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The dissolution of existing relationships in the context of changes in the timber selling process made new ways of cooperation necessary. New ways of cooperation can be understood as social innovations. In previous research, interaction relationships for social innovation have been cited as important but not considered in detail (e. g. KLUVÁNKOVÁ et al., 2018; NIJNIK et al., 2019) Thus, the aim of the paper is to identify factors that promote and inhibit social innovation within forest management cooperatives (FMC), which are based among other things on interactions. This paper is based on a theoretical approach informed by actor-centered institutionalism and complemented by the concept of path dependency (see Fig. 1), in order to take into account actor constellations, their interactions, the influence of historical events and decisions that have existed for years or decades. The results are based on the one hand on a qualitative content analysis of guideline interviews with board members and managing directors of FMC in Baden-Württemberg and on the other hand on the evaluation of a quantitative online survey of 86 FMC in Baden-Württemberg. By using the described mixed-method approach, five clusters could be identified (see Table 5): Entrepreneurs, Self-employed in timber supply and sales, Outsourcers, Volunteers with state help and State influenced. Certain constellations, the underlying strategies, the forms of interaction of FMC and their cooperation partners are highlighted as promoting or inhibiting factors for cooperation and thus social innovation. Furthermore, extraordinary events and their development paths determine new ways of cooperation between actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]