Anu Laakkonen, Teppo Hujala, Jouni Pykäläinen. (2022). Defining the systemic development of the Finnish pulp and paper industry’s business network. Silva Fennica vol. 56 no. 2 article id 10599. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.10599

Keywords: forest cluster; competence; Actors-Resources-Activities framework; coopetition; historical pathways

Highlights: Systemic view helps to understand the phenomena reshaping business field networks; Forest sector companies operate in complex, dynamic, and international environment; Actors-Resources-Activities framework -based analysis of Finnish pulp and paper industry’s network development; The role of actors, resources, and activities have varied between different phases; Network structure altered due to radical changes in the operating environment.

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Companies operate in a nested and complex system where global challenges shape their environments and put pressure on business activities. Systemic understanding of the past and ongoing changes within a national industry help to analyze the global influences and identify phenomena that reshape business collaborations. To address this issue in the case of a forest sector, this study constructs a systemic picture of the historical development of the Finnish pulp and paper industry’s business network and analyzes it qualitatively through the Actors-Resources-Activities framework. Books discussing the history of the Finnish forest industry were used as secondary data, which were analyzed with a theory-based content analysis method. The analysis revealed four development phases during which the network has evolved from rather simple one emphasizing cooperation organizations (1st) to a more complex one with stronger roles of the state and individual influencers (2nd), and then emphasizing export and advocacy associations (3rd), before returning to be rather simple, based around three large multinationals and the EU playing an important role (4th). The industry is concerned about securing its key resources, with varying foci. Research and technological innovation activities play an important role together with cooperative interactions. Overall, actors favor a business-as-usual strategy, which is overruled only by a radical change in the operating environment, leading to notable changes in the network. Thus, a suggestion for all actors within the forest sector is that actively detecting and interpreting change signals in the whole environment can help actors in pursuing sustainable activities.

Laakkonen, School of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Science and Forestry, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6384-7773 E-mail: anu.laakkonen@uef.fi
Hujala, School of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Science and Forestry, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7905-7602 E-mail: teppo.hujala@uef.fi
Pykäläinen, School of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Science and Forestry, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland E-mail: jouni.pykalainen@uef.fi

article id 70, category Research article

Joonas Järvinen, Jaakko Linnakangas. (2012). Firm capabilities in the Finnish forest cluster: comparisons based on self-organizing map. Silva Fennica vol. 46 no. 1 article id 70. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.70

Keywords: forest cluster; capability; content analysis; self-organizing map

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This paper examines the capability portfolios of Finnish forest cluster firms in 1998–2008. In particular, the focus is on what kind of capabilities the firms in the cluster have developed, whether the firms have developed such capabilities consistently, and whether they have developed similar capability portfolios. Further, a particular focus is on the links between innovativeness and other identified capabilities. We approach the topic with an exploratory quantitative analysis of the annual reports of 11 large firms in the cluster by using computerized content analysis and a self-organizing map as the main research methods. Based on the content analysis and earlier literature, we first identify fifteen capabilities, and then build capability portfolios for the firms on the basis of the results of the self-organizing map. At the firm level, the results reveal both similarities and differences in the capability portfolios of the forest cluster firms. Similarly, we identify both continuity and change in the development of the portfolios. At the cluster level, the focus is on innovativeness capability and its relationship with other capabilities. The results suggest that especially being strategic, market-oriented, and monitoring the external environment are positively related with innovativeness; in contrast, a focus on finance and change seems to suppress innovativeness.

Järvinen, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, P.O.Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland E-mail: joonas.jarvinen@aalto.fi
Linnakangas, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, P.O.Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland E-mail: jl@nn.fi

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