Editorial

Citation

Orth, U.R. (2009), "Editorial", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijwbr.2009.04321baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Wine Business Research, Volume 21, Issue 2.

Following this year's first issue – a special issue on research methodology – this “regular” second issue presents five original articles. Their topical coverage indicates that the journal is still heavy on marketing content, and I take this opportunity to encourage interested authors from other disciplines to submit their work to IJWBR. To underscore this intent, a call for papers on another special issue “Wine Finance: Issues and Challenges” accompanies these lines. Guest editors Jean-Laurent Viviani (University Montpellier I) and Jean-Pierre Couderc (Montpellier SupAgro) will be delighted to receive contributions from so diverse a set of countries as those included in this issue.

The first article is written by Australian researchers Stephen Lacey, Johan Bruwer and Elton Li, the latter being a recent addition to the journal's Editorial Advisory Board. Purchasing wine in a fine dining environment may present a risk to consumers as they expend resources to make their choice. Based on data collected in South Australia, the authors assess the level of risk involved in this context, and examine factors contributing to a reduction in perceived risk including restaurant reputation and previous visits. The finding that some consumers engage in risk-seeking behaviors, actively selecting unfamiliar (i.e. higher-risk) wines is surprising and particularly notable. Practical relevance stems from the comparative evaluation of risk-reducing factors permitting tailoring offers to segments of consumers, types of restaurants and level of staff expertise.

Across the world, a substantial number of wine businesses is not sizeable but rather small or medium in size. Many of these SMEs rely on exporting their wines in spite of lacking the sophisticated and arguably more effective market reconnaissance and marketing tools available to their larger competitors. The second article by French author Carole Maurel examines what factors impact the export performance of French SMEs in the wine sector. Data collected from a geographically diverse sample is used to test an expansive set of hypotheses solidly grounded in past work and theory. The findings indicate that the quality of business relationships, innovativeness and commitment elevate superior performing export SMEs above others. Although these findings may be specific to the national and possibly the sample context, the predictive power of the model suggests enterprises in other contexts can benefit from extensions and replications.

When wine marketers discuss markets some countries are bound to be named: England, Germany and – of course – the US American market with its multitude of facets. The third paper by Sarah Geraghty and Ann M. Torres sheds light onto a little known but growing market: Ireland. Although the sample is not overly large, descriptive statistics closely correlate with those of other studies suggesting the findings can be extrapolated to all of Ireland. The authors adopt an established lifestyle segmentation approach in their analysis yielding insight into major clusters of buyers: casual wine buyer, value seeking wine buyer and wine traditionalist. Links established between cluster membership and attributes salient in wine choice support managerial decisions on brand communications and target group access.

The fourth paper provides insights from China, another market that is attracting growing interest by both practitioners and researchers. Authored by a consortium of researchers from both China and Australia, the paper presents an application of the Best-Worst choice experiment to the Beijing market with a distinction between two sub-samples, one consisting of consumers the other of students. The findings provide an overview on wine consumer preferences in Beijing with more detailed information on the influence of selected attributes on choice. Price and country of origin were of higher importance, whereas awards, medals and vintage exerted a smaller influence on wine purchasing decisions.

The final article shifts the focus from demand to supply. In an attempt to assist Catalonian growers in maintaining their standards of living, authors Costa-Font, Serra, Gil and Gras investigate the causes of declining grape prices in this region of Spain. Their insightful description of the Catalan grape production provides other regions with a reliable benchmark for judging if similar mechanisms may be at work in their home-region. Findings of a Delphi-study are dissected in much detail confirming the Catalan crisis as characterized by excess production and low farm-gate prices. Yet, as the paper proceeds to identify major causes of these problems, decision-makers obtain the knowledge necessary for taking measures to remedy the crisis.

Ulrich R. Orth