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The purpose of this study is to examine how micro and small craft brewery operators perceive and operationalise innovation. Moreover, in adopting the theory of innovation, the study addresses two under-researched areas, namely, innovation among micro and small firms and innovation in the context of the emerging craft brewing industry.

The perspectives of 163 craft brewery operators located in Italy, Spain, and the UK were gathered through online questionnaires. In total, 24 face-to-face and telephone interviews with operators from the three nations complemented the data collection process. Thus, in total, 187 operators participated.

Development of new craft beer styles, new recipes, exploring with various ingredients, improving quality, or involvement in social media and culinary tourism were predominant forms participants perceived innovation. Various differences regarding innovation adoption were noticed, particularly based on participants’ country and on their role at the brewery. Furthermore, associations between the findings and the dimensions of the theory of innovation were confirmed.

This study is original, in that it represents a first effort in comparing perceptions of craft brewery operators across various countries. This comparison identifies ways in which craft brewery operators could maximise the potential of their firms. For example, the manifested interest in innovating through new craft beer recipes, or blending gastronomy and craft beer underlines alternative forms of adding value to craft brewing production. Importantly, some of these innovating practices differ based on participants’ country; such differences could also be considered by craft brewery operators.

Leveraging the boom of a craft beer renaissance, this paper explores social capital theory through the impact of the craft brewing industry. The exploration addresses entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems that share one commonality – the need for community development and revitalization. North Carolina's deregulation of craft brewing (Pop-the-Cap Initiative, 2005) led to a boom of brewery startups, from 54 in 2010 to more than 380 in 2022.

This qualitative study focuses on 15 brewery founders who have launched ventures within a few years of the Pop-the-Cap Initiative. This included 15% of those breweries launched between 2012 and 2017. Naturalistic Inquiry methodology was utilized, and semi-structured interviews, observations, and artifact analyses were applied to each participant via content analysis and NVivo.

Framed by two contributing entrepreneurial mindset factors (anti-establishment mindset and business-person's burden mindset) and three external entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems conditions (community conditions, doom and boom conditions, and economic conditions), these emergent themes represent the ecosystem contributors (mindsets/conditions) associated with startup success and social value creation in rural and downtrodden urban areas.

This study facilitated a deep dive into two evolving entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems (rural/urban) through the perspective of brewery startups. It illuminated the actors, conditions, and domains in play. Conceptualizations of “nestedness” (Spigel, 2022) with “microfoundations” (Wurth et al., 2022) integrated to see a specific sector (craft brewing) developing within a sub-ecosystem's capacity to help frame and “understand the co-evolution of agents with entrepreneurial ecosystems” (Cho et al., 2022). Additionally, antecedents to the birth of local economies suggest the value of agents involved in evolution of nascent local economies (Cho et al., 2022). These findings reinforce developing literature while presenting opportunities for future studies.

Craft breweries in rural and urban environments represent third places within communities. Third places can be recognized as conduits for developing social capital among individuals, groups, and firms. High levels of social capital positively impact communities. These conditions helped anchor tenants thrive and did not occur accidently. They are intentional value propositions of entrepreneurs and ecosystem conditions.

Brewery entrepreneurs were aware of their contribution to social capital value, economic impact (e.g., tax revenue, jobs, space, attraction/destination, etc.), and how these facets interplay as revitalizing anchor tenants (i.e., craft breweries). Insight into how entrepreneurs come to understand and recognize their impact on community through social capital development and the economy can aid in further support ecosystems at the community level.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and significance of involvement of craft brewery operators in their community through the lens of the stakeholder theory (ST). In addition, differences between forms of involvement and demographic characteristics of operators and breweries are examined.

As many as 218 operators of predominantly micro-craft breweries across the USA participated in an online questionnaire designed to gather their perceptions.

While paying taxes was participants’ main perceived form of contribution, providing an artisan-made product, the significance of the craft brewery as a community “hub”, and that of increasing the number of leisure alternatives also emerged. A further 52.8 per cent of participants indicated contributing US$100,000 or more to the community annually. Statistically significant differences were revealed, for instance, based on craft breweries’ production volume, and the level of financial contribution. Various associations between operators’ perceived contributions and the ST theses were established in regard to cooperative interests (descriptive), stakeholder management (instrumental), and moral principles (normative).

First, by examining corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the craft brewing industry and among predominantly smaller firms, the study addresses two under-researched areas. Second, a refinement of the ST in the context of the craft brewing industry is proposed, highlighting the links between ST-based theses and the findings. Third, the study contributes to three different types of literature: micro and small business, craft brewing entrepreneurship, and CSR.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the perceived resources, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats from the perspective of micro and small brewery owners, managers and brewing masters operating in three countries. To this end, the study adopts the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, complemented by a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis.

The research provides a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from craft breweries in Italy, Spain and the UK. In all, 165 valid responses were obtained from an online questionnaire, and an additional 24 face-to-face and telephone interviews with craft brewing operators in these three countries were conducted to further enrich the data. Independent samples t-test and Scheffé post hoc were used to analyse part of the quantitative data, while content analysis and word association were used for the qualitative component.

Product quality and uniqueness of product emerged as important perceived resources and strengths, suggesting an alignment with some of the resource-related attributes postulated by the RBV, such as valuable, rare and (un)substitutable. Other elements, such as natural and sustainable resources, including water quality and the current and future involvement in growing or sourcing raw products locally emerged as key resources, and are suggested as additional attributes. These strategic and tangible resources are however challenged by perceived weaknesses, particularly lack of financial, infrastructure and commercialisation resources, as well as threats from competition.

The exploratory study focuses on craft brewing from the perspective of micro/small operators. This industry has received very limited attention from the literature. The use of the RBV, with the potential to increase understanding of an emerging industry, and develop the theory further in this domain, adds to the originality and value of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the specific types of coopetition between small and medium-sized craft breweries and related businesses, as well as its drivers and outcomes.

Qualitative research was carried out using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 different small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) combined with site visits and secondary data analysis.

The results reveal that craft breweries are engaging in coopetition in several different ways. Mutual benefit, trust, commitment, and sympathy are the crucial drivers for coopetition; whereas innovation development, market reach and marketing, as well as firm growth represent the key shared outcomes of coopetition.

This study suffers from two main limitations, including the focus on coopetition of craft breweries operating in German-speaking countries only and the risk of subjectivity in analysis and interpretation due to the qualitative, explorative nature of the research.

The findings reveal insights into the uniqueness of SMEs – specifically craft brewers – regarding coopetition, which is currently of strong cooperative nature. This study completes prior coopetition knowledge by revealing the importance of coopetition for small, micro and resource-constrained firms operating in dynamic and innovative but traditional (here craft) industries; presenting the cooperation-based type of coopetition as a good competition strategy under fierce competition from large, more established and global business rivals; and identifying sympathy as an important coopetition driver.

The purpose of this paper is to examine key areas related to the craft brewing industry from the perspective of operators of micro and small craft breweries, and propose a framework based on the resourced-based theory of the firm and the theory of innovation. The areas investigated include participants’ perceived strengths of their craft brewery, involvement in innovative practices, opportunities for the craft brewing firm, and potential differences related to these areas based on the demographic characteristics of participants and their breweries.

Given its growing significance and economic contribution, the US craft brewery industry was chosen for this study. An online questionnaire was designed to gather data from craft brewery operators across the nation.

Product and service quality, knowledge, reputation, and expertise were revealed as key strengths, while creating new recipes and using social media tools were the most considered ways of innovating. Furthermore, opportunities were perceived through craft beer tourism, increased consumption, and quality improvements. Statistically significant differences emerged, particularly based on production levels, staff numbers, and involvement/no involvement in exports. Various associations between the findings and the adopted theoretical frameworks were revealed.

In terms of originality, the proposed refinement based on the adopted theoretical frameworks and findings facilitates understanding of the significance of resources and innovation, particularly for firms operating in a growing industry. Regarding value, the findings have important implications for the industry, for instance, in the marketing of craft brewing, as well as in the development of new craft brewing products.

This article aims to investigate collaborative procurement as a sourcing strategy amongst competing small enterprises in an effort to reduce their material supply costs through increased efficiencies, bargaining power and economies of scale.

A case study approach is applied to a network of breweries that are regionally clustered. Interview data from producers, suppliers and industry experts is inductively interpreted to understand the viability, organisational impact and benefits/limitations of joint procurement activities.

The craft brewing industry follows a market place strategy of differentiation to achieve competitive advantage. This has supply chain implications that promote raw material diversity, which is in conflict with standardisation – a necessary factor for collective buying. Competition impacts information sharing and governance mechanism, while the structural factors of size asymmetry along and across the supply chain influence returns. These issues impact the potential economic benefits of collaborative procurement.

The research propositions have been developed in a specific industry but are generalisable to other companies with a differentiation strategy, especially in the consumer packaged goods sector.

Enabling conditions and constraints are captured in a framework and capability matrix, which can be used by practitioners to assess industry and product feasibility for collaborative procurement.

Previous studies of collaborative procurement have been in the public sector amongst large organisations. This work focusses on coopetition in the context of small businesses to identify the viability and cost-benefit of this strategy.

This study aims to explore how horizontal collaboration can help small and micro enterprises within the drink sector through the relational theory lens.

The use of qualitative research methods, including focus groups and interviews, facilitated understanding the horizontal collaboration in micro and small companies within the Welsh brewery industry. Data collection involved conducting three focus groups and 13 interviews within the Welsh brewery sector in the UK. The collaboration phenomena were explained using the three elements of relational theory: relational rents, relational capitals and relational governance.

Micro and small enterprises in the drink sector use collaborative initiatives in building new capabilities to generate relational rents. In addition, relational capitals and relational governance mechanisms were identified to support the horizontal collaboration among these enterprises.

The focus is on only one part of the drinks industry, i.e. the brewery industry; therefore, this study could be extended to other industries within the drink sector or across manufacturing industries.

The micro and small enterprises can collaborate to achieve relational rent, but this collaboration requires strong relational capitals, such as trust. These partners need to change informal governance mechanisms that already exist towards more contractual formal mechanisms.

Prior research has largely focused on vertical collaboration, with limited studies using the relational theory lens to explicate horizontal collaboration phenomena and no previous research in the context of micro and small companies. Relational rents, relational capitals and relational governance mechanisms are studied to provide insights into an effective collaboration in this context.

The paper examines the sudden changes and challenges experienced by British craft breweries because of COVID-19. The purpose is twofold; firstly, to evaluate the overall growth trajectory of the craft brewing sector prior to the pandemic crisis and, secondly, to identify features of resilience and adaptability that aided business survival.

The authors conducted 24 interviews with a sample of craft brewers during 2020, supplemented with a focus group later in 2021, to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on their businesses. Inductive thematic analysis followed a flexible six-stage approach to generating codes. Qualitative findings were set in the context of the pre-COVID-19 industry trends which were analysed using panel data from the Society of Independent Brewers' (SIBA) Annual Surveys between 2015 and 2018.

Findings from the analysis reveal a range of factors influencing growth in the UK craft beer sector before the pandemic crisis, such as levels of investment and local network ties, and identify a range of strategies implemented by brewers in response to the crisis, including new packaging and supply channels, more intensive marketing and greater online engagement with customers. Analysis of the intersection between aspects of individual and organisational resilience also revealed that dynamic responses to an external crisis depend on individual resilience characteristics before organisational strategies can be developed.

The study provides fresh empirical evidence to practitioners and policymakers to help forecast and future-proof the UK craft beer sector, as well as elucidating aspects of resilience that apply to SMEs in the global industry who face similar challenges. Moving towards a post-COVID-19 economy, the paper offers important theoretical insights into how the resilience of breweries, and other SMEs, is shaped by complex interdependencies and networks and how their adaptive responses might strengthen future business models.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of feedback in developing and operationalising knowledge from the perspective of craft brewing operators. The study contributes to various literature streams, including marketing and craft brewing entrepreneurship. An additional contribution is made through the adoption of the knowledge-based theory of the firm, and the SECI process to facilitate understanding of the significance of knowledge in the craft brewing industry.

An online questionnaire was designed to gather data from mainly micro and small craft brewery operators. Of the 110 craft breweries identified across Australia, 57 (51.8 per cent) participated. The predominantly qualitative data were analysed using content analysis and word association.

The importance of knowledge acquisition for craft brewery firms was revealed in various ways. For example, respondents most favoured new knowledge to learn about quality issues and perceptions of quality among buyers/consumers. Further, acquired knowledge through feedback was a determinant factor in participants’ decision to produce particular styles of beers. Several alignments with the adopted theoretical frameworks were revealed, including the role of socialisation (SECI process) illustrated through the transformation of explicit into tacit knowledge.

The study examines the dimension of knowledge in the craft brewing industry, which, although considerably developing, continues to be underresearched. Furthermore, the study’s findings underline various important implications for the craft brewing industry, suppliers, and for end consumers. The study also proposes a refinement of both the RBTF and the SECI process based on the findings.