Dimensions of perceived value in the Honduran wood industry

Forestry firms in Honduras exhibit significant weaknesses in value creation. This paper aimed to identify how economic, social, and shared value are perceived within Honduras's secondary broadleaf-wood industry, and to propose measures to strengthen value creation in the sector. To this end, the analysis of contingency tables, Pearson’s chi-square test, Cramer’s V coefficient, and the Mann-Whitney U test (with effect size estimates) were applied to survey data from 17 hardwood processing enterprises in four forest regions of Honduras. The 44 indicators were grouped into three categorical variables (B1, C1, C3) and three quantitative variables (EV, SV, ShV), and reliability and validity were assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, HTMT, and Kendall’s τb correlations. The effect size was very large (V = 0.78) for the EV–SV pair, where a significant association was found, χ²(4) = 22.00, p = 0.0002. For the SV–ShV pair, the association was also significant (χ²(6) = 13.00, p = 0.041) with an effect size of V = 0.60. This indicated a close relationship between economic, social, and shared value within the study sample. These constraints negatively affect the implementation of marketing practices, quality control, traceability, and market access. Also, the absence of seals of origin reduces competitiveness in both national and international markets. To address these limitations, the authors proposed strengthening the use of local raw materials to improve product quality, expanding marketing knowledge, training personnel, and enhancing quality‑control systems. The results obtained can serve as a basis for developing national training programmes aimed at strengthening the entrepreneurial and technical capacity of the forestry sector and for incorporating their content into environmental licensing processes