Forest planning in a Swedish company – a knowledge management analysis of forest information

Forest data and forest information are central to forest management planning. The knowledge a large forest-owning company possesses about its forests could potentially be a strategic capability. In this study, the forest-planning process of a large forest company is analyzed in terms of knowledge management (KM). The study was conducted as a case study of Sveaskog – the largest forest-owning company in Sweden. The study focuses on the long-term harvest strategy through medium-term planning until the stands are transferred to the tract bank and ready for operational planning. Interviews with key persons within the organization were conducted to assess how forest knowledge is used in this process. The results are presented for the four knowledge management processes: creation, storage-retrieving, transferring and applying. They show that the planning system relies to a great extent on codified knowledge realized by a push strategy.