Internationalization of the forest products industry: A synthesis of literature and implications for future research

Forest industry has undergone profound changes since the 1990s. Industry-level consolidation and the rise in international investments are the most noticeable features of this process. Based on reviewing internationalization from internalization and transaction cost, resource based, industrial organization and managerial incentives theories, we apply the systematic review method to go through the literature concerning internationalization processes in the forest products industry during the 2000s. By linking the theories with empirical indicators in the forest products industry, we identify research gaps and formulate propositions for future research. We conclude that macro-level studies concerning policy and economic issues are relatively well represented in the literature, whereas only limited attention has been paid to micro-level studies. Based on the literature review, we argue that future internationalization research inter alia in the forest products industry should focus more on the role of corporate culture, the importance of corporate managerial capability, the multidimensional construct of sustainability, and conducting analysis within broader geographic scope than has been done so far.