The aim of this explorative study is to find out how the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) has affected the forest and chain of custody (CoC) certification strategies and practices among the Finnish wood industry companies. We are especially interested to find out whether more integrated strategies and collaborative networks have emerged for enhanced communications throughout the industry value chains. This qualitative interview study included both EUTR ex ante and ex post analysis, based on three rounds of managerial and expert interviews during 2011–2015. The results indicate that the EUTR appears to have enforced the supplier–client relations in the Finnish wood industry value chain. The sector still lacks integrated communication strategies with better understanding of customer and stakeholder values, which could contribute to more cohesive communication and marketing efforts reflecting the values of the whole industry. The certification practices are fairly spontaneously implemented following the traditional industry culture, which is not supportive of innovations and gaining competitive advantages in the broader material markets. Furthermore, the existence of two parallel forest certificates (Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)) seems to hamper the effective communication and building of an image of sustainable wood products among customers and end consumers, groups that are also exposed to more general environmental communication, e.g., in the building material markets.

Our study focuses on exploring on the dimensionality of sustainability in perceived consumer value regarding wooden products in the Finnish context. Factors affecting consumer value on sustainability were derived from the literature on sustainable consumption and tested on a specific case of wooden terrace products through a developed survey instrument. The dimensions of sustainability-based consumer value were identified using a factor analysis on data consisting of 208 responses collected in the home and building material retail sector in May–June 2013. Four-dimensional structure for consumer value concerning sustainable and responsible wooden products is identified to consist of “Information and product origin,” “Consumer activity,” “Product image,” and “Quality.” The first two, sustainability-related factors were more strongly valued by elderly as well as by female respondents, while “Quality” and “Image” were more preferred by young and middle-aged respondent groups. As for the conclusion, our results suggest that improving the sustainability information content, launching awareness campaigns and environmental education as well as applying greenness as a complementary product attribute would be some of the solutions to attract larger consumer groups.

Since the early 1990s, there has been hope that the uptake of certified forest products would ensure more sustainable forest management and also deliver business benefits along the value chain. Our study applies a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) to model an e-commerce purchase in the case of multiple products with various attribute and certification combinations in the Finnish retail outdoor decking material market. We received 2772 responses from 231 participants in an online survey. Applying conditional logit and latent class models, we were able to assess the relative importance of attributes, identify various consumer segments, and simulate various scenarios for communicating the certification and origin of forest products and competing materials. Our results show that the most important attribute for consumer decision-making was the outdoor decking material followed by price, origin, and certification. Some consumer segments showed a habit of only choosing certain materials or domestic products, while paying less attention to other product attributes. Simulations for an e-commerce purchase situation also implied that communications concerning intangible product attributes, such as domestic origin and environmental certifications, could be used in the brand building of the forest sector to gain competitive advantage and increased market shares over other sectors. The results suggest that the conventional and constantly developing e-commerce marketing tools should be harnessed also in forest product and more general environmental marketing.

The study compares three virtual learning environments: VR, 3D videos and 2D videos. Following Bloom's taxonomy of learning outcomes, we measure remembering, understanding and ability to apply. We also apply the affordance theory framework to explain the differences between these virtual learning environments. Based on the results, we propose design principles for VR learning environments. The results suggest that VR has its advantages on the apply-level, or higher, as it outperforms the other two technologies at this level. In addition, several design principles are suggested, such as customized learning, challenging learning environments, multi-sensory effects, immersion, interactivity, 3D-dimensionality, engagement as well as motivation towards the content and technology. The results highlight the importance of choosing the right technology when designing virtual learning environments. This study demonstrates how virtual environment affordances and equivalent scales can be used in making those decisions.

Gamification features have been found to positively affect engagement, enjoyment, and purchase behavior in webstore marketplaces. While gamified environments can simultaneously cause cognitive load and stress, the interplay between gamification effects and stress is not well understood. Moreover, there are no studies considering objective measures such as physiological heart rate–calculated stress in the context of gamification and e-commerce research. Our research consists of two studies. The first analyzes the effects of perceived gamification and stress on webstore retention, and the second assesses these effects on purchase intentions. For physiological stress measurement, an arm strap sensor (electrical activity of the heart, ECG) was used together with a visit to a selected webstore and survey questions. Our findings offer important implications for webstore designers and marketers developing gamification. First, these practitioners should reduce customer stress through education so that customers feel less stressed when making e-commerce selections. Moreover, while incorporating gamification features, they should avoid increasing stress. Specifically, we recommend avoiding challenging environments, reward systems, and game-like experiences for stressed consumers, while enabling feelings of achievement instead. This study opens a new avenue in stress and gamification research, calling for future work to validate these results with further experiments and contexts.

Immersive virtual reality applications aim at providing an all-encompassing spatial experience where a user can feel like being in another world or dimension. The systems are inherently designed for individual use as the devices disconnect the user from the physical environment. However, the applications are seldom used alone. Specifically, when used for sales and marketing, the user often needs help from other people but also benefits from social interaction as a part of the experience. Design research methodology is applied to three iterative development versions of a virtual-reality application. The focus of the evaluation of the artifacts is in the social use emphasizing three sociability factors: shared knowledge, mutual trust and influence. According to the findings, the users prefer personal social interaction as a part of the experience. Thus, the social aspect should be emphasized in the service design.