Organizations, such as forest management cooperatives (FMCs), are established to support private forest owners to deal with structural and natural challenges that they cannot handle on their own. In 2018, Feil et al. found in a nationwide survey that only 30% of German private forest owners are members of FMCs. This low participation rate of private forest owners in FMCs in Germany poses a problem for the further development of organizations that can better consider the needs of private forest owners and also meet the timber market's long-term requirements for larger quantities of timber as well as become an equal negotiation partner of the sawmill industry. This problem can be attributed to social interactions, which are considered influential for cooperation between private forest owners.

This paper aims to highlight different groups of private forest owners in Germany and their cooperation based on social interaction. To do so, it refers to the categories of actor-centered institutionalism (ACI) and complements these with symbolic interactionism. Methodologically, the paper is based on a quantitative online survey of 1007 private forest owners in Germany. The survey itself was prepared by the authors and conducted by the pollster firm forsa, Germany in the period from 14 to 29 July 2020. In addition to standard research topics in forest related research, such as family tradition and income generation, the questionnaire also focused on social interaction. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on the values of a principal component analysis (PCA) was used both to ensure a neutral view on the data and to create heterogeneous groups of private forest owners.

Four distinct clusters were defined through the cluster analysis: “actively exchanging”, “perceivers”, “uninterested” and “self-referential”. These clusters differ mainly in relation to their preferred forms of social interaction.

It can be concluded that not only communication but also social interaction in the form of symbolic interaction has an influence on forest owners' cooperation with FMCs. For forestry practice, this means that in regions where there are currently no FMC members, new members could be won in the future by creating forest management activities that encourage cooperation with FMCs.

森林管理合作社 (FMC) 等组织的建立是为了支持私人森林所有者应对他们无法独自应对的结构性和自然挑战。2018 年，Feil 等人。在一项全国性调查中发现，只有 30% 的德国私人森林所有者是 FMC 的成员。德国私营林主在 FMC 中的低参与率给组织的进一步发展带来了问题，这些组织可以更好地考虑私营林主的需求，同时满足木材市场对大量木材的长期需求，并成为锯木业的平等谈判伙伴。这个问题可以归因于社会互动，这被认为对私人森林所有者之间的合作有影响。

本文旨在突出德国不同的私人森林所有者群体及其基于社会互动的合作。为此，它引用了以行动者为中心的制度主义 (ACI) 的类别，并用符号互动主义对这些类别进行了补充。在方法论上，该论文基于对德国 1007 名私人森林所有者的在线定量调查。调查本身由作者准备，由德国福尔萨民意调查公司于 2020 年 7 月 14 日至 29 日期间进行。除了家庭传统和创收等森林相关研究的标准研究主题外，问卷还关注关于社交互动。

通过聚类分析定义了四个不同的聚类：“积极交换”、“感知者”、“不感兴趣”和“自我参照”。这些集群的不同主要在于它们偏好的社交互动形式。

可以得出结论，不仅是交流，而且以符号互动形式的社会互动都会影响林主与森林管理公司的合作。对于林业实践，这意味着在目前没有 FMC 成员的地区，未来可以通过开展鼓励与 FMC 合作的森林经营活动来赢得新成员。