Evaluation of decision-support needs among family forest owners in Finland: An application of mixed methods

Structural changes of society, such as urbanisation, economic growth and ageing, have evoked a continuing diversification of forest ownership objectives and management strategies in Finland and other Nordic countries. Traditional forestry extension, by means of selling regular forest plans to farm-forest owners, has lost efficiency. As a modern way of activating and satisfying the growing number of new forest owners, the concept of customer-oriented forest planning has been introduced. Recently the present authors have been constructing a theoretical basis and studying empirical implications of customer-orientation in forest planning and consultation activity, which so far has not been unanimously defined in the Nordic countries. Based on some preliminary results of the authors’ research, this paper identifies, conceptualises and quantifies the decision-making modes and decision-support needs of Finnish family forest owners. Furthermore, the application of mixed methods in the authors' current research activity is demonstrated and discussed. The research chain comprises the following phases: preliminary case study, pilot enquiry, qualitative in-depth interviews, conceptual modelling of decision-support needs, a postal survey for testing the model empirically, and finally, testing and enhancing the model by means of an adaptive design-based process. The rationale of the research, as well as the steps of the interpretation and verification process with critical observations, is described. The presented research chain will contribute to the development of flexible, customer-oriented decision-support services for Finnish private forestry in particular. However, the approach is generally transferable to other countries and conditions where forest owners' perspective needs to be thoroughly investigated.