The future orientation of foresters: An exploratory research among Dutch foresters into the prerequisite for strategic planning in forestry Marjanke A. Hoogstra a, ⁎ , Heiner Schanz b,1 a Wageningen University, Forest and Nature Conservation Policy, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands b Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy, Tennenbacher Straβe 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany Received 21 December 2006; received in revised form 1 October 2007; accepted 17 October 2007 Abstract The importance of strategic planning as an instrument to cope with the uncertain future has been long recognized, especially in forestry which is characterized by its relationship with the distant future. Surprisingly, the question to what extent the future is indeed considered in forestry decision- making has received only limited attention. It is therefore the objective of this paper to explore empirically foresters' relation with time (called time perspectives), and more specifically their future orientation, as a basic prerequisite for strategic planning in forestry. In a case study approach, Dutch foresters were questioned with Cottle's Circles Test on the role of the future in their decision-making and the extent to which their planning is merely an extrapolation of past experiences and/or the perception of present conditions. The results indicate a strong future orientation of (Dutch) foresters in planning and decision-making. This allows for strategic planning in a truly entrepreneurial style with uncertainty being interpreted as a valuable resource. However, the results also show that this future orientation is constantly contested by the importance which foresters are assigning to the ‘past’ for learning. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Circles Test; Forestry; Future orientation; Strategic planning; Time perspective “Ihr seid groβ, ihr wirket unbekannt, unbelohnt, frei von des Egoismus Tyrannei, und euren stillen Fleiβes Früchte reifen der späten Nachwelt noch” Friedrich von Schiller (German poet, dramatist, philosopher and historian, 1759–1805) 1. Introduction Strategic planning is a necessity for every business organization independent of the nature of the business activity. Likewise in forestry, the notion of strategic (or long-range) planning is widely known with origins that can be traced back to 18th and 19th century in Central Europe when, with increasing demands on wood, con- cerns about the wood supply for future generations came to the fore (Speidel, 1972: 15; Convery, 1973: 27; Martell et al., 1998: 3). Generally, strategic planning is interpreted as an active and conscious anticipation of the future (Oesten and Roeder, 2002: 53). Although the future is per definition unpredictable, this does not prevent managers from realising the necessity of holding a vision about what the future should hold when making a decision (Wilson, 1992; Weick 1995). Strategic planning thus means “looking into or ‘grasping’ the future” (Das, 1991: 53) and making “present decisions with knowledge of their futurity” (Drucker, 1972: 13). Consequently, there is an important link between strategic planning and the individual time perspective. The concept of time perspective refers to “the [ ] process whereby individuals and cultures assign the flow of personal and social experiences into the temporal categories of past, present or future, that help to give order, coherence and meaning to those events” (Zimbardo et al., 1997: 1008; Epel et al., 1999: 577; Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999: 1271). People have different ways of relating to the three time zones (past, present, future), which result in Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Forest Policy and Economics 10 (2008) 220 – 229 www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 317 478004; fax: +31 317 478005. E-mail addresses: Marjanke.Hoogstra@wur.nl (M.A. Hoogstra), Heiner.Schanz@ifp.uni-freiburg.de (H. Schanz). 1 Tel.: +49 761 2033707; fax: +49 761 2033729. 1389-9341/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2007.10.004