To promote the autonomous reformation of the Forest Owners' Cooperatives (FOC), the regional business characteristics must be clarified and analyzed in terms of their relationship with organizational management. In this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted to understand how the regional characteristics of FOC have developed in recent years when the use of thinning was considered necessary and how the characteristics relate to organizational management. The following hypotheses were shown as a result of the analysis, namely a trend toward 'top-down' management in areas such as Fukushima Prefecture, where the regional share of the FOC logging business was inactive. In areas where FOC's regional share of wood production was high but FOC logging and sale of business units accounted for a small percentage of total income meanwhile, such as Gifu Prefecture, middle- to lower-class employees were found to be closely related to regional forest management. This analysis also suggested that many officers and leading members of associations have extensive experience of forestry works in Kochi Prefecture and elsewhere, where the FOC logging business is active and the regional share of wood production is high.
View full abstract