Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 48(5): September 2022 between the first 10% and the last 10% of responses indicates that non-response bias might not be a major issue. We compared the full-time employment and total sales in dollars of the early versus late respond- ers, and the T-statistics for both variables were statis- tically insignificant. Empirical Model Our research hypothesis integrated 2 well-established management theories (Gimeno et al. 1997; Kotler 1997) to explore the factors that determine perceived mar- ket outlook of private green industry businesses. The satisfaction theory (Kotler 1997; Mbachu and Nkado 2006) posits that the human feeling that depicts a sense of achievement or disappointment results from the comparative analysis between expectations and the perceived performance of a product. Likewise, according to the threshold theory (Gimeno et al. 1997), decisions to exit or stay in business are not strictly made on financial performances. Rather, general human capital pertinent to training, education, and entrepre- neurial experience (among others) plays an important role in such decision making. Within the broader umbrella of these theories, we postulated that per- ceived economic outlook would serve as a proxy for expectations and likely depend upon performance matrices such as business longevity, industry types, supply chain, labor market dynamics, and the per- ceived state-of-business environment. Therefore, the empirical model utilized in this study evaluates the factors explaining the private-business outlook of urban forestry activities of businesses active in the green industry within the study area. These factors include industry types, job type, years in business, business structure, and percentage of jobs in urban forestry. Other explanatory variables attempt to quan- tify how businesses’ perception of issues related to inadequate research and development (R&D), inade- quate supply chain, workforce recruitment, and employee retention impact their outlook. The empiri- cal model is presented below, where the “outlook” variable denotes perceptions of private green industry businesses regarding their future prospects in urban forestry, which was recorded in a 5-point ordinal scale: (1) extremely bad, (2) somewhat bad, (3) neutral, (4) somewhat good, (5) extremely good. 281 The question in the survey instrument was framed as, “How would you describe the future outlook of urban forestry for your business?” Table 1 details each of the explanatory variables. Other explanatory variables are described below. Business Types The binary variable landscaping denotes businesses related to private landscaping services (NAICS 561730); nursery_supply denotes businesses related to nursery supplies wholesalers (NAICS 424930); nursery_tree denotes businesses related to nursery and tree production (NAICS 111421); nursery_stores denotes businesses related to nursery retail stores (NAICS 444220); and architecture denotes busi- nesses related to landscape architectural services (NAICS 541320). Respondents indicated a value of 1 for business types they represent or 0 otherwise. Business Metrics The numerical variable jobs characterizes the average number of people employed full-time, part-time, and seasonally by private green industry businesses. The total number of jobs varied from 1 to 650. The ques- tionnaire also asked the year respondents established their business (longevity), which ranged from 2 to 156 years in operation. Further, the survey requested respondents to identify the percentage of their employees that are active in urban forestry activities (uf_jobs). This variable attempted to capture the potential correlation between the employment in urban forestry and the overall outlook of the urban forestry business. Lastly, the survey asked respon- dents to indicate if they were structured as a corpora- tion (corporate). The binary variable corporate represents the organizational structure of the private company, 1 being a corporate business or 0 otherwise. Issues Affecting Urban Forestry Business Respondents were asked to identify their perceptions of several common issues facing businesses in urban forestry. As such, we were able to assess if these per- ceived issues had any impact on their outlook. For example, the questionnaire asked respondents if inad- equate research and development (r&d) and inade- quate supply chains (supplychain) between related industries were issues influencing their business in urban forestry activities. In addition, we inquired if respondents realized any difficulty in recruiting ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture
September 2022
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