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The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of strategic orientations and managerial characteristics on the performance of wine businesses in the US wine industry. Also considered is the power of firm size as measured by production and firm age since founding, as moderating variables that could attenuate or heighten their impact.

Data were gathered via an online survey, where 306 representatives of the US wineries responded. Data are analyzed using descriptive statistics, multinomial logistic regression, cross-tabulations and Pearson chi-square (χ²) analysis.

Wine businesses that reported increased sales and profits over the previous three years made significant changes to organizational structure and staffing levels. Wineries that reported flat or decreasing sales and profits were less apt to make changes in organizational structure or staffing levels. Firm age was found to mediate performance in terms of incremental sales and profit growth; firm size was found to mediate only incremental profit growth.

Developing skills in marketing, strategic planning and entrepreneurial thinking to build a defensible industry position and to create the staffing and structure to support that position appear to be of great importance to wine businesses.

This study develops and tests a model investigating how firm size and age impact strategic orientations and managerial characteristics on the performance of the US wine businesses. This study investigates which strategic orientations and managerial characteristics wine businesses need to be successful in the future.

Direct shipping laws restrict the amount of wine traded between states in the United States as well as international trade in the wine industry. The effects of these laws are twofold. First, they restrict consumer choice, through higher prices and fewer goods available. This is the classic way in which barriers to trade reduce consumer and societal welfare. For the international wine company, marketing and distribution costs rise due to the fact that certain markets are not directly available. For all potential exporters to the US. these direct shipping laws add to difficulty in competing and reduce availability. The data show that the elimination of the laws would reduce prices, increase quantities sold, and increase competition in wine, especially through direct shipping. These laws affect firm choice on product delivery and market penetration.

American wineries have taken marketing steps toward attracting consumers. They employ tasting scores to augment and solidify market share. According to Oster (1999) and Porter (1985), competitive advantage comes from either cost advantages or product differentiation. American wineries use tasting scores they receive from experts as the basis for product differentiation and raising prices. To achieve competitive advantage, the product must be seen as important and an improvement in the market, while simultaneously lacking imitation. This article looks at how tasting scores given by wine experts may affect American firms' competitive advantage, barring entry by importing rivals, such as Australian firms. If these tasting scores provide product importance and improvements, while delivering a product that lacks imitation, competitive advantage may result. If importers to the US realise this, these firms can undermine American advantages, increase competition, and gain market share through their own competitive advantages.

When wines are “corked”, as determined by distributors, retailers, or consumers, a winery's brand image is damaged and return on winery marketing is lost. A tainted product can easily disrupt or destroy the competitive advantage gained by a winery over years of differentiation techniques through marketing and image. This problem exists for wineries worldwide. Large lawsuits have recently occurred due to problems with wineries using defective intermediate products, especially corks. While there is some debate as to corked wine's cause, this study focuses assessing monetary damages in such a case and the breadth of financial effects on a winery. Tainted products easily disrupt or destroy competitive advantage gained by wineries over years of differentiation techniques through marketing. Augmentation of explicit and implicit costs, and reduced revenues, contribute to financial damages. This study provides insight on what damages to include in these calculations and how forensie economics views the discount rates to use and the dates defining business disruption.

How individuals respond to changes in their economic condition varies from country to country. This paper explores the linkage between stock markets and wine sales. In particular, we look at the performance of exported wines in foreign markets. This paper hinges on the subtle distinction between wealth and income. We also provide an overview of each market analyzed. Our premise is that stock market fluctuations are correlated with wine demand such that changes in one series may change the other. Further, seasonality and price changes are also considered as components of international wine demand. Our results show that in certain countries, stock market returns are correlated with wine demand, positively in some cases, negatively in others.

Researchers into entrepreneurial strategy have overlooked the impact of small vs big investments on a venture's return on investment (ROI). The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent does entrepreneurial behavior impact initial investment size and the return on that investment?

This investigation summarizes research into entrepreneurial leadership behavior and uses data from longitudinal case studies of four innovative start‐up wine businesses in California, India, and Italy.

Investment size and ROI appear to be related to entrepreneurial behavior.

Lead entrepreneurs must develop both technical competence and social networking skills to achieve small wins, i.e. early if only modest ROI.

This paper develops a model consisting of several testable propositions to measure the impact of entrepreneurial behavior on ROI.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate innovation practice of small family firms. Top management teams’ styles, their strategic orientations, and perceptions of external environment promote or deter innovation.

Ten Tuscan and ten Californian family wineries are investigated via questionnaire and in‐person interviews to develop longitudinal case studies describing barriers or incentives to innovate.

Changes in processes, products, or market orientations are subordinated to how top managers perceive internal and external pressure to implement innovation.

This exploratory research proposes a model depicting the extent to which location impacts the selected variables.

Service learning has become an important teaching methodology in many American schools, colleges, and universities. Libraries will thus want to add resources to their collections in this subject area to support faculty and student research. This article aims to briefly define the concept of service learning and to describe selected resources in the area.

The annotated bibliography is divided into three sections: organizations and their web sites, Periodicals, and Books.

Service learning, once an experimental teaching and learning approach, has become well established as a pedagogy. In designing a successful service learning experience, teachers and faculty must identify real community needs, must structure the experience in such a way that students can grow and learn from it and, on completion of the experience, must assess its outcomes.

This paper synthesizes the literature on service learning and provides a guide for librarians who want to add materials in this area to their collection.

“Disparity” implies the existence of a “markedly distinct in quality or character,” difference between one group and another. Some groups, due to elevated stigma associated with group membership, are invisible as a disparate minority and therefore, while there may be a great inequity in healthcare between that group and the normative population, the invisible minority is ignored. This chapter addresses the issue of healthcare for the transgender-identified population. We address how the normative viewpoint of mental illness and unacceptable religious status, along with lifelong perceived and actual abuse and violence, creates a socially sanctioned inequality in healthcare for this population.