Quality certifications impact on wine industry assets performance

Mariantonietta Fiore, Marcella Giacomarra, Maria Crescimanno and Antonino Galati

Abstract: This study analyses the impact of third-party voluntary certifications on the asset of wineries operating in the Southern Italian regions. The study carried out both quantitative and qualitative approaches, with data extracted from the AIDA Bureau van Dijk International Database (including performance indicators). The analysed sector belongs to 11.02 ‘Manufacture of wine from grape’ of the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE). The econometric elaboration (regression) was carried out by means of STATA software 14. Comparing certified and no certified wineries, results show a better asset performance of certified wineries, confirmed by a positive relationship between higher revenues and bigger size. The adoption of voluntary certifications requires the presence of highly qualified people, capable of managing innovations of product or process. Wine managers should consider that the expected impacts of the adoption of voluntary certification are not independent from both targeted business scopes and institutional context where the winery operates, being strictly linked to specific market and seller strategic decisions, including customer centricity approaches. For what in our knowledge, this work is the first attempt in investigating the impact of voluntary certifications in the Sicilian wine industries. Results are thus of relevant importance and originality and able to suggest new insights on business assets management for the wine industry, enabling managers to better approach the decision to get certified through sustainable standards.

Keywords: business performance; environmental management; Mezzogiorno regions; quality management; regression analysis; voluntary standards

Date published: 2020-04-29