Marketing strategies and their critical aspects in the bioeconomy sector: empirical evidence from forestry

Growing energy demand and decreasing fossil carbon resources coupled with political and economic instability in production countries, has lead to the introduction of a bioeconomy strategy for the EU targeting horizon 2020. Biomass as an essential climate variable and as an ecosystem productivity controller was identified as a promising source with the highest potential for generating energy. However, the effect of a rapidly growing bioenergy market mostly driven by the policies, on forestry enterprises and their marketing strategies is not known. Drawing on insight from various theoretical perspectives (e.g. the configuration school, conventional business studies, market-as-network perspective, institutional theory) will allow not only theoretical design but also an empirically and internationally test the model that will draw individual parts such as marketing strategy and its critical aspects together. The resultant model will fill the theoretical gap in research on marketing strategies applied within the bioeconomy in general and the forestry sector in particular. Findings obtained via applied mixed method design (qualitative and quantitative methods) will give answers to questions on how forestry enterprises cope with and take advantage of current developments and opportunities in a fast growing bioenergy market.