Environmental, social, and economic challenges to forest-based micro-entrepreneurship: A comparative case study in Finland

dc.affiliation.institutionLUT University
dc.affiliation.institutionUniversity of Helsinki
dc.contributor.authorLuhas, Jukka
dc.contributor.authorMikkilä, Mirja
dc.date.accepted2024-06-06
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-10T22:00:19Z
dc.date.available2025-01-10T22:00:19Z
dc.date.issued2024-06-06
dc.date.revised2024-06-04
dc.date.submitted2023-12-14
dc.description.abstractCountries worldwide, especially Nordic countries, have proposed a forest-based bioeconomy to halt systemic risks, such as climate change, and to create socioeconomic welfare. Entrepreneurs operating in various business sectors and regions face several complex challenges in this regard. However, the challenges faced by forest-based micro-entrepreneurs have not been addressed across various regions using systems thinking. This comparative case study aimed to identify the environmental, social, and economic challenges faced by forest-based micro-entrepreneurs and the spatial features of these challenges—their scale, interactions, and prevalence—in two different regions in Finland: Lapland and South Karelia. These regions’ economies rely heavily on the recreational value of nature and on the large-scale pulp and paper industries, respectively. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with micro-entrepreneurs from various sectors, such as forestry, logging, tourism, and natural products. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The framework used enabled a deeper spatial understanding of the challenges experienced by forest-based micro-entrepreneurs. The micro-entrepreneurs in the two case regions had great similarities in terms of themes related to trust, workload, and labor shortage. This may hinder the implementation of new practices in regional forest-based bioeconomy development. Future quantitative studies could validate the identified challenges for further policy development.
dc.description.disclaimerThe presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the pdf file of the accepted manuscript may differ slightly from what is displayed on the item page. The information in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript reflects the original submission by the author.
dc.identifier.doi10.1139/cjfr-2023-0293
dc.identifier.issn0045-5067
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/141724
dc.publication.journalCanadian Journal of Forest Research
dc.publisherCanadian Science Publishing
dc.titleEnvironmental, social, and economic challenges to forest-based micro-entrepreneurship: A comparative case study in Finland
dc.typeResearch Article
dc.typeArticle Post-Print

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