Armand Gilinsky

Environmental strategy: does it lead to competitive advantage in the US wine industry?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the perceptions of competitive advantage (cost leadership, differentiation, and performance) of those wineries which have implemented a clear business case for an environmental management system (EMS) and those which have not. Benefits and challenges of sustainability practices are also addressed.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected via self‐report web‐based survey. Of the 98 respondents, over 80 per cent were family‐owned, family‐managed.Findings – Those respondents with a clear business case for EMS exhibited significant differences in cost leadership and differentiation advantages over those without a clear business case for EMS. Those with a clear EMS derived significantly greater supply chain optimization and operational efficiencies than those without a clear EMS. Those with a clear EMS also felt that they gained an enhanced ability to enter new markets to a much greater extent than those without a clear EMS. Results of t...

Desperately seeking serendipity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate innovation practice of small family firms. Top management teams’ styles, their strategic orientations, and perceptions of external environment promote or deter innovation.Design/methodology/approach – Ten Tuscan and ten Californian family wineries are investigated via questionnaire and in‐person interviews to develop longitudinal case studies describing barriers or incentives to innovate.Findings – Changes in processes, products, or market orientations are subordinated to how top managers perceive internal and external pressure to implement innovation.Originality/value – This exploratory research proposes a model depicting the extent to which location impacts the selected variables.

A Proposed Design for the Business Capstone Course with Emphasis on Improving Students' Information Competency

Business school accrediting agencies and employers increasingly demand evidence that students are mastering information competency (IC) skills. The authors present an innovative approach to inculcate IC skills in the strategic management “capstone” class, integrating cross-departmental student training in using electronic information sources, pretests and posttests of student familiarity with such resources, an externally judged team case presentation sequence, and a unique research log component. Their results from the pretests and posttests show preliminary evidence of IC mastery, supported by anecdotal evidence from participants and judges. The authors also offer guidance for implementing and evaluating this exercise.

Perceived efficacy of sustainability strategies in the US, Italian, and Spanish wine industries

Purpose – This purpose of this investigation is to compare the perceptions of competitive advantage through cost leadership and differentiation with sustainable practices of wineries from the USA, Italy and Spain. Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected via self-report web-based surveys in California, Tuscany and Catalonia in 2010-2011 during a severe economic downturn in the wine industry. Findings – Of the 260 respondents among the three country samples, over 75 per cent are family-owned and family-managed. Respondents indicate who has implemented a clear business case for an Environmental Management System (EMS) and who has not. Benefits and challenges of implementing sustainability practices are also addressed. Practical implications – A comparable percentage of respondents across the three countries indicated a “clear business case for EMS”. Wineries in all three countries perceive that they have competitive advantage through implementation of EMS and commitment to sustainable practices. Top...

Big bets, small wins? Entrepreneurial behavior and ROI

Purpose – Researchers into entrepreneurial strategy have overlooked the impact of small vs big investments on a ventures return on investment (ROI). The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent does entrepreneurial behavior impact initial investment size and the return on that investment?Design/methodology/approach – This investigation summarizes research into entrepreneurial leadership behavior and uses data from longitudinal case studies of four innovative start‐up wine businesses in California, India, and Italy.Findings – Investment size and ROI appear to be related to entrepreneurial behavior.Practical implications – Lead entrepreneurs must develop both technical competence and social networking skills to achieve small wins, i.e. early if only modest ROI.Originality/value – This paper develops a model consisting of several testable propositions to measure the impact of entrepreneurial behavior on ROI.

Does my business need a human resources function? a decision–making model for small and medium-sized firms

The questions of when and what types of human resource (HR) support are needed tend to be unanswerable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This article addresses this gap in the strategic HR literature. Hiring, training, employee retention/satisfaction, wages and benefits programs, and workers compensation insurance are important to SMEs seeking to build strong capabilities and resources and to increase their competitive advantage.This article presents an analysis of the existing HR literature for SMEs. It introduces a decision model to help SMEs choose a cost-effective HR strategy, listing a range of options from hiring the HR function to electronic HR (eHR) and outsourcing

Impromptu Presentations: Boosting Student Learning and Engagement through Spontaneous Collaboration.

This article describes impromptu presentations, a new pedagogical approach for college classrooms that produces full engagement and rapid information processing by students. The technique offers an additional tool to the growing literature on active and collaborative learning. Given a short timeframe, students are required to investigate, analyze, or solve problems assigned by the instructor. This brief critical thinking phase is followed by group presentations in which the students must support their arguments and teach others about relevant course concepts. The traditional idea of learning by teaching serves as the foundational principle behind this approach. Various ways of employing impromptu presentations in the classroom are also described. Finally, the merits of the impromptu presentation approach are highlighted by drawing on the active learning, peer teaching, and levels of learning literature streams.

Koots Green Tea

“When I first met my wife in college I brainwashed her into believing that I wanted to start my own business in the future,” said Kouta Matsuda, a 37-year-old entrepreneur to his companions over lunch at the first Koots Green Tea store in the Akasaka district of Tokyo, Japan, in mid-December of 2006. Matsuda did not mention that what he had once proposed to his future wife was not only unusual, but also would require him to overcome overwhelming odds. Japanese entrepreneurs faced numerous challenges, including a very small domestic angel investment and venture capital community relative to the United States, a society that preferred the job security of elite government ministries or large corporations to risk taking, and a culture characterized by “rigid corporate norms” that led to the imposition of severe penalties for failure.1 Since the early 1990s, the number of business start-ups in Japan were lower than that of closures (Okamoto, 2006). This decline in the entry rate of entrepreneurial businesses and the reversal of the entry rate relative to the exit rate came to be recognized as important policy issues that needed to be addressed. One researcher attributed this decline in the rate at which new businesses were being established in Japan to deteriorating economic conditions in the 1990s, which created a hostile environment that was thought to hinder new business start-ups, rather than to a decline in entrepreneurial potential (Harada, 2005).

Are strategic orientations and managerial characteristics drivers of performance in the U.S. wine industry

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of strategic orientations and managerial characteristics on the performance of wine businesses in the US wine industry. Also considered is the power of firm size as measured by production and firm age since founding, as moderating variables that could attenuate or heighten their impact.,Data were gathered via an online survey, where 306 representatives of the US wineries responded. Data are analyzed using descriptive statistics, multinomial logistic regression, cross-tabulations and Pearson chi-square (χ2) analysis.,Wine businesses that reported increased sales and profits over the previous three years made significant changes to organizational structure and staffing levels. Wineries that reported flat or decreasing sales and profits were less apt to make changes in organizational structure or staffing levels. Firm age was found to mediate performance in terms of incremental sales and profit growth; firm size was found to mediate only incremental profit growth.,Developing skills in marketing, strategic planning and entrepreneurial thinking to build a defensible industry position and to create the staffing and structure to support that position appear to be of great importance to wine businesses.,This study develops and tests a model investigating how firm size and age impact strategic orientations and managerial characteristics on the performance of the US wine businesses. This study investigates which strategic orientations and managerial characteristics wine businesses need to be successful in the future.

An exploratory study of wine business philanthropy in the USA

The purpose of this paper is to investigate philanthropic practices in the US wine industry, as prior research on charitable giving by wine industry participants is limited. Earlier studies on corporate philanthropy are inconclusive about the direction and the degree of community philanthropy on organizational effectiveness. There are also notable research gaps, including the lack of research into philanthropy in small businesses and the dominance of US studies.,This paper reviews the literature on corporate social responsibility and philanthropy, presents a series of propositions and a theoretical model, sets forth a research schema to investigate to what extent philanthropic activities are motivated by altruistic as well as strategic considerations across the global wine industry and reports preliminary findings from a sample of 100 US wine producers.,In brief, 99 per cent of the wine businesses surveyed significantly engaged in altruistic behavior in their local communities, primarily helped local charities, donated at the median 150 cases each year, and those activities represented about 1 per cent of pre-tax profits, comparable to or above giving by other participants in other industries.,As survey data were self-reported, empirical proof has yet to be obtained to support or refute the findings of this investigation. Comparisons to philanthropic practices in other wine regions of the world are not yet completed.,Wine producers pursue community stewardship and maintain good corporate citizenship to create direct benefits apart from economic growth or jobs, but future research is needed to ascertain whether motivations are primarily altruistic or strategic.,Communities embrace the presence of wine businesses to foster job creation and economic activity, but remain uncertain about the other community benefits.,This exploratory paper fills a major gap in understanding with respect to examining motives for giving and expected outcomes by wine industry participants.