Owner-driven decision support in holding-specific forest planning

Socioeconomic and demographic changes among family forest owners and demands for versatile forestry decision aid motivated this study, which sought grounds for owner-driven forest planning. Finnish family forest owners' forest-related decision making was analyzed in two interview-based qualitative studies, the main findings of which were surveyed quantitatively. Thereafter, a scheme for adaptively mixing methods in individually tailored decision support processes was constructed. The first study assessed owners' decision-making strategies by examining varying levels of the sharing of decision-making power and the desire to learn. Five decision-making modes – trusting, learning, managing, pondering, and decisive – were discerned and discussed against conformable decision-aid approaches. The second study conceptualized smooth communication and assessed emotional, practical, and institutional boosters of and barriers to such smoothness in communicative decision support. The results emphasize the roles of trust, comprehension, and contextual services in owners' communicative decision making. In the third study, a questionnaire tool to measure owners' attitudes towards communicative planning was constructed by using trusting, learning, and decisive dimensions. Through a multivariate analysis of survey data, three owner groups were identified as fusions of the original decision-making modes: trusting learners (53%), decisive learners (27%), and decisive managers (20%). Differently weighted communicative services are recommended for these compound wishes. The findings of the studies above were synthesized in a form of adaptive decision analysis (ADA), which allows and encourages the decision-maker (owner) to make deliberate choices concerning the phases of a decision aid (planning) process. The ADA model relies on adaptability and feedback management, which foster smooth communication with the owner and (inter-)organizational learning of the planning institution(s). The summarized results indicate that recognizing the communication-related amenity values of family forest owners may be crucial in developing planning and extension services. It is therefore recommended that owners, root-level planners, consultation professionals, and pragmatic researchers collaboratively continue to seek stable change. asiakaspalvelun asiantuntijoiden ja tutkijoiden kesken. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My very first ideas behind this doctoral thesis were pondered in 1997 when I was taking part in the primer course of forest planning at the University of Helsinki. Professor Simo Poso took a positive view of our group " Junior Consultants ". We formulated a proposal on how to take an owner's objectives into account in forest planning. Now I can clearly see that the perspective taken at that time has carried me up to a doctoral dissertation. Thanks to Jani Seppälä and Tapio Luoma-aho for a meaningful …