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50 MATERIALS SEP/OCT 2026 FDM ASIA | www.fdmasia.com

Douglas Cliff and 559 direct, targeted email invitations sent to industry
stakeholders.
A total of 100 responses were logged, from which 69 fully
completed questionnaires were secured.
In alignment with established statistical protocols for
exploratory survey research, partially completed responses

were retained and analysed up to the specific point of
respondent dropout.
To prevent distortion, statistical analyses utilised pairwise
or boundary ambiguities were iteratively resolved through deletion on an item-by-item basis for missing values, and no
collaborative consensus-building discussions until a final, artificial data imputations were performed. Within the total
unified categorisation was achieved. sample, forest owners constituted the largest participating
Coded segments were compiled into an aggregated group (22%; n=22), followed closely by foresters (20%; n=20).
coding dictionary and qualitatively ranked across five core The remaining sample consisted of research and academic
thematic areas, structurally aligned with the constructs of the staff (15%; n=15), sawmill industry representatives (11%; n=11),

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): (a) tracking mechanism political delegates and association officers (8%; n=8), logging
and automated data capture, (b) economic and operational contractors (6%; n=6), timber logistics operators (3%; n=3),
incentives, (c) legal and regulatory considerations, (d) forest unclassified corporate entities (7%; n=7), and miscellaneous
certification integration, and (e) macro-level digital readiness. stakeholders (8%; n=8).
Demographic age distribution was stratified as follows:
Online Survey & Expert Workshop under 30 years (14%; n=14), 30–49 years (41%; n=41), 50–69
To scale and statistically validate the qualitative insights gathered years (38%; n=38), and over 70 years (1%; n=1). A marginal

from the expert interviews, a quantitative online survey was dropout rate of 5 percent was observed at the demographic
deployed between 19 September and 23 October 2023. classification section, while 1 percent of respondents elected
The survey items were designed to map onto the TAM not to disclose their age.
constructs, operationalising "perceived usefulness" via regulatory A transdisciplinary online expert workshop was convened
compliance capabilities and "perceived ease of use" via on 2 November 2023, featuring n=18 purposively selected
technological integration barriers. participants. The core objective was to collectively evaluate
The survey was hosted securely on LimeSurvey and utilised the socio-technical impacts of digitalisation within the forest-
diversified item formats, including semantic differentials, Likert wood value chain, identify systemic innovation potentials, and
scales, ordinal rankings, and open-ended text fields. co-design actionable operational recommendations.

Targeted recruitment utilised a multi-channel outreach To capture a holistic view of the regulatory-operational
strategy: the survey was formally promoted at two primary interface, the panel blended high-level scientific expertise
scientific venues—the Forstwissenschaftliche Tagung (FowiTa with field authority, drawing participants from academic
2023) in Dresden, Germany, and the International Symposium institutions, private industry, public forestry administrations,
on Forest Mechanisation (FORMEC 2023) in Florence, Italy. and environmental non-governmental organisations.
This was supplemented by digital dissemination via The collaborative session followed a consensus-building
institutional websites, professional social media channels, expert workshop format with an iterative, two-stage co-creation