Editorial

Citation

Orth, U.R. (2008), "Editorial", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 20 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijwbr.2008.04320baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Wine Business Research, Volume 20, Issue 2.

This year started with a special issue of IJWBR, making this the first regular issue. Before anything else, I would like to thank the guest editor, Dr Johan Bruwer, University of Adelaide, for making the special issue such a success. The quality of papers is particularly high, and reader feedback received to date indicates much appreciation for his and the contributors' work.

Because author interest in submitting to the special issue was substantial, I would like to invite proposals on future special issues. I would like to make this a standing invitation extending into future volumes. Reputable researchers interested in guest-editoring a special issue should submit a brief letter of interest, outlining their expertise in the proposed field of wine business, along with a short rationale of why they expect authors and readers to be interested in this topical issue, and what facets of this topic they expect to cover. Ideal topics would be cross-disciplinary (i.e. stretching across business disciplines), cross-cultural (i.e. covering multiple countries or regions of the world), or across wine and related industries (i.e. wine and tourism, or wine and hospitality businesses), with notable implications for both research and industry.

Included in this issue are six articles by researchers from Australia, France, Hungary, Spain, Taiwan, and the USA on consumer behavior, finance, services, marketing, and economics.

Drawing from environmental psychology, the first article (Pan, Su, and Chiang) examines how winery atmospherics influence visitor affect and consequently satisfaction. For a sample of visitors to wineries in Taiwan, the authors show that pleasant affect generated during a visit strengthens visitor commitment to the brand, in turn strengthening intentions to repeat purchases.

The second article (Dewald) generates new insights into sommeliers' influence on selling wine. Based on an extensive data set generated by a commercial consulting firm, the authors provide a detailed compilation on sommelier characteristics, and their basis for suggesting wines to restaurant patrons in the USA.

Still within the broader marketing domain, the third article by Durrieu and Hofmeister, explores the degree of marketing orientation across wine business managers in France and Hungary. Unique to this field, the authors develop a novel scale, and test hypothesized relationships through a structural equations model.

The fourth article (Charters, Clark-Murphy, Davis, Brown, and Walker) addresses a related issue, the question of what skills wine business managers need to have for successfully doing business. Using qualitative structured interviews with owners and managers in Western Australia, the authors not only identify essential skills but also extend this knowledge to determine strengths and weaknesses of Australian wine business managers.

The fifth article (Larreina and Aguado) assesses the economic impact of wine in a regional context. Rooted in cluster theory, the article estimates the economic impact of the Rioja wine cluster, and its importance for the economy and welfare at the regional level.

The last article (Viviani) in this year's second issue compares competing theories for explaining the financial success of French wineries measured in terms of their debt. Among the determinants, profitability, cash, asset turn over, and age have a significant negative impact (i.e. decreasing debt), whereas past growth and tangibility exert a positive influence. Given similar findings were obtained for other countries, these insights enable not only French wine businesses to better manage and reduce the cost of capital.

Ulrich R. OrthChristian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, Kiel, Germany