating as incorporated, legally autonomous companies that enjoy

broad powers to hire staff and carry out commercial activities, while securing the desired local

benefits (Pinkerton and Rutherford, 2021; Villavicencio Valdez et al., 2012). These differences

likely influence the types of managers that CFE boards and community members bring to the

organization. It follows, then, that managerial characteristics, including demographics, values, and

motivations, can influence the performance of CFEs in turn.

Hambrick and Mason (1984) posited that managerial characteristics have a strong influence

on organizational performance. A plethora of scholarly works on the role of ‘upper echelons’ has

since demonstrated that managers make choices based on their individuals attributes, even if faced

with the same environmental conditions (Bromiley and Rau, 2015; Carpenter et al., 2004;

Hambrick, 2007; Miller and Toulouse, 1986). To date, no complete picture exists of the role that

managerial characteristics play in CFE performance, despite some evidence which suggests that

certain qualities in managers, such as orientations towards stewardship and people, are associated

with positive organizational outcomes like improved employee motivation and transparency

(Carias-Vega and Keenan, 2016; Sinha and Suar, 2005). This chapter sets out to address this gap

in knowledge and to formulate a path forward for research and practice on the topic of how

managerial characteristics influence CFE performance.

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5.2 Study Aim and Focus

Previous research on CFE employees has offered a revealing glimpse into staffing

arrangements made by CFEs (Carias-Vega and Keenan, 2016; Macqueen, 2013; Molnar et al.,

2007). In Canada, for example, community forests allow for the multiple use of landscapes on

designated public and private land areas, including forming enterprises for timber sales, wood-

processing, and value-added processing (Bullock et al., 2017; Teitelbaum, 2016). British Columbia

is among the provinces with the highest concentration of community forests, with over 2.0% of

the provincial forest harvest being conducted by community forest agreement (CFA) holders (BC

Government, 2020). These include non-profit associations, cooperatives, Indigenous enterprises,

municipal corporations, and limited partnerships that oversee forest management in accordance

with local values and preferences (British Columbia Community Forest Association, 2020). British

Columbia’s community forestry initiatives count among their ranks an eclectic mix of local

volunteers and elected officials who have set up the governance structures, prescribe membership

rules, engage in forest planning, and hire staff that performs the daily operations of the enterprise

(Bullock et al., 2017; Mulkey and Kenneth, 2012). These managers, who can either be contracted

or hired full-time to run the commercial interests of BC’s community forests, have diverse

backgrounds that reflect the heterogeneity of the operations in this sector (Benner et al., 2014;

Furness et al., 2015). For example, CFEs that are oriented towards more diversified approaches to

forest management have been reported to choose general managers with backgrounds in

ecologically sensitive forest practices, including the need to tap into local memory and traditional

ecological knowledge (Devisscher et al., 2021; Egunyu et al., 2016).

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Those CFEs that exist primarily to create economic opportunities tend to hire professionals

with industry backgrounds, for example, former employees of companies and sawmills that closed

their operations in the community (Pinkerton and Rutherford, 2021). The Community Forest

Indicators Survey that is conducted annually by the BC Community Forest Association, has also

revealed some general insights into managerial characteristics (British Columbia Community

Forest Association, 2020). It shows managers are typically driven and proactive individuals who

focus on effective communication with diverse stakeholders. They emphasize social networking

to advance plural goals. Such anecdotes apart, broader understanding between managerial

characteristics and the performance of CFEs has not yet been developed. To address this gap, this

the following research question is asked: Is there a relationship between managers’ personal

characteristics and CFE performance?

5.3 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

5.3.1 Managerial Characteristics, Decision-Making, and Outcomes

At its core, research that delves into the relationship between managerial characteristics

and organizational performance assumes that key-decision-makers have significant control over

the general direction of their organizations (Child, 1972). Because of their importance in the

decision-making process, questions typically revolve around the presence of certain qualities in

managers’ characters, experiences, and abilities, and how these relate to organizational success.

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An often referenced framework by which the role of managerial characteristics can be

interpreted within the organization is Hambrick and Masons’ (1984) work on the upper echelons

(i.e., the CEO and top management). Work on the upper echelons draws from behavioural theory

(March and Simon, 1958), which emphasizes the behavioural component in all decision-making.

That is, organizational decisions are a direct reflection of the idiosyncrasies of decision-makers,

rather than the result of rational economic optimization. By adding to behavioural theory the

perspective of managerial attributes, Hambrick and Mason (1984) arrived at a model that formed

the basis for a plethora of studies on the links between managerial characteristics and organization-

level outcomes (Carpenter et al., 2004; Hambrick, 2007), and has also been applied in the context

of small businesses (Friedman et al., 2016; Kickul and Gundry, 2002).

The chapter adopts a novel approach to the question of effective organization in CFEs by

focusing on the influence of managerial characteristics in the social, environmental, and financial

domains. CFEs are an example of community-based social enterprises (Siegner et al., 2021) that

adopt locally benefiting business practices which support the social and cultural fabric of the

community, notably through adopting collective forms of governance and participation in

decision-making. A theoretical framework was developed for this study that attempts to explain

how managerial characteristics influence performance (Figure 7). Each component of the

framework is explained below, followed by the corresponding hypothesis.

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5.3.1.1 Proactive Personality and Performance

Like other small businesses, CFEs commonly face limitations with regards to the

availability of qualified labor and access to capital (Cubbage et al., 2015; Humphries et al., 2012;

Teitelbaum, 2014). This presents management with added responsibilities (Gagnon et al., 2013).

Small business managers have been observed to simultaneously wear the hats of operations

planners, innovation strategists, and growth entrepreneurs (Lefebvre, 1992). It makes

proactiveness – the ability to scan for opportunities, take action, and persevere (Bateman and

Crant, 1993) – a critical quality to look for in making choices about leadership. Kickul and Gundry

(2003), for example, elucidated how small firms increased their innovation capabilities as a result

of managers’ proactive personality traits. Searle and Rooney (2013) found the same relationship

to hold in regards to small firms’ environmental and social activities. It is therefore expected that

CFEs similarly benefit from management that exhibits strong proactiveness traits in growing

opportunities for the organization in their varied goal domains. Therefore, I propose the following

hypothesis:

H1. There is a positive relationship between CFE managers’ proactive personalities and

CFE performance

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5.3.1.2 Perceived Work Discretion and Performance

CFEs constitute a relatively novel type of organization in that they challenge existing

norms and institutions due to their multi-pronged focus on community-level objectives and

profitability (Ambus, 2016; Furness et al., 2015; Hajjar and Oldekop, 2018). In fact, CFEs have

been described as an ‘experiment’ (Bullock & Hanna, 2012) where management operates in the

absence of established rules and best-practice templates on how to perform their job. In other

words, CFE managers are often allowed to experiment and apply outside-of-the-box thinking

(Wangrow et al., 2015) to address the novel sets of challenges related to social issues and

environmental sustainability (Hahn et al., 2014; Lamm et al., 2015). This higher degree of work

discretion leads to an increasing range of options that managers have at their disposal to alter firms’

decisions, actions, and performance (Boyd and Gove, 2006). The influence of managerial

characteristics, thereby, can be higher in businesses that promote discretion in managers and afford

them the opportunity to take fuller advantage of their skills and abilities (Wangrow et al., 2015).

Therefore, CFE can be expected to benefit from granting work discretion to management as a

means to facilitate effective and adaptive decision-making. Specifically, it is hypothesized:

H2. There is a positive relationship between CFE managers’ perceived work discretion

and CFE performance

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5.3.1.3 Social Networking and Performance

The external ties of management are generally perceived as an asset in terms of

organizational outcomes (Geletkanycz and Hambrick, 1997). Managers that maintain networks

across diverse groups and economic sectors are better able to open doors for the organization, in

terms of novel ideas and partnerships. All of this can help in attaining long-term success

(Fernandez-Perez, 2012). CFEs tend to rely on forming associations and partnerships, both among

themselves (Macqueen et al., 2006), but also with governments, funding agencies, and other actors

that can help them gain legitimacy and resources (Ludvig et al., 2018; Weiss et al., 2020).

Similarly, other smaller types of businesses in the forest sector, such as woodlots and small land

holdings, have benefited from maintaining social networks that help them identify opportunities

for innovation and value-added strategies (Nybakk et al., 2009; Ruseva et al., 2014). We would

expect the same relationship to hold for managers of CFEs. It has been well established in the

literature that CFEs need to draw from specialized skills and knowledge for practices like small-

scale timber harvesting and marketing (Ambus et al., 2007; Egunyu et al., 2016), and also in

responding to natural disturbances and climate change risk (Devisscher et al., 2021; Furness and

Nelson, 2012). To effectively execute these activities, it can also be expected that CFEs, whose

managers interact with professional groups and diverse sets of people, would be better able to help

their organizations succeed in the social, environmental, and financial domain. Therefore, it is

hypothesized:

H3. There is a positive relationship between CFE managers’ degree of social networking

and CFE performance

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Figure 7 Theoretical Framework of the Study

5.4 Methods

5.4.1 Measures

Most upper echelons research focuses on CEOs and their top-management teams in larger

companies, and well-known industrial sectors (Carpenter et al., 2004). There are major differences

between those large firms and the CFEs in this study, including numbers of employees, scales of

their activities, levels of professional management, and in the means in which goals and criteria

for success are set. Therefore, substantial modification was needed in some of the scales used. This

used wording from pre-existing work where the researchers had equally adapted proven scales to

small forestry organization contexts (Furness and Nelson, 2012; Nybakk et al., 2009).

H1:

Proactive

Personality

CFE PerformanceS

oci

al

H2:

Perceived

Work

Discretion

H3:

Social

Networking

Managerial Characteristics

(+)

En

vir

on

men

tal

Fin

anci

al

153

It also meant using scales (e.g., for social networking), as opposed to quantification of

corporate proxies (e.g., interorganizational mobility, trade association ties), as is the standard in

upper echelons research for larger firms (Carpenter and Reilly, 2006). Performance in CFEs

generally addresses social and environmental needs in local communities, as well as financial self-

sufficiency in business operations (Antinori and Bray, 2005). As such, items from social enterprise

performance scales were used (Coombes et al., 2011; Miles et al., 2014) that were developed

specifically to account for the diverse nature of social enterprises’ objectives (Kroeger and Weber,

2014). In particular, subjective self-reported measures that rate managers’ levels of agreement with

statements about progress made towards achieving set goals were incorporated into the

questionnaire (Bhattarai et al., 2019). Adapted items from Miles et al.’s (2014) proven scale were

also used. This comprises a six-item social performance and a single-item financial performance

construct (‘we are financially sustainable’). Six items measuring environmental performance were

developed specifically for this study. The scale was designed to capture ecological outcomes that

previous studies identified as particularly germane to the community forestry context (Teitelbaum,

2014).

In order to measure proactive personality, five items from the accepted scale by Bateman

and Crant (1993) were adapted. In a similar fashion, five items from a widely used scale by

Hornsby et al. (2002) were used to measure perceived work discretion. This scale consistently

yields good reliability when measured alongside other factors influencing internal opportunity for

innovation and entrepreneurship (Kuratko et al., 2005).

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Social networking was measured by using a version of the scale by (Nybakk et al., 2009),

who adapted a widely used scale (Antia and Frazier, 2001) to fit the context of small forest owners.

All main study constructs were measured on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) Strongly Disagree to

(5) Strongly Agree. Additionally, because previous studies have established that organizational

performance is affected by ownership type and the mode of managerial employment (hiring in-

house versus contracting services) (Chrisman et al., 2012; MacMahon & Murphy, 1999), these

variables were included as controls. CFE ownership was assessed a categorical variable, and hiring

a full-time manager in-house was assessed as a binary variable with 1= denominating in-house

status, and 0 = contracting management services.

5.4.2 Sampling and Data Collection

A complete and official list of community forests located in British Columbia was obtained

from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations. This was used to identify

names and contact information of the managers via a web search. The BC Community Forest

Associations’ (BCCFA) website was used to identify additional community forestry operations,

including a few initiatives in their membership that operate under a Tree Farm License. But, due

to their governance and legal status as community corporations, they rank in the category of CFEs

as per their mission and redistribution objectives, and are therefore commonly included in

empirical research on CFEs in Canada (Pinkerton and Rutherford, 2021; Teitelbaum et al., 2006).

The community forests that were identified as commercially active (i.e., classified as CFEs

per our study criteria) were then added to an adjusted list of 61 CFEs. An online questionnaire and

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cover letter explaining the objectives and importance of the study were e-mailed to the managers

in spring 2019. A second and third wave followed the initial survey invitation in three to four-

week intervals (Dillman et al., 2014). These also offered a telephone survey as an alternative option

(two managers made use of this option). Data collection ended in September 2019, at which point

41 complete questionnaires that met the study criteria had been received, resulting in an adjusted

overall response rate of 67%. Non-response bias was assessed by comparing early and late

respondents. Differences between early and late respondents for social, environmental, and

financial performance were not significant, so non-response errors were not evident.

5.4.3 Analysis

All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics 26. Three ordinary leased

squares (OLS) regression models were tested with social, financial, and environmental

performance as the respective dependent variables. The final data set included 41 CFE manager

responses that were complete and met the study criteria. Means, standard deviations, reliability

analyses, and correlations for all study constructs are presented in Table 19. All of the values of

the main study constructs indicated reliable measures. Among all variables, the lowest value of

Cronbach’s alpha was 0.66, all well above the alpha cut-off score range (Bryman & Cramer, 2009).

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Table 19 Descriptive statistics and correlations of regression variables

Mea

n

S.D. Cronbach

’s Alpha

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Social

Performance

4.14 0.48 0.76 1

Environmental

Performance

4.10 0.51 0.81 .705**

1

Financial

Performance

4.27 0.74 . .258 .245 1

Proactive

Personality

4.05 0.48 0.66 .620**

.469**

.393*

1

Work

Discretion

3.95 0.68 0.73 .368*

.294 .275 .317*

1

Social

Networking

3.60 0.73 0.70 .508**

.295 .126 .465**

-

.02

6

1

Ownership 2.05 1.53 . -

.116

.030 -

.399**

-

.154

.00

7

.06

3

1

Mode of

Manager

Contract

0.63 0.48 . .121 .012 -

.086

.424**

.21

3

.21

3

.002 1

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

5.5 Results and Discussion

The results of the regression analysis are presented in Table 20. The models explain 55.5%

of the variation in social performance, 32.7% of the variation in environmental performance, and

37.2% of the variation in financial performance. Based on the standardized regression coefficients,

Hypothesis 1 is supported. CFEs that hire managers with a proactive personality see better social

performance in their organizations (ß=0.319, p<0.05). Hypothesis 2 also receives support. CFEs

in which managers perceive a high degree of work discretion perform better on their social

dimensions (ß=0.244, p<0.001), as well as environmental dimensions (ß=0.112, p<0.10).

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Finally, hypothesis 3 also receives support. CFEs in which managers engage in social

networking (ß=0.292, p<0.001) perform better on their social dimensions. Therefore, the proposed

model behaves largely as expected (Fig. 7), providing support for all three hypotheses for some of

the CFE performance variables, notably social performance.

Quite surprisingly, however, financial performance is not affected by any of the managerial

variables in the model (p > 0.05). That is, managerial characteristics seem to not have any direct

bearing on financial performance. This suggests that other factors, aside from managerial

characteristics, determine financial success in the CFE. This could be considered good news, from

the perspective of CFEs being organizations with plural goals, that exist to provide positive social

and environmental impact in the communities in which they operate. Choosing the ‘right’ people

in terms of work ethic, level of discretion, and networking activities directly affects social and

environmental outcomes in CFEs. However, the same relationship does not hold for financial

performance.

While it has been argued that financial outcomes, specifically in small business

organizations, strongly rely on the qualities of the managers in charge of organizational decision-

making and operations (Kickul & Gundry, 2003; Nybakk et al., 2009), the results of this study

imply that CFEs do not necessarily select their leadership for those criteria. It might not be that

manager characteristics are a criteria for financial success, but talent among the body of

community members, as well as seeking input from support organizations (e.g. government

agencies, industry association, small business grant programs).

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Table 20 Results of the regression analyses

Among the control variables, mode of managerial contract (hiring in-house versus

contracting hourly management services) and ownership (whether a CFE is configured as

cooperative, nonprofit society, Indigenous enterprise, or a form of community or partnership-

owned for-profit venture) both have a bearing on CFE financial performance. There is a negative

relationship between hiring a manger in-house and financial outcomes. In other words, financially,

it makes more sense for CFEs to contract hourly services with a management company.

This could be simply due to the costs of having a full-time manager, which can

disproportionality affect the bottom-line for CFEs operating as small forest businesses (Pinkerton

Variables Model 1

(SP)

Model 2

(EP)

Model

(FP)

Proactive Personality 0.319* 0.209 0.601

Work Discretion 0.244*** 0.112* 0.059

Social Networking 0.292*** 0.131 0.383

Ownership 1=Municipal; 2=Ltd.

Partnership;3=Indigenous

Enterprise;4=Cooperative; 5=Society

-0.172 0.162 -0.538*

Mode of Manager Contract 1 = in-house, 0 = consultant

-0.021 0.047* -0.206**

R2 0.555 0.327 0.372

F 8.48*** 3.309** 4.025**

*p < 0.10; **p < 0.05;***p < 0.001

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& Rutherford, 2021). However, with regards to environmental outcomes for the organization,

having a full-time manager results in positive outcomes. Similarly, CFEs that are configurated as

municipal corporations, limited partnerships, or Indigenous companies, perform better financially,

compared to cooperatives, and nonprofit societies. This confirms previous findings in the literature

that associate the legal status of the CFE with the success in financial terms (Pinkerton &

Rutherford, 2021; Pinkerton & Benner, 2013).

Based on the results of this study, it appears that the community and pro-environment

orientation of CFEs is, at least in part, the outcome of the managers making decisions and running

the day-to-day operations for these organizations. It is hypothesized in this chapter that proactive

personality will be positively related to performance. CFEs benefit from managers that persevere

through research, and outside-of-the-box-thinking until they reach closure in bringing about

certain interventions. Proactive personality was positively related to CFE social performance.

This finding is consistent with organizational management literature that confirms the link

between managers’ proactive personalities and business outcomes (Kickul and Gundry, 2003).

Board members and support organizations can facilitate success in CFEs by supporting managers

in their search processes, by providing best-practices, access to data, visits to conferences, and

other activities that encourage experimentation and uptake of novel approaches. Furthermore, the

results show that managers’ perceived work discretion is an important determinant of both social

and environmental performance.

This is also consistent with the general business literature, which emphasizes that

organizations that grant autonomy to apply novel thinking and creativity in promoting community-

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oriented initiatives will achieve higher sustainability outcomes for the organization (Arnaud and

Wasieleski, 2014; Buchholtz et al., 1999). Given the fundamental responsibilities that CFEs have

in the communities in which they are situated – reinvesting returns in local infrastructure,

employing a local workforce, and so on – it is vital that managements be granted the discretion to

work towards achieving these plural aims. With CFEs in British Columbia promoting diversity of

local values and meaningful adaptation to environmental sustainability and climate change

(Devisscher et al., 2021; Furness and Nelson, 2012), individuals with a strong grounding in

community engagement practices and environmental work are well-positioned to take on

leadership roles in these organizations.

The results also show that CFE managers’ degree of social networking is a critical

antecedent for social performance. These findings are consistent with earlier literature on small

forest tenures (Ruseva et al., 2014; Sikora et al., 2016). Managers cannot work towards achieving

community-level objectives alone, but must do so in cooperation with others. Networking can

generate ideas that are conducive to the use of local forest resources in a manner consistent with

community values and objectives. It provides managers access to resources and knowledge transfer

to turn commercial opportunities from local forests into desirable benefits for communities

(Nybakk et al., 2009). Accordingly, CFE managers who invest in social networking activities can

garner advantage for their organizations by considering new ideas and finding new and better ways

to generate social impact at the local level. By developing opportunities at the policy and industry

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level, external agents can play an important role in helping to catalyze meaningful social impact

among CFEs. For example, the BC Community Forest Association (Mulkey and Kenneth, 2012;

Teitelbaum, 2016) organizes events and publishes materials for managers to connect with each

other and benchmark their activities,

No evidence was found that managerial characteristics influence financial outcomes in

CFEs. This could be because CFEs do not have the scale and resources to be selective in matching

the profiles of their managers with particular characteristics in financial management, and growth

of profits. While matching these desired outcomes with the search of a competitive pool of

applicants is the standard in large firms (Chen and Nadkarni, 2017; Hambrick, 2007; Papadakis

and Barwise, 2002), it may not be a feasible option for the small CFEs.

At the same time, it confirms the common assumption that CFEs are indeed ‘different’

types of organizations. Due to their emphasis on plural social, environmental, and financial

sustainability criteria, they cannot be measured with the same tools and frameworks as mainstream

business organizations (Markman et al., 2016). This is not to say that managerial characteristics

affecting financial performance do not matter. Rather, the CFE sector may simply not have the

vision, mission, capacity and resources, where mangers are selectively chosen for those

performance targets (Macqueen, 2013).

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5.6 Conclusions

This chapter set out to investigate the influence of managerial characteristics on the social,

environmental, and financial performance of community forest enterprises. This decision was

based on observations in the second dissertation chapter, where managers proved influential for

decision-making. They notably safeguarded the practice of community engagement in the studied

CFEs. Many of the findings are interesting in light of hiring and staffing strategies which can

adequately equip CFEs to scale-up and succeed in the growing social forestry space. Specifically,

the study offers three key messages. First, CFEs seeking to improve social performance must

emphasize – both in hiring and training programs – the social networking skills, and the ability of

senior staff to exert discretion and proactive behavior in identifying strategies for pro-social

outcomes in the community. Second, CFEs seeking to improve environmental performance should

allow managers to expand their discretion in taking actions that affect pro-environmental

initiatives. Third, CFEs seeking to improve financial performance should focus on decision-

making bodies in the organizational and institutional environment, rather than focusing on hiring

managers for their ability in influencing financial performance. Overall, the findings demonstrate

the importance of enhancing research on senior decision-makers as a means to enhance

competitiveness of the CFE model. Doing so will generate valuable insights on the hiring decisions

and choices about staffing that influence a CFEs’ ability to perform along plural goals. Future

studies should address the shortcomings of this study and expand the scope of these results as a

means to help understand the potential and development of these novel types of business entities

in the forest sector.

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Chapter 6: Conclusions

6.1 Introduction

Forests are key to achieving sustainable development. Curbing deforestation and ensuring

sustainable management of the world’s forests is critical to limit global temperature rise and secure

the well-being of more than 1.5 billion people that depend on forests globally. However, these are

complex, if not “wicked” problems (Panwar et al., 2015) that span across sectors, actors, and

scales. Associated interventions to solve them may carry unintended consequences. Indeed, while

decades of attempts to solve issues related to deforestation and the development of forest

communities may have contributed to lessening these problems, they have not solved them by any

meaningful standard (Kozak, 2014; Levin et al., 2012). On the contrary, levels of deforestation

and economic injustices surrounding local forests continue to worsen in many parts of the world

(Panwar et al., 2020). Faced with the seemingly intractable, yet urgent nature of these issues,

experimental modes of intervention are becoming more commonplace. Decision-makers are

seriously evaluating top-down and linear problem-solving – which, in recent history, has

constituted the modus operandi in the governance of the worlds’ forests (Ribot & Peluso, 2009).

Against this backdrop, decentralized forest management – providing communities with the

rights and powers to manage local forests – is one means of evolving institutions in resource

management that is becoming increasingly popular (Agrawal et al., 2008). At its core,

decentralization entails that communities become empowered to address forest resource problems

and create locally benefiting solutions rooted in principles of collective decision-making and

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participatory governance (Berkes, 2007). Today, decentralized management of forests, in one form

or another, exists in all forested regions of the world (Hajjar & Oldekop, 2018).

Decentralized forest management is often carried out by community forest enterprises

(CFEs). CFEs are commercial entities that generate profits from forest resource use . But they also

ensure that these resources are conserved and that communities’ social and cultural fabric is

maintained, notably by engaging local people in organizational decisions (Antinori & Bray, 2005).

Case-based evidence suggests that well-managed CFEs are able to meet their plural objectives

(Molnar et al., 2007). At the same time, there is ample evidence that CFEs face multifaceted

challenges achieving these objectives, including financial constraints, issues with administration,

weak leadership and governance, and disadvantageous legal and economic contexts (Hajjar,

Mcgrath, et al., 2011; Thompson et al., 2005). It is crucial to find ways to help CFEs overcome

these challenges.

The purpose of this dissertation was to advance the literature that reflects on ways for CFEs

to succeed (Macqueen, 2013; Sanchez-Badini et al., 2018). To that end, this dissertation drew upon

the bourgeoning literatures in social entrepreneurship and hybrid organizations to enable CFEs to

overcome challenges so that they can more effectively meet their plural objectives. This

concluding chapter discusses the implications of the results of the dissertation in three parts. The

first part comprises a summary of the key findings of the four chapters comprising this dissertation.

The second part presents key contributions that this dissertation makes to practice, policy, and

research. The third part outlines the limitations of this research and offers avenues for and future

research opportunities.

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6.2 Summary of Findings

Chapter 2 integrates theoretical and empirical works to articulate how CFEs and their

operations can be understood and analyzed within the social enterprise and the organizational

hybridity literatures. Both scholarly fields have a shared interest in advancing progress towards

sustainable development, but hitherto have seen little in the way of cross-fertilization. Based on

this analysis, a solutions framework is developed that contributes to both of these fields to progress

towards understanding the effective pursuit of plural goals in community forest enterprises.

Specifically, the chapter offers a set of actionable insights for CFEs to address management

challenges facing their hybrid organizations. The lessons offered by this solutions framework are

applicable to managing human resources, marketing products and services, generating funds, and

developing conducive organizational cultures.

Chapter 3 sought to understand how CFEs can take steps towards engaging local

communities in organizational decision-making. An inductive, multiple case study design was

deployed based on a theoretical framework comprising scholarly works on organizational

paradoxes, tensions, and dualities. The chapter suggests that, despite differences in context of

origin (i.e., rootedness in ideals of economic revitalization versus grassroots environmental

activism) all CFEs experience trade-offs between meeting community involvement in

organizational decisions and meeting financial obligations. These trade-offs are addressed with a

separation strategy – so called mediated engagement. Depending on a CFEs’ ownership structure,

mediated engagement entails compartmentalizing community participation and business

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procedures at different levels of the organization, or outsourcing the execution of participation of

key stakeholder groups in the community. Chapter 3 also demonstrates (i) how managers in CFEs

would identify particular participatory tactics – some of which are more generalized (i.e., target

the public as a whole) and others more individualized (i.e., aim at engaging particular groups of

stakeholders) – and, (ii), illustrate how managers would apply these tactics, while, at the same

time, keeping their focus on other critical goals. In this way, the study builds on prior research on

paradoxical tensions that can surface in hybrid organizations, and ways of navigating these, as

leaders attend to different sustainability-focused goals . In particular, the findings offer

encouraging evidence to suggest that issues in participatory process may be overcome by leaders

who deliberately recognize the tensions between CFEs’ commercial and community-level duties,

and develop appropriate response strategies.

Chapter 4 sought to understand the factors that influence the ability of CFEs to become

more competitive. This was achieved by surveying CFEs in the Cascadia region of Canada and the

United States on their competitive strategies. In Chapter 4, well-known theories of competitive

advantage were used to determine the relationships between CFEs’ strategic choices and their

effectiveness in simultaneously balancing social, environmental, and financial goals. This

particular study began with the expectation that CFEs that practice differentiation will be more

effective. Yet, the results painted a somewhat different picture. Pure differentiators were rare

among sampled CFEs. Instead, the majority seem to be mixed strategists. They apply a competitive

blend of both cost leadership and differentiation orientations, with the overall attention afforded

to cost leadership being higher, compared to differentiation. One possible explanation for these

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unexpected results could be that the surveyed CFEs are predominantly from areas with historically

strong forest industries. This is to say that a focus on efficiency in operations might align with an

emphasis on community needs, most notably the creation and maintenance of local forestry-related

jobs. The results also suggest that, regardless of a particular type of competitive orientation, CFEs

are better off if they pursue some form of competitiveness strategy, as opposed to lacking strategic

thrust. The evidence shows that CFEs that emphasized a mix of both cost leadership and

differentiation are, indeed, more effective in attaining their goals.

Chapter 5 delved even deeper into the effectiveness question by examining whether CFE

managers’ personal traits and demographic characteristics are associated with performance

outcomes. Drawing from upper echelons theory (UET) and a survey sample of 41 CFEs in British

Columbia, Canada, the data show a relationship between social performance and manager

proactive personalities, social performance, and social networking respectively. The chapter

further demonstrates a link between work discretion and environmental performance in the CFE.

These findings are novel beyond just the context of CFEs. While prior work has shown social

networking to be aligned with financial performance, there has yet to be conclusive evidence that

it can also be tied to community and environmental outcomes. Contrary to common assumptions

in UET, however, no relationship could be detected between managerial characteristics and

financial performance. This could mean that CFE financial performance, for the most part, is

dependent on a host of other factors, beyond managerial background. Managers seem to matter for

social and environmental performance.

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6.3 Key Contributions

The results of this dissertation offer guidance to managers of CFEs, but also managers of

social enterprises (SEs) more broadly. They also offer important recommendations for policy

makers seeking to grow CFEs and add novel insights to the literatures on CFEs, social enterprises,

and the management of tensions in sustainability-oriented organizations.

6.3.1 Contributions to the Literature

The goal of this dissertation was to provide information that could be used to enable CFEs

in overcoming existential challenges so they can more effectively meet their plural objectives. By

studying six CFEs with varying ownership structures, goals, and activities, insight into the

managerial roles in CFEs was gathered and used to explain the nature of CFEs as hybrid social

enterprises. Very limited work has looked into how CFEs organize themselves internally with

regards to their leadership and management (Antinori & Bray, 2005; Carias-Vega & Keenan,

2016). This research provides understanding of strategic decision-making in CFEs and

predispositions of management in terms of recognizing and managing competing sustainability

objectives within the organization.

This dissertation also contributes to the literature on social enterprises. The notion of

decentralization is gaining traction as a means of providing economic development that is inclusive

of the ‘third pillar’ (Rajan, 2019) – local communities and their jurisdictions. The literature has

extensively investigated how governments adopt social enterprise strategies (Kerlin, 2010). They

focus on specific social enterprise policies, as well as government-funded programs for social

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entrepreneurs (Borzaga & Defourny, 2003; Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004). This dissertation further

reveals the peculiarities of social enterprises. Specifically, there are social enterprises that emerge

due to a push for decentralization (Berkes & Hunt-Davidson, 2010; Finlayson & Roy, 2019). CFEs

are emblematic for these forms of social enterprise activities. As shown in this dissertation, many

CFEs are municipally founded and controlled, or involve multiple shareholders who represent

different local constituents. Navigating these complex structures requires a set of unique

managerial strategies, some of which are identified and described in this dissertation. Thus, in

studying CFEs, the findings from this dissertation can inform future work on the peculiarities and

variations of social enterprises.

Lastly, these findings also advance the literature on organizational paradox. Previous

studies (Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; Smith & Lewis, 2011) suggested that the source of many

persistent tensions in organizations essentially emanates from their outcomes. For example,

organizational purpose, i.e., profit versus social value creation, could be a source of tension (Hahn

et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2013). The research in this dissertation shows that, in addition to

outcomes, paradoxes can also emanate from organizational processes. Specifically, it shows that

in their pursuit of community empowerment, CFEs face tensions about the extent to which

communities should be engaged in decision-making. It also illustrates ways to address the tension.

170

6.3.2 Managerial Implications

A central managerial insight from this dissertation is the importance of mechanisms and

skills for the alignment of social purpose and commercial activities in CFEs. As shown in the

solutions framework presented in Chapter 2, the fundamental strain between CFEs’ commercial

natures and their mission to serve the greater good (the community) is unlikely to be resolved. One

of the goals of this research is to demonstrate the value of paradoxical thinking – accepting and

embracing strategic contradictions between competing sustainability objectives, rather than

dismissing the tension that exists between them (Hahn et al., 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2011). The

findings demonstrate that employing paradoxical thinking can make CFEs more effective, but

skillsets like this are rarely considered in the natural resource practitioner literature. Knowledge

around forests, their management, and markets for their goods and services is unlikely to fully

equip leaders to address the multitude of social, environmental, and economic issues that CFEs

seek to address. As the data in this dissertation show, CFEs tend to engage in hybrid competitive

orientations. They adopt a blend of cost-leadership and niche orientations in entering markets.

Pursuit of this strategy requires a diverse set of skills and capabilities in the organization.

Breadth of prior knowledge (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) and a generalist background

(Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004) are traits that have been favourable for managing trade-offs and

paradoxical tensions in organizations. Similarly, Chapter 3 demonstrates that CFE managers tend

to follow unconventional career paths, having worked in professional fields beyond just forestry.

This indicates that CFEs may want to search for generalists, not functional specialists, in their

171

leadership. Because a managers’ personalities relate closely to the strategies deployed in small

organizations (Miller & Toulouse, 1986), CFEs might want to extend their searches for human

resources beyond conventional channels (Guerci & Carollo, 2016). Having boards with expertise

in diverse fields, from the social and nonprofit sector, to forestry, environmental start-ups,

technology, and public administration, may provide an opportunity to identify talent with the

ability to leverage CFEs’ unique structures and activities. A diverse board will also aid in

facilitating the managerial tactics identified in the qualitative portion of this dissertation. For

instance, the board can employ separation strategies to address the tension between participatory

and commercial duties requires a climate of reflexivity in the organization (Waldman & Bowen,

2016). Boards, whose members have close ties to the community, and are well-connected and

trusted, will be more successful in executing the types of mediated engagement strategies that were

described in Chapter 3. Taken together, these findings provide managerial insights that can make

it easier to build, lead, and work in CFEs, and generate greater positive impact.

While theories on organizational dualities, paradox, and tensions informed my research on

the managerial role in CFEs, specifically the findings presented in the qualitative data chapter of

this dissertation, it must be mentioned that the types of organization-level insights that my

dissertation generates offer fruitful avenues for future work on sustainable business models

(Dentchev et al., 2018). The insights on the ‘inner workings’ of CFEs that were generated in my

dissertation can serve to inform types of sustainability innovation, as expressed in the way CFEs

172

are structured, managed, and maintained. Chapter 2 of this dissertation showcased the varied

problems that CFEs tackle around the world. Chapter 3 delved deeper into variations of activities

and organization structures, specifically how those influence the role of management in executing

community engagement activities.

CFEs comprise a variety of approaches to generating social impact locally. This includes

traditional forestry operations like logging and harvesting forest products, other non-goods based

sustainability innovations, such as forest carbon (Peterson St-Laurent et al., 2017), and consulting

services in sustainable land use and management (Devisscher et al., 2021). Categorizing and

studying variations of CFEs by how they sustainably create and capture value can make for an

insightful analysis into the effectiveness of the CFE model.It also informs research on sustainable

business models and sustainability innovation broadly (Dentoni et al., 2016).

6.3.3 Policy Implications

The findings suggest that more training and mentorship for CFEs are key ingredients for

their success. Also valuable are are collaborations between natural resources and social sectors

which provide for enhanced funding and business support. Both the government and civic support

structures, like community organizers, associations, and research institutions, have roles to play in

this regard.

173

6.3.3.1 The Role of Government

Government has an important role to play in ensuring that novel community forestry

legislation is adequately linked with support for CFEs. When it comes to addressing problems

pertaining to the environment, communities, and the economy, inducing government agencies with

more interprofessional and cross-agency collaboration has been recommended (Daley, 2009). As

this dissertation demonstrates, enabling CFEs to grow presents a multi-pronged endeavor that may

benefit from greater networking across government agencies to provide the best possible support.

The Forest Tenures Branch of the BC provincial Government currently has no mandate to equip

community forest licensees with strategic resources to set-up and run commercially viable

businesses. Adding the position of a business development officer to the Forest Tenures Branch,

and endowing that position to the ability to connect small tenure holders with training opportunities

and learning resources, may help to set CFEs on a straighter path towards financial success.

More coordinated collaborations between government agencies could also facilitate the

streamlining of information and support with respect to bio-economy and circular economy

strategies. Both areas are currently being targeted by the BC Provincial government as key drivers

of sustainable growth in rural areas, but have had little in the way of impact on how small forest

licenses are handled. The qualitative and survey data in this dissertation have illustrated the

activities of CFEs in sustainably managing biomass, ecosystem services, NTFPs, and wood

residues. It can be argued that these diverse activities position CFEs as exemplary local actors in

transitioning to bio-economy and circular economy models.

174

Catalyzing this sort of new economy thinking among small tenure holders will be critical

to ensure an inclusive transition to the bio-economy and circular economy. (Siegner et al., 2017).

Strategic support for CFEs to help them consolidate their positions as local actors in the bio-

economy ought not to be underestimated by government bodies and other funding institutions.

6.3.3.2 The Role of Support Organizations

The results of the solutions framework presented in the Chapter 2 of this dissertation

suggest that civic actors, notably nonprofit and community organizers, as well as associations, can

play a role in positioning CFEs more prominently as social enterprises. Activities around social

enterprises, decentralization, and rural revitalization are intrinsically linked, and while this

dissertation contributes to a consideration of these links, advocates of CFEs should take note of

this potential for cross-fertilization.

In 2016, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) officially

launched a National Social Enterprise Directory, which serves to increase the visibility of

Canadian social enterprises and connect them with critical funding, tools, resources, and support.

However, no currently active CFEs are listed in this directory. Countries, such as the United

Kingdom where the government is active in officially promoting social enterprises (Kerlin, 2010),

already recognize CFEs as a particular type of social enterprises and promote them as such

(Ambrose et al., 2015).

175

Advocates of CFEs in Canada could push for such recognition at provincial and federal

levels. The BCCFA provides a good example in terms of connecting CFEs with rural initiatives

and critical resources in the natural resource field. However, strategic links to formalized social

innovation-related activities in Canada, such as The Social Enterprise Institute, Centre for Social

Enterprise Development, and InnovateBC, are still lacking. CFE support organizations may

consider recruiting researchers who can help with the identification of these opportunities in a

relative cost-effective manner. For example, the province of Ontario is providing funds for recent

graduate students that want to support social enterprises in their strategies via the Business Growth

and Competitiveness Youth internship program. The Mitacs nonprofit research organization could

be used to promote placements of student-professor teams in helping CFEs get connected with

social enterprise resources and support. Figure 8 summarizes key contributions of this dissertation

with regards to CFEs’ desired outcomes, namely: resource sustainability, community

empowerment, and competitiveness.

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Figure 8 Summary of Key Contributions of this Dissertation

Enable CFEs to overcome challenges so they can more

effectively meet their plural goals

in Three

Desired

Outcomes

RESOURCE

SUSTAINABILITY

COMMUNITY

EMPOWERMENT COMPETITIVENESS

RECOMMENDATIONS

Add to

organizational

scholarship on

paradox, tensions,

and dualities, the

notion of process,

as opposed to

outcomes, in

managing divergent

sustainability

objectives

Explain the link

between CFEs’

choice of

competitive

strategy and

organizational

effectiveness; and

the relationship

between

managerial

characteristics and

CFE performance

Present a solutions

framework for

CFEs to overcome

challenges as a

social enterprise

model that seeks

localized versions

of forest resource

utilization and

sustainable

development

Managerial Policy-Level

Hire, train, and socialize

leadership (CFE boards

and management) with a

focus on the ability to

embrace, rather than

dismiss, tensions between

plural sustainability

objectives (paradoxical

leadership)

Move beyond the boundaries

of natural resource and rural

sector in positioning CFEs

officially as social enterprises;

systematically connect

government and support

organizations with existing

federal and provincial-level

programs that inform, fund,

and offer training for

social enterprises

KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

177

6.4 Shortcomings and Limitations

This study is not devoid of limitations and shortcomings. First, use of the qualitative meta-

synthesis method, which was applied in chapter two, did not contain an exhaustive list of key

works on CFEs and social enterprise. For example, some articles that are published in a language

other than English were missed. Furthermore, the focus on highly-cited studies from the peer-

reviewed literature may have overlooked informative book chapters or materials from the grey

literature.

Despite clear advantages of the qualitative design deployed in Chapter 3, for example, the

ability to explore the understudied phenomenon of community participation in CFEs’ decision-

making, this method raises questions about generalizability. As is typical in qualitative research,

and case studies in particular, the focus of this study was on the generation of internal credibility,

not external validity of the data (Creswell, 2013). The methods deployed here allowed for the in-

depth exploration of the complexities of a particular setting as a means to inform practice and

theory into social phenomena that are little understood, such as managerial decision-making in the

CFE as it relates to community participation and the balancing of plural goals. Therefore, while

observations could be made on how organizational members crafted strategies for community

involvement, it was not possible to test causal relationships, for instance, between a CFEs’ decision

to separate participatory activities from the core business and its effects on performance. Future

work could test these relationships more directly, for example, through the use of experimental

and survey research designs.

178

Also, this study investigated CFEs that are located in a developed country, as opposed to

developing countries, with different institutional contexts. Furthermore, British Columbia,

Canada, where the majority of the data for this dissertation was collected, is a region where novel

legislation mandates community participation in return for obtaining commercial harvest rights.

This contextual feature is valuable, allowing a study of the detailed process of how participation

unfolds to emerge, given that all studied CFEs could be expected to enlist at least a minimum level

of engagement. However, many other approaches for measuring community engagement in

organizations exist. For example, in some organizations the participatory ideal may be formed

organically within the organization, or as a result of imitating practices from other organizations.

It is not clear whether the processes and managerial tactics identified in this study would be similar

under varied contexts and organizational forms. More research would be needed to establish these

claims. While the qualitative design of this study allowed for an investigation of how community

involvement in CFEs’ decision-making unfolds over time and across different levels of the

organization, it did not allow for any strong causal claims.

In Chapter 4, Porter’s strategy model (Porter, 1980) was used, which was developed for

the traditional corporate sector, and whose model assumptions include pursuit of financial gains

as the primary motive. Thus, in the results, as would be expected, using cost differentiation and

cost-leadership yielded a positive relationship between competitive strategy and CFE financial

performance (Hypothesis 3, Chapter 4).

179

While the dissertation explicitly explored elements of commercial activities and

competitiveness in CFEs, it has to be acknowledged that Porter’s model has limitations for the

application in social enterprises, where multiple social, environmental, and financial goals are

being pursued simultaneously (Weerawardena & Sullivan Mort, 2012). It has been espoused in

previous studies that, while established theories of competitive advantage can well-inform research

on social enterprises, researchers should be alert to the identification of constructs that fit the

unique context of these organizations (Liu et al., 2014). In this dissertation, it entailed choosing

strategic orientation measures from a small-firm context and amending scale items to reflect the

competitive and business environment of CFEs. Nonetheless, future work on competitive strategy

in CFEs may draw from an emerging body of competitive strategy models that explicitly

acknowledge plurality of goals in the sustainability-oriented organization, including Blue Ocean

Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005), the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1996), and Socio-

Ecological Wellbeing (Dyck et al., 2018). The balanced scorecard in particular has been adopted

to measure performance in social enterprises (Mamabolo & Myres, 2020), but there is potential

for future research to further investigate strategic objectives and competitive demands in

organizations, including CFEs.

Finally, while extensive steps were taken to minimize bias in the quantitative surveys for

Chapters 4 and 5, some errors are likely. The survey population was defined based on official lists

of CFEs in the studied region. While BC has official government lists that could be used, this was

not the case in Washington and Oregon, where no official tenure for community forests exists yet

and sampling frames were derived from lists of nonprofit associations.

180

These may not have captured all organizations that classify as CFEs. Thus, there is the

potential for error. Because ome CFEs that were not captured in the sampling may significantly

differ in the constructs under study. Aside from potential sampling errors, both studies relied on

the adaptation of proven scales for the assessment of competitive orientation and managerial

characteristics. With respect to the insights gathered from the qualitative case studies (Chapter 3)

on the importance of managers networking with diverse groups in the community, the data

illustrates that follow-up studies could further develop CFE-specific competitiveness constructs

and measurement scales for managerial characteristics that are endogenous to the CFE context.

6.5 Future Directions

CFEs, as a distinct manifestation of social enterprises, remain under-researched. This study

revealed unique features of CFEs, and their potentials and perils as hybrid organizations that

combine commercial and non-profit missions to empower forest communities. While this

dissertation resolves many critically important ambiguities, many more questions remain that can

inspire future inquiry. For example, why are some managers better equipped than others in coming

to terms with goal plurality in CFEs? Is it a function of core personality traits or learned behaviors

within organizations and their particular cultures? It might also be worth exploring whether certain

organizational structures exist that are suited to facilitate the application of workable solutions for

tensions between goals? In all likelihood, there are many more nuances to the management of

tensions in CFEs than those discussed here.

181

For example, future studies could explore underlying motivations for the adoption of a

separation strategy to resolve tensions between participatory and business goals. Further research

on community empowerment as a core objective in social enterprises might also prove particularly

insightful. For example, this dissertation studied a set of organizations that are, by law, monitored

for their efforts to practice community participation in exchange for economic support (relief on

royalties for timber harvested). While this enabled a valuable glimpse into the ‘how’ of designing

participation processes amid plural sustainability objectives, conclusions as to whether motives

were substantive versus symbolic cannot be inferred from the data.

Finally, additional research with organizations in other socioeconomic or cultural contexts

would likely yield fascinating and important insights. This dissertation was carried out as a means

of enabling CFEs to increase the likelihood of succeeding at meeting their plural objectives. Each

chapter of this dissertation offers insights from a distinct perspective to address this core goal.

While the findings are useful in and of themselves, the contexts of this study and the theoretical

lenses used, provide a practical and theoretical departure point that future scholars could use.

A particularly notable aspect of this dissertation is the focus on community participation,

which offers an integrative perspective to analyze democracy in organizations. Some management

scholars view community participation as a hinderance to organizational performance (Pfeffer,

2013; Williamson, 1964), whereas others view it as a source of innovation and competitive

advantage (Pateman, 1970; Rothschild-Whitt, 2017). This work shows that either outcome is

possible. The outcome is contingent upon how an organization recognizes, interprets, and handles

tensions in engaging communities.

182

Future work in this domain will be inspired by this integrative view to extend our

understanding about participation and democracy in organizations. If current trends of

hybridization continue, and society keeps moving away from traditional notions of sectoral

boundaries (public, private, and non-profit), the dynamics of community participation identified

in this dissertation could become uniquely informative.

Today, by and large, we are observing a gradual shift in designing pathways to more

sustainable social and economic systems from feedback to co-design, hand-holding to individual

experience, and consultation to collaboration and empowerment. The natural resources sector, and

forestry in particular, is an exemplary context to observe this trend towards decentralization. More

than ever before, the inclusion of voices that have historically been on the ‘outside looking in’ –

poor, rural, Indigenous and otherwise marginalized communities – are seen as critical for realizing

proposed transition pathways to sustainable development. Since most social enterprises emphasize

empowerment of local constituents and financial self-sufficiency, it is critical to understand the

approaches and the necessary skills for CFEs to achieve greater sustainability. The results of this

dissertation offer multifaceted guidance to CFEs’ managers and policymakers, and to inspire future

scholars to further extend this work.

183

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197

Appendices

Appendix A

Research Consent Form

Title: A Study of Community Forestry Enterprises in British Columbia

Principal Investigator: Dr. Robert Kozak, Faculty of Forestry at the University of British

Columbia (UBC), rob.kozak@ubc.ca; phone +1 (604) 822-2402)

Co-Investigator: Meike Siegner, Doctoral Candidate in the Faculty of Forestry at the University

of British Columbia (UBC), meike.siegner@alumni.ubc.ca

Purpose: Understand managerial decision-making in community forestry enterprises by

conducting personal interviews and participant observation (presence of the researcher during

public events, guided tours in community and enterprise facilities)

Funding: This research is funded by a grant of the Social Sciences Research Council (SSHRC)

Duration: ___30-40___minutes

Research Procedures: In this study we will ask you about some demographic information and

your experience with and/or observation of managerial activities in community forestry

enterprises. Specifically how community forestry enterprise management can balance the various

social, ecological and economic demands embedded in community-based forestry activity. If you

agree to participate in the study, the interviewer will audio record the interview with your

198

permission. The study may also entail observation of meetings and/or public events that you

participate in. In that case, the researcher will present you (and all other present individuals) with

this consent form and ask for permission to be present during the event. The researcher will further

ask for permission to audio record the event. If you do not wish to be audio recorded during your

participation, the researcher will only take handwritten notes.

Confidentiality: Your confidentiality will be respected at all times. All documents will be

identified only by code numbers and kept in a locked filing cabinet. You will not be identified by

name in any written outcomes. Interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed for qualitative

analysis. The interviews, as well as observation notes and your identity remain confidential at all

times. No information that discloses your identity will be released or published. The data records

will be kept on a computer hard disk that will be accessible only by password. Only the principal

and co-investigator shall have access to the password protected data records. Pursuant to UBC

policy, the data will be kept in storage for five years after the completion of the study. At the end

of the five years, the records will be destroyed.

Risks: We do not anticipate any discomfort arising out of participating in this research assignment.

However, in case you feel you are experiencing any risks or discomfort, you are free to withdraw

from further participation at any stage.

Study Results: The research is part of Meike Siegner’s (co-investigator) doctoral dissertation

project. The findings from this study may be presented at academic conferences and published in

academic journals.

Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information

with respect to this research or the results (for example, if you would like to have insight in the

interview transcript) you may contact Meike Siegner via e-mail meike.siegner@alumni.ubc.ca, or

199

Dr. Robert Kozak, Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia via e-mail

rob.kozak@ubc.ca; or phone +1 (604) 822-2402)

Contact for concerns about the rights of research subjects: If you have any concerns or

complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating

in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research

Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance e-mail RSIL@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1-877-822-

8598

Consent: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and you may refuse to participate

or withdraw from the study at any time without consequence. Your signature below indicates that

consent to participate in this research assignment.

_______________________________ _____________

Participant signature Date

_____________________________

Print name

Do you agree to being audio recorded during your participation in this research?

(YES or NO, by checking the corresponding box)

YES •

(the researcher will audio-record and take handwritten notes)

NO •

(the researcher will take only handwritten notes)

__________________________________ _____________

Participant signature Date

__________________________________

Print name

200

Appendix B

Interview Protocol

Participant Information: Participant Code:

Name:

Age:

Organization:

I: Role in the Organization

Can you describe your job to me?

(What does your work as manager/board member/employee/other look like? Can you describe a

typical day in your organization/work routine?)

II. Goal plurality

Community forests are said to pursue many different social, environmental, economic goals.

What is your view on the mission and goals of your organization? What does it mean for your

work as manager?

Probes:

- Do you sometimes find that it is not possible to do all of them?

o If yes, can you describe some situations

o If no, what does it take to balance these goals? Can you provide some examples?

201

III. CFE Competitiveness

Some say community forestry enterprises should scale-up and grow in size and revenue, while

others say, that they should remain small and develop novel products. What is your take on it?

Probes:

- Can you provide some examples?

- What has your experience been in this organization?

o Have certain activities replaced others? If so, why and how?

o Is the current strategy working well, compared to past activities?

IV. Participation in decision-making

The BC Forest Act requires community forestry license holders to involve the community in all

decision-making. How do you make that happen?

Probes:

- Can you provide examples of decisions that the community gets consulted about?

- What are “key ingredients” of successful community involvement?

- Are there situations where it is more difficult to involve the community?

o How do you do it?

- Can you describe some situations where the outcomes of a community consultation were

not in line with your opinion?

o How did you handle those situations?

V. Collective ownership

The board composition of community forestry enterprises can be quite diverse. Often there are

municipalities involved, First Nations Bands, the local hiking club, or other citizen groups. How

do you manage the presence of diverse groups on the board?

202

Probes:

- How easy/difficult is it to satisfy board requests?

- Is it useful at all to have a diverse boards?

o Why yes, why not? Please provide examples

- Generally, how invested are the different groups forming the board?

VI. Future of community forest enterprises

In your opinion, how does the future of community forestry (community forest enterprises)

currently look like?

Probes:

- What are challenges?

- What are opportunities?

- Can you provide examples

- Are community members the forward looking ones? Management? The board? How and

why?

VII. Wrap-up, final remarks

Is there anything you would like to add or comment on?

203

Appendix C

Survey Instrument

Drivers of Strategic Choice in CFEs (Cascadia Region (BC Canada, and Washington and

Oregon, U.S.))

Q1 WELCOME TO OUR SURVEY

This research seeks to assess effective business strategies in community forests in Western

Canada and the Northwestern United States from an executive staff perspective.

You are invited to participate in this survey because you are the manager of a community forest

organization, or because you are overseeing a community forest as part of your work for an

environmental organization (e.g. land trust) or for an Indigenous or local government.

By community forests, we refer to working forests that are owned or managed through devolved

governance (e.g. band and tribal councils, cooperatives, municipalities, nonprofits) to

provide local benefits according to community values.

If you are involved in more than one community forest organization, please choose the one in

which you have (or had) the most recent and meaningful involvement. The estimated time for

completion is approximately 15 minutes.

If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your

experiences while participating in this study, please contact the Research Participant Complaint

Line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance e-mail

RSIL@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1-877-822-8598.

For questions and/or concerns about this study, please contact the research team: Meike Siegner,

Primary Researcher (msiegner@mail.ubc.ca) or Dr. Robert Kozak, Research Supervisor

(rob.kozak@ubc.ca), Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

You may start the survey by clicking on the arrow.

204

Q2 Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding the social performance of your

organization from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

The community

is very satisfied

with our social

performance (1) o o o o o

We operate in a

socially

sustainable

manner (2) o o o o o

We advocate

for the needs of

the local

community (3) o o o o o

We help

mobilize interest

for the social

benefits of

community

forestry (4)

o o o o o

In the past few

years, we have

met our

objectives in

terms of local

needs served (5)

o o o o o

We are often

perceived as an

organization that

brings positive

change to the

community (6)

o o o o o

Q3 Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding the environmental performance

of your organization from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

205

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

The community is

very satisfied with

our environmental

performance (1) o o o o o

We operate in a

environmentally

sustainable manner

(2) o o o o o

We advocate for

sustainable forestry

in this community

(3) o o o o o

We help mobilize

interest for the

environmental

benefits of

community

forestry (4)

o o o o o

In the past few

years, we have met

our environmental

objectives (5) o o o o o

We are often

perceived as an

organization that

champions

sustainable forestry

(6)

o o o o o

Q4 Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding the financial performance of

your organization from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

206

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

We are effective

in generating

funds to support

local benefits (1) o o o o o

In the past few

years, we

increased our

effectiveness (2) o o o o o

In the past few

years, our

financial

situation has

improved (3)

o o o o o

We are

financially

sustainable (4) o o o o o

Q5 Community forests may have goals according to the ability to generate social, environmental and economic

value. Please allocate a total of 100 points across these three categories as it pertains to your organizations' goals.

Social : _______ (1)

Environmental : _______ (2)

Economic : _______ (3)

Total : ________

207

Q6 Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding the main business strategy of

your organization from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

We focus on

selling primary

commodities (e.g.

raw logs) (1) o o o o o

There is constant

pressure to cut

costs (2) o o o o o

We emphasize

competitive prices

in our sales

communication

(3)

o o o o o

We work to

improve

efficiency (5) o o o o o

208

Q7 Again, please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding the main business

strategy of your organization from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

We focus on

selling products

and services that

enable us to

charge an extra

premium (e.g. by

targeting local

niche markets) (1)

o o o o o

There is a focus

on exploring

value-added

products and

services (2)

o o o o o

We emphasize the

community

character of our

organization in

our sales

communication

(3)

o o o o o

We work to offer

superior products

and services

compared to our

competitors (5)

o o o o o

Q8 Please describe the strategic orientation of your organization by selecting a box on the scale from 1 (Focus on

Cost Leadership) to 7 (Provision of Differentiated Products and Services)

Cost Leadership Differentiated

1

|

2

|

3

|

4

|

5

|

6

|

7

|

1 ()

209

Q9 Thinking about the work that you specifically perform in your organization, please indicate your level of

agreement with the following statements from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

I feel that I am

my own boss (1) o o o o o I can be creative

and try my own

methods of

doing the job (2) o o o o o

I can do

something that

makes use of my

abilities (3) o o o o o

It is basically

my own

responsibility to

decide how my

job gets done (4)

o o o o o

I seldom have to

follow the exact

same methods or

steps for getting

the job done (5)

o o o o o

210

Q10 Thinking about the work that you specifically perform in your organization, please indicate your level of

agreement with the following statements from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

I am constantly

on the lookout

for

improvements

(1)

o o o o o

I feel driven to

make a

difference

through my

work (2)

o o o o o

When a problem

comes up, I

tackle it head-on

(3) o o o o o

I love being a

champion for

my ideas, even

against others’

opposition (4)

o o o o o

I have been told

that I am a force

for constructive

change (5) o o o o o

211

Q11 Again, thinking about the work that you specifically perform in your organization, please indicate your level of

agreement with the following statements from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree) (next page)

212

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

I consider how

things might be

in the future and

try to influence

those things with

my day to day

work (1)

o o o o o

I often engage in

a particular

behavior in order

to achieve

outcomes that

may not result

for many years

(3)

o o o o o

I am willing to

sacrifice

immediate goals

in order to

achieve future

outcomes (4)

o o o o o

I think it is

important to take

warnings about

negative

outcomes

seriously even if

the negative

outcome will not

occur for many

years (5)

o o o o o

213

I think it is more

important to

support goals

with major

distant

consequences

than goals with

minor immediate

consequences (6)

o o o o o

Q12 Thinking about the work that you specifically perform in your organization, please indicate your level of

agreement with the following statements from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

214

Strongly

Disagree (1) Disagree (2) Neutral (3) Agree (4)

Strongly Agree

(5)

I cooperate with

a wide range of

actors (1) o o o o o

I frequently

discuss common

problems with

other

community

forest executives

(2)

o o o o o

I have a central

position in my

professional

network (e.g. as

board member

of a professional

association) (3)

o o o o o

I am frequently

involved in

voluntary work

that aims to

grow awareness

for community

forestry (4)

o o o o o

When others

have some

questions about

new ideas for

utilization of the

forest, they

often come to

me for help (5)

o o o o o

Q13 Next, we would like you to provide some general information about your organization

215

Q14 Does your organization have forest certification?

o Yes (1)

o No (2)

Skip To: Q16 If Does your organization have forest certification? = No

Q15 What is the name of the certification scheme? Please write the information in the field below

________________________________________________________________

Q16 How old is your organization? Please write the number of years in the field below

________________________________________________________________

Q17 How many full-time staff work for your organization? Please write the number in the field below

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Q18 What products and services does your community forest organization offer? Please write the information on all

earned revenue activities of the organization in the field below

________________________________________________________________

Q19 How many hectares/acres of forest land does the organization administer? Please write the number in the field

below

________________________________________________________________

216

Q20 Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below

o British Columbia (Canada) (1)

o Alaska (2)

o Idaho (3)

o Montana (4)

o Oregon (5)

o Washington (6)

Display This Question:

If Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = Alaska

Or Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = Idaho

Or Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = Montana

Or Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = Oregon

Or Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = Washington

Q21 What is the form of ownership in this organization? Please select a choice below

o Corporation (1)

o Cooperative (2)

o Land Trust (3)

o Limited Liability Company (4)

o Society (5)

o Tribe (6)

o Other (7) ________________________________________________

217

Display This Question:

If Where is your organization located? Please select a choice below = British Columbia (Canada)

Q22 What is the form of ownership in this organization? Please select a choice below

o Corporation (1)

o Cooperative (2)

o First Nation (3)

o Partnership (4)

o Society (5)

o Other (6) ________________________________________________

Q23 Finally, we would like you to provide some information about yourself

Q24 How many years have you worked in the organization? Please write the number in the field below

________________________________________________________________

Q25 What is your highest level of education? Please write the degree in the field below. (You may skip this question

by clicking on the arrow)

________________________________________________________________

Q26 What is your age? Please write the number in the field below. (You may skip this question by clicking on the

arrow)

________________________________________________________________

218

Q27 What is your gender? Please select a choice below

o Female (1)

o Male (2)

o Transgender, transitioning (5)

o Other (3) ________________________________________________

o Prefer not to answer (4)

219

Appendix D

ANOVA Results

Variables

Mean F

p

Pure Differentiators Mixed

Strategists

Strategically

Irresolutes

SP1 The community is very satisfied

with our social performance 3.89 4.11 3.79 1.16 .32

SP2 We operate in a socially

sustainable manner 4.29 4.37 4.43 0.58 .56

SP3 We advocate for the needs of the

local community 4.7 4.52 4.21 1.88 .16

SP4 We help mobilize interest for the

social benefits of community forestry 4.5 4.07 3.64 4.44 .02*

SP5 In the past few years, we have met

our objectives in terms of local needs

served

4.1 4.26 3.71 2.87 .06

SP6 We are often perceived as an

organization that brings positive

change to the community

4 4.11 3.86 0.39 .67

EP1 The community is very satisfied

with our environmental performance 3.7 3.96 3.71 0.99 .37

EP2 We operate in a environmentally

sustainable manner 4.2 4.44 4.29 0.50 .61

EP3 We advocate for sustainable

forestry in this community 4.6 4.52 4.43 0.20 .81

EP4 We help mobilize interest for the

environmental benefits of community

forestry

4.1 3.96 3.86 0.24 .78

EP6 We are often perceived as an

organization that champions

sustainable forestry

4.2 4.15 3.86 0.86 .42

FP1 We are effective in generating

funds to support local benefits 4.4 4.48 3.64 4.26 .03*b

FP2 In the past few years, we

increased our effectiveness 4.4 4.44 3.5 6.94 .00*

FP3 In the past few years, our financial

situation has improved 4.3 4.56 3.71 5.67 .00*