Perspektiven für die künftige Organisationsstruktur des Kommunalwaldes in Südwestdeutschland nach dem Kartellrechtsverfahren aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Sicht.

The antitrust case regarding the marketing of roundwood and the following lawsuit has led to far-reaching changes in the management of community forests in Southwest Germany. This required a change of the existing structure of the State Forest Administration of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Forest owners who were to date supervised by the lower forest authorities, are required to adapt their organizational structures to the new framework conditions. Using the case study of a forest enterprise in Baden-Wuerttemberg, the present study analysed which perspectives for future organizational structures of community forests in Southwest Germany result from the antitrust case and the following lawsuit from a microeconomic point of view. After an intensive classical enterprise analysis regarding the goals and the environment of the forest unit, four variants of potential future organizational structures were investigated: Management by the State, employment of own personal, management by private service providers and cooperation. Beside the advantages and disadvantages, the potential administrative costs of the different variants were assessed. The comparison of these costs showed that most of the management variants may lead to an increase of the costs. With employing own personal, the economic administration (costs of timber sales and invoicing) could also be integrated or transferred to a city within the county. The latter would be the more favourable variant, at least when assuming the actual costs. Overall, we can conclude that the differences in costs of the different variants were smaller than assumed before. The framework for a potential management by the State covered a range between 109.000 and 169.000 Euro, in which all other variants could be located. Advantages and disadvantages of the different organizational variants were identified and discussed based on a survey of communal forest managers and administration employees. The discussion showed that beside aspects like flexibility of acting for the enterprise, decision making, personal aspects (employer, flexibility of operations, expertise, responsibility, influence on the choice of personal), arguments like existing information systems, substitution, long-term relationships, as well as labour peaks were mentioned as pros and cons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]