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The most obvious benefit of product innovation for the wood products sector is the potential for additional profits through more efficient utilization of wood fibre. The competitive advantages that successful product innovation can bring to the Australian and New Zealand wood product industries are increasingly being recognized.Private and government owned firms have developed new wood products in Australia and New Zealand -some of these attempts have been successful while others have not. In an effort to understand why these products had differing results in the marketplace, research was carried out on the commercialisation of nine wood product innovations in the region.The research used a qualitative, case study method. The study applied the concept of core competencies as a means of understanding why some firms have been able to successfully commercialize a wood product innovation while others have not. The study illustrated that the core capabilities of the firm can influence the outcome for a wood product innovation. The presence of an appropriate technology governance structure and firm wide learning culture will increase the likelihood that the product will achieve success.The paper presents a preliminary framework for commercialisation of wood product innovations. D

Abstract:The extant literature concerned with enhancing competitiveness of forest sector companies has focused on phenomena rather than people who would drive those phenomena. Generally, human resource management research is sparse in the forest sector literature, despite well-documented knowledge that companies succeed more because of their people than because of any other factor. This article brings human resource issues to the core conversation in forest sector competitiveness research. Specifically, we focus on the link between gender diversity in top leadership and firm financial performance and suggest pathways to improve workforce diversity. The timing of our study is fortuitous, as the graying workforce in the sector will create space for a new generation of leaders. Our argument is that diversity issues should be more proactively addressed in forest sector workforce recruitment not just because it is the right thing to do, but also because it has an underlying business case. This is an exploratory study, which is a first step in paving the way for future work on diversity management among forest sector companies. Our findings suggest that more gender diverse top management teams are associated with higher financial performance but that the level of gender diversity in boards of directors has no association with financial performance.Key words: diversity, financial performance, forest industry, gender diversity, human resources management, workforce diversity.Résumé : La littérature existante qui porte sur l'amélioration de la compétitivité des entreprises du secteur forestier traite surtout des phénomènes plutôt que des personnes responsables de ces phénomènes. Même en général, la recherche sur la gestion des ressources humaines est peu abondante dans la littérature qui porte sur le secteur forestier, même s'il est bien connu que le succès des entreprises est davantage dû à leur personnel qu'à n'importe quel autre facteur. Cet article place la question des ressources humaines au centre des préoccupations de la recherche sur la compétitivité dans le secteur forestier. Nous avons spécifiquement mis l'accent sur le lien entre la diversité des genres chez la haute direction et la performance financière de l'entreprise et nous suggérons des façons d'améliorer la diversité de la main-d'oeuvre. Notre étude arrive au bon moment étant donné que le vieillissement de la main-d'oeuvre dans le secteur va ouvrir la porte à une nouvelle génération de dirigeants. Nous croyons que la question de la diversité devrait être abordée de façon plus proactive dans le recrutement de la main-d'oeuvre du secteur forestier, non seulement parce que c'est la bonne chose à faire mais aussi parce qu'il y a un enjeu commercial sous-jacent. Il s'agit d'une étude exploratoire qui constitue un premier pas ouvrant la voie au travail à venir sur la gestion de la diversité dans les entreprises du secteur forestier. Nos résultats indiquent que les équipes de dirigeants les plus diversifiées en termes de genres sont associées à une meilleure p...

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