TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm is adopted to explore the most important resources among micro and small firms operating in Italy’s wine industry. Second, the study incorporates a SWOT analysis to examine perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats based on the perceptions of owners and managers of these firms.Design/methodology/approach An online questionnaire was designed to gather both quantitative and qualitative data from Italian wineries; a total of 211 firms participated in the study.Findings Product quality, managerial/staff capabilities, knowledge, reputation, service quality and the territory/region emerge as most important resources, clearly aligning with the attributes of the RBV, namely, valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and (non)substitutable resources. However, based on the RBV, the future-sustained competitive advantage is threatened by, among other factors, the firm’s finances, competition, red tape and the complexity of increasing sales.Originality/value Fundamentally, the research contributes to micro and small enterprise literature, and to the limited number of studies that have used the RBV of the firm in the context of micro and small wineries. This theoretical framework is used among wineries of one of the world’s leading wine producing nations. Some dimensions of this country’s wine industry have received limited academic attention. In addition, the study provides practical value in identifying resources, limitations, and threats at a time when micro and small wineries are seeking to develop or increase their international presence.
VL  - 28
IS  - 4
SN  - 1751-1062
DO  - 10.1108/IJWBR-12-2015-0051
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWBR-12-2015-0051
AU  - Duarte Alonso Abel
AU  - Bressan Alessandro
PY  - 2016
Y1  - 2016/01/01
TI  - A resource-based view of the firm and micro and small Italian wine firms
T2  - International Journal of Wine Business Research
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 349
EP  - 368
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -