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Articles by Ritva Toivonen

Category : Research article

article id 389, category Research article
Ritva Toivonen, Eric Hansen, Erno Järvinen, Raija-Riitta Enroth. (2005). The competitive position of the Nordic wood industry in Germany – intangible quality dimensions. Silva Fennica vol. 39 no. 2 article id 389. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.389
Keywords: wood products; quality; the intangible product component; performance
Abstract | View details | Full text in PDF | Author Info
This study examines the importance of various intangible product quality dimensions as perceived by wood-trading retailer and wholesaler companies in Germany. Using perceived importance and perceived performance, the study first examines the dimensionality of intangible product quality and then compares Nordic wood product suppliers with suppliers from other major supply regions. Data was collected from 76 German companies during 2000–2001. Results indicate that intangible product quality can be described in three dimensions, “Behaviour and Image”, “Serviceability and Environment”, and “Reliability”. Results also show that Nordic suppliers do not have a strong competitive position in Germany in terms of intangible product quality dimensions. Thus, Nordic suppliers could improve their competitive position by enhancing their service, logistics and other dimensions of the intangible product offering.
  • Toivonen, Pellervo Economic Research Institute PTT, Eerikinkatu 28 A, FI-00180, Helsinki, Finland E-mail: ritva.toivonen@dnainternet.net (email)
  • Hansen, Oregon State University, Dept. of Wood Science & Engineering, Richardson Hall 108, 97331-5751 Corvallis, OR, USA E-mail: eh@nn.us
  • Järvinen, Pellervo Economic Research Institute PTT, Eerikinkatu 28 A, FI-00180, Helsinki, Finland E-mail: ej@nn.fi
  • Enroth, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Unioninkatu 40 A, FI-00170 Helsinki, Finland E-mail: rre@nn.fi

Category : Review article

article id 10609, category Review article
Jaakko Jussila, Emil Nagy, Katja Lähtinen, Elias Hurmekoski, Liina Häyrinen, Cecilia Mark-Herbert, Anders Roos, Ritva Toivonen, Anne Toppinen. (2022). Wooden multi-storey construction market development – systematic literature review within a global scope with insights on the Nordic region. Silva Fennica vol. 56 no. 1 article id 10609. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.10609
Keywords: sustainability; construction industry; consumer; forest-wood value chain; municipality; urbanization
Highlights: Enabling factors for WMC market diffusion include benefits from cost-efficiency gains from prefabrication and industrialization and perceived sustainability benefits; Inexperience of using wood, and path dependencies to use concrete and steel in multi-storey building are the key barriers for mainstreaming WMC market development; More research is needed on the development in the wood construction value-chains to challenge the dominant concrete-based construction regime in the housing markets.
Abstract | Full text in HTML | Full text in PDF | Author Info

Climate change sets high pressures on the construction industry to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Due to the carbon storage properties and potential to use renewable resources efficiently, wooden multi-storey construction (WMC) is an interesting alternative for the construction industry to enhance sustainable development combined with the aesthetic and well-being benefits of wood perceived among many consumers. For forest industry firms, industrial wood construction is a possibility to seek for business opportunities and bring socio-economic benefits for local economies. Despite positive drivers, WMC still remains a niche even in the forest-rich countries.The purpose of our study is to add understanding on the WMC market development by conducting a systematic literature analysis on international peer-reviewed studies from the past 20 years. Our special focus is on the role of WMC in the housing markets studied from the perspectives of the demand, supply and local governance factors. As specific aims, we 1) synthesize the key barriers and enabling factors for the WMC market growth; 2) identify the actors addressed in the existing studies connected to the WMC market development, and 3) summarize research methods and analytical approaches used in the previous studies. As a systematic method to make literature searches in Web of Science and Scopus for years 2000–2020, we employed PRISMA guidelines. By using pre-determined keywords, our searches resulted in a sample of 696 articles, of which 42 full articles were after selection procedure included in-depth content analysis. Our results showed cost-efficiency gains from industrialized prefabrication and perceived sustainability benefits by consumers and architects enabled a WMC market diffusion. The lack of experiences on the WMC, and path dependencies to use concrete and steel continue to be key barriers for increased WMC. Although our research scope was the global WMC market development, most of the literature concerned the Nordic region. The key actors covered in the literature were businesses (e.g., contractors, manufacturers and architects) involved in the wood construction value-chains, while residents and actors in the local governance were seldomly addressed. Currently, case studies, the use of qualitative data sets and focus on the Nordic region dominate the literature. This hinders the generalizability of findings in different regional contexts. In the future, more research is needed on how sustainability-driven wood construction value-chains are successfully shaping up in different geographical regions, and how they could challenge the dominant concrete-based construction regime.

  • Jussila, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 4, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: jaakko@jussila.fi (email)
  • Nagy, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Economics, P.O. Box 7060, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: emil.nagy@slu.se
  • Lähtinen, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Bioeconomy and environment, P.O. Box 2, FI-00791 Helsinki, Finland E-mail: katja.lahtinen@luke.fi
  • Hurmekoski, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 4, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: elias.hurmekoski@helsinki.fi
  • Häyrinen, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Bioeconomy and environment, P.O. Box 2, FI-00791 Helsinki, Finland E-mail: liina.hayrinen@luke.fi
  • Mark-Herbert, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Economics, P.O. Box 7060, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: cecilia.mark-herbert@slu.se
  • Roos, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Forest Economics, P.O. Box 7060, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: anders.roos@slu.se
  • Toivonen, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 4, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: ritva.toivonen@helsinki.fi
  • Toppinen, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Sciences, P.O. Box 4, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: anne.toppinen@helsinki.fi

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