Title: Why and how some wine SMEs resist to the crisis?

Authors: Pierre Mora; Manzoom Akhter

Addresses: BeM Management School, 680 cours de la Libération, 33405, Talence Cedex, France. ' BeM Management School, 680 cours de la Libération, 33405, Talence Cedex, France

Abstract: Wine firms appear stronger than traditional SMEs. They are significantly export-oriented, but were similarly affected by the global crisis which began in 2008. The impact of crisis on the different levels of the wine industry is not the same: wine producers (with real estate) are more affected than merchants of diversified wineries. The period 2005-2008 did not show a clear correlation between export activity and the size of these SMEs (regarding turn over, manpower, shareholder equity). The wine sector seems to have better resistance than similar French SMEs outside the wine sector. Inside the wine sector, group G4 (resistant to the crisis) had a better turnover, and significant differences in recruitment. Finally, the paper presents the existence of four business models which were more resistant to the crisis as far as their export performance was concerned. On the marketing side, three groups of reaction are presented.

Keywords: France; exports; export performance; financial performance; crisis resistant; financial crises; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs; global crises; wine producers; real estate; land; property; wine merchants; diversification; diversified wineries; company turnover; employee recruitment; marketing; business; globalisation; wine industry; alcohol.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2012.043974

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2012 Vol.8 No.1, pp.95 - 111

Published online: 14 Aug 2014 *

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