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A. Toppinen et al. / Futures 88 (2017) 1 – 14
corporations producing commodity products and struggling in a phase of ongoing transformation towards a conservation- based economy. The PPI has been seeking renewal under the emerging concept of bio-economy, particularly in Europe (Kivimaa & Kautto, 2010; McCormick & Kautto, 2013). Bio-economy is a concept that has attracted increasing attention in the last decade (Staffas, Gustavsson, & McCormick, 2013), and has developed to include great challenges and opportunities for the forest sector to the extent that might blur its traditional boarders ( [66_TD$DIFF] Kleinschmit et al., 2014; Pätäri, Tuppura, Toppinen, & Korhonen, 2016). The EU and some of its member states focus on an economy that is based on the use of biomass resources ( [67_TD$DIFF] Pätäri et al., 2016), comprising “ [ . . . ]biological resources from the land and sea, as well as waste, as inputs to food and feed, industrial and energy production [ . . . ] ” (European Commission, 2012). According to Sisto, van Vliet, & Prosperi (2016:45) “ for its cross-cutting nature, bio-economy represents a great challenge to comprehensively address inter-connected rural development issues such as sustainable economic growth, natural resource scarcity, food security, fossil resource dependence and climate change. ” The diffusion of biore fi nery technology is the key concept with regard to the bio-economy in the forest sector (Hetemäki & Hänninen, 2013), but the PPI ’ s low willingness to take investment risks has been perceived as a barrier to the diffusion of biore fi neries (Näyhä & Pesonen, 2012). Although there has been research on the future outlook of the European forest sector (e.g. Hurmekoski & Hetemäki, 2013; Olsmats & Kaivo-oja, 2014; see also the review in Näyhä, Pelli, & Hetemäki, 2015), no scienti fi c studies have considered the future of the pulp and paper industry from a strategic viewpoint, covering the full spectrum of aspects ranging from industry structure, technology and innovations to competition in product and raw- material markets, and combining industry-speci fi c factors with the emerging societal transition towards sustainability (Loorbach & Wijsman, 2013). Instead, published reports on factors of strategic change in PPI have predominantly been industry-led, or developed by policy makers. For example, the roadmap for the Finnish forest sector drawn up in 2010 developed four scenarios for an operating environment leading up to 2030: the global bio-economy (with consumers and industry recognizing climate change and working towards a carbon-neutral society), the forest as a source of bioenergy (substituting fossil fuel keeps value capture low), business as usual (in which the dominant logic prevails), and a self-suf fi cient society (characterized by extensive biomass food production due to repercussions from climate change) (The world ’ s leading forest cluster, 2010). In accordance with these alternative futures for the business environment, the key necessary strategic actions identi fi edinthe report were specialization in the most value-adding products and solutions, aiming for global leadership in standardization and norms, and taking a global role as a resource integrator. The European Commission (2013) has also recently drawn up a blueprint for the forest-based industries, identifying altogether 12 challenges, which collectively underline the importance of stimulating sectorial transition with a radical change in the industry ’ s mind-set, and the need to improve innovation, structural adaptation, production ef fi ciency and the quality of products and services in order to grow in markets both within and outside the EU. In order to fi ll the research gap, we aim to produce a methodologically sound study on industry transformation and change in business logic in the European PPI, and to map the expectations of high-level industry experts concerning the future business and business environment. Our fi rst research question is how the pulp and paper industry may change strategically in the development towards bio-economy, and what kind of business opportunities the industry transformation will offer to the existing and new companies in the fi eld ? A more practical secondary question is also addressed, based on the results, concerning what are the pathways open to the European PPI in order to maintain its competitiveness in the changing business environment? We adopt a Delphi approach aimed at PPI experts in several European countries to explore the current situation in terms of industry structure and the potential for transformation and value creation in the year 2030. According to Hurmekoski and Hetemäki (2013:17), “ there are potential advantages in complementing the current modeling approach dominant in the forest sector with other methods from the fi eld of foresight ” , which also warrants the use of the Delphi method. With regard to the future, we aim to assess the expected change and its signi fi cance in terms of seven key factors (i.e. technology, raw materials, products, [68_TD$DIFF] markets, strategic partnerships, specialization and sustainability investments) that are assumed to shape future business in the European pulp and paper sector over a time span extending to 2030. On this basis we further construct an industry scenario and discuss the changes this would require to current business logics.
2. Theoretical foundations
2.1. The dominant logic of an industry
Prahalad and Bettis (1986) introduced the construct of dominant logic, or dominant general management logic, in order to better understand relationship between industry diversi fi cation and performance. One of the key motivations behind this stream of strategy literature is the question of why is it so hard for organizations to change. First the approach focused on diversi fi cation-driven organizational change and then moved on revolving around environmental-driven organizational change (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995; Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). Prahalad and Bettis (1986:491) de fi ned the concept of dominant logicas “ a mind set or a world view or conceptualization of the business and the administrative tools to accomplish goals and make decisions in that business ” . It relates to how business is conducted to make pro fi ts in the markets and how fi rms interact with customers and competitors, and it also gives some indication of its perceived key success factors (Prahalad &
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