Online wine purchasing: a comparison between South Africa and Italy

Exploring Italian Wine Companies: A Study of Supply Chain Dynamics, Quality, and Promotion Strategies through Semi-Structured Interviews

In Italy, the wine supply chain is a cornerstone of the national agri-food system and a driving force for the entire economy. The aim of this study is to map the profile of Italian wine companies through the analysis of multiple case studies. The study focuses specifically on companies in the Marche region, investigating their features and supply chain, with a specific focus on product and system certification adopted, marketing policies implemented, and the businesses' relationship with institutions. A total of 18 companies participated in the study. The primary data for the research was collected through semi-structured interviews lasting 1 h, based on an interview protocol. The results show that the supply chain for the wine sector is configured to be short, even when cooperatives act as an aggregator. The small size and limited financial resources make it particularly difficult to promote the wine outside its reference context, and there is a lack of a network strategy at the local level. Many companies consider organic certification a disadvantage since it tends to homologate production to the large wine industries, making the product's naturalness, typicality, and craftsmanship disappear.

Industry 4.0 and Marketing: Towards an Integrated Future Research Agenda

Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is driven by innovative technologies that have profound effects on both production systems and business models. This revolution is characterized by the addition of disruptive technologies and methods. These aspects of Industry 4.0 have a significant impact on marketing, and have led to an evolution to ensure that marketing activities align with technological advancements and address consumers’ current needs. The purpose of this paper is to formulate and discuss future research avenues for marketing considering the changes brought about by Industry 4.0. The approach taken in the paper is to review the relevant literature and focus on the key themes which are most important for future research on Industry 4.0 and marketing. Therefore, a Systematic Bibliometric Literature Review was conducted based on the SCOPUS indexing online database of scientific articles, the most important peer-reviewed journal database in the academic world. The paper finds that there are a number of research avenues for marketing researchers to conduct investigations in, but the most important areas are five marketing principles in Industry 4.0: cooperation, conversation, co-creation, cognitivity, and connectivity. Future research should focus on the quantitative study of these five principles.

Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility in the Italian wine sector through websites

Purpose

This paper aims to explore how the Italian wine industry discloses corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and quality certifications and the corresponding determinants via websites. The study also aims to investigate the relationship between CSR practices and financial performance. The information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements is also explored. Lastly, the paper investigates how the relationship between the size of wineries and CSR disclosure changes according to firms' geographic location.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper analyses CSR corporate communication via the websites of a sample of Italian wineries by adjusting the theoretical framework developed by Amran (2012) to the wine sector's peculiarities. Moreover, a cross-certification analysis and a moderation analysis were performed to fulfil the purpose of the research.

Findings

The analysis revealed the extensive use of CSR disclosure via websites. It was found that company size positively affects CSR disclosure and Quality Certification Disclosure (QCD), while geographic location slightly moderates the relationship between the two variables. In addition, a negative relationship between CSR disclosure and corporate financial performance and its reverse causality emerged. Moreover, for most wineries, information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements was observed.

Research limitations/implications

The study's main limitation is that the search process was performed during lockdown. Therefore, the examined issues could change in the near future due to the shift in priorities that the COVID-19 pandemic is determining.

Practical implications

The results can help managers implement CSR disclosure and QCD practices to enhance stakeholder legitimacy and enable their companies to compete in strongly competitive international markets.

Originality/value

The paper represents the first study investigating online QCD and its consistency in the Italian wine sector.

Enabling factors for adopting sustainable, organic wine production

Purpose

This study expands the debate on the reasons that wine producers adopt sustainable, organic wine production. It aims to ascertain the enabling factors facilitating behavioral intention regarding such an adoption and whether these factors can be combined in a conceptual, measurable model.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample of 157 Italian winery companies was used. Results were analyzed through the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model, various quantitative methods and a multi-regression model.

Findings

Gender, age, role, experience in the sector and company existence do not affect behavioral intention. Conversely, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influences, facilitating conditions, attitude and self-efficacy strongly affect behavioral intention, whereas the determinant anxiety has a negative effect. Further, four factors account for most of the variability in behavioral intention.

Research limitations/implications

The research is limited to Italian wine producers, and the discussion is based on quantitative results alone. Qualitative data would probably produce a richer, more comprehensive understanding of some phenomena.

Practical implications

Managers and entrepreneurs intending to invest in organic wine production can gain a detailed understanding of factors that affect the behavioral intention toward these technologies by comparing their attitudes with those of Italian producers.

Originality/value

Several studies have focused on wine consumers' behavior, but very few have investigated wineries' intention to adopt organic wine technology and the likely driving factors.