Winery entrepreneurs rooted in “Their Place”: how lifestyle decisions, business motivations and perceptions of place influence business practices and regional initiatives in the wine and tourism industries

Abstract

This thesis explores the characteristics, motivations and business practices of winery entrepreneurs involved in tourism in two rural, New World wine regions: Central Otago, New Zealand and The Finger Lakes, New York, United States. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with winery owners, managers and additional stakeholders across these regions in 2007. This research clarifies and expands on current understandings of winery entrepreneurship and rural place identity by drawing on multiple disciplines, including tourism, wine, marketing, rural studies, cultural geography, entrepreneurship and business management. The study offers an analysis of the influence of “place” on the entrepreneurial process, and the influence winery entrepreneurs have on a place. It contributes to an understanding of the entrepreneurship concept by analysing the factors that motivate entrepreneurs, and influence their behaviours. In these rural wine regions, the entrepreneurial process is an economic activity that is also driven by the motivations of individuals seeking to fulfil their personal goals. A typology of winery ownership has been developed from the data that may be extended beyond these regions. Analysis identified three types- status-seeking winery entrepreneurs, subsistence-seeking winery entrepreneurs, and lifestyle-seeking winery owners. Individuals possess combinations of motivations and goals, which may evolve over time from changes in contextual or personal circumstances. Based on these types, this research explores how differences in motivations and attachments to place influence how an entrepreneur acts. In particular, this thesis focuses on the lifestyle decisions and business practices related to three issues highlighted as particularly important by research respondents: Tourism, Marketing and Seasonality. The research analyses collaborative regional efforts to influence tourism, marketing and seasonality management, and the challenges that result from conflicting stakeholder agendas and goals. Intertwined in these conflicts are broader disagreements as to how individuals work collaboratively, how they perceive and promote tourism, how they see this place and the trajectory of future regional development. Taken together, the wine and tourism industries provide a particularly useful forum to explore the various entrepreneurial motivations, and how these play out in business practices and collective regional initiatives: the decisions and actions of an individual business can impact all businesses in the region, given producers and operators rely on a collective name and reputation to market their products. While wineries act individually, collective decisions of wineries in the region ultimately influence the development of the region through physical impacts, land use, business practices and representations of a place. This complex phenomenon is represented by a theoretical model, developed to conceptualise findings and address research objectives. The model of Winery Entrepreneurship Process and Place Identity Development (WEPPID) helps explain differences between study regions and can be applied to other places, to be used as a framework to conceptualise the various components that contribute to and influence the entrepreneurial process and place identity development. The entrepreneurial typology and WEPPID model are effective tools for practitioners and researchers, and contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurship in a rural wine and tourism context.

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