The Effect of Managers’ Personal Characteristics on the Performance of Community Forest Enterprises

This study examines the role of managers’ personal characteristics, namely, proactiveness, perceptions about work discretion, and social networking ability on the social, environmental, and financial performance of community forest enterprises (CFEs). Data obtained through a mail survey of CFEs located in the province of British Columbia, Canada, shows that CFEs’ social performance is associated with their managers’ perceptions about work discretion and managers’ social networking abilities. The environmental performance is associated with managers’ perceptions about work discretion. However, the financial performance is not associated with any of these personal characteristics. These findings have three critical implications. First, CFEs which seek to improve social performance must emphasize—at the time of hiring and through training programs—social networking abilities of managers. Second, those CFEs which seek to improve environmental performance should emphasize sense of self-empowerment among managers in making organizational decisions. That is, the more CFE managers think that they have discretion over organizational decisions, the more they can deliver on the environmental front. Third, CFEs seeking to improve financial performance should look beyond personal characteristics and hire specialized finance professionals.