Suchergebnisse

In recent decades structural changes in the forestry sector have changed forest owners' characteristics and thus the member base of forest owners' associations. More general social trends have also changed how individuals and organizations interact with each other. A major challenge for the forest owners' associations is thus to adapt their service offers and organizational structures to fit the needs of current and future members. The objective of the project this thesis is based upon was to examine processes that are shaping the future membership of forest owners' associations in Sweden and identify elements that are likely to affect their relationships with members and (hence) their cooperative nature. To meet this objective, the issue was addressed from different angles and organizational levels in studies reported in four appended papers. Paper I showed that renewal of district councils is a slow process in which election committees play a central role. However, they were found to act passively and select candidates from narrow pools, which restrict the councils' representativeness and raises risks of strategic misalignment with members' interests as it severely limits inputs from several user groups in decision-making processes. Paper II showed that in order to meet the changing member needs the organizations are currently focusing their strategic efforts on developing new services to support members' management activities and ownership issues, improve education offers, and become strong political actors. Paper III showed that members who had traded timber with the association displayed significantly higher affective commitment, but not calculative commitment, than both non-members and members who had traded with other organizations. Thus, the findings suggest that the associations should focus on communicating their core values and strengthening members' identification with the organization, as this will have stronger effects on their loyalty than fostering calculative relationships. Paper IV provides support for the findings in Paper II, showing that young adults generally have limited familiarity with forestry activities. Further they rarely discussed forest issues with their parents. Thus they did not feel comfortable in discussing their own future as potential forest owners since they lacked understanding of the personal implications for them in practice. A key highlighted finding is that the main challenges for the organizations are connected to their democratic governance processes.

Sweden has a long tradition of strict alcohol policies and market regulations have been used in order to keep down the consumption among the population. The state has controlled the market through monopolies and high alcohol taxes. When Sweden entered the European Union four of the five monopolies were abandoned. At the same time entrepreneurial micro-breweries started to enter the market. The market is regulated by a retail monopoly (Systembolaget) and regulation considering marketing and production of alcohol products. The aim of the study was to investigate how the regulations have affected the entrepreneurs in the industry and which strategies they are using in order to compete with the big breweries which are dominating the market. Further, because it is an industry still under development, the issue of legitimacy for new industries is also included in the study. In order to develop the understanding of how the entrepreneurial process might look like and which strategies that are available at an early stage in the process a theoretical framework was constructed. This includes theories about opportunity discovery and creation, market driven or market driving entrepreneurship, branding, and industry legitimacy. The study has been done through a qualitative method based on interviews with three entrepreneurs who are founders of micro-breweries. The results of this study shows that the market regulations act both as a support and as a hinder for the entrepreneurial activity in the industry. Due to Systembolaget's formal procedures for selecting products to their assortment, the small companies are able to compete at same condition as the bigger players in the process. However, there are regulations which hinder an effective marketing of the companies, especially when potential customers are visiting the breweries and do not have the possibility to buy the product on site. The lack of understanding among politicians for the values which guide the micro-breweries work is one reason to why the industry still struggles to gain legitimacy. A micro-brewers association has recently been founded in order to organize the entrepreneurs in a better way. This might lead to increased knowledge about their work in the future.