The influence of social capital on product policy: a case for cooperation among Transdanubian wineries

Abstract

AIM OF THE PAPER

Nowadays a wide range of cooperation can be observed from strategic alliances through networks of suppliers till clusters. Wineries, while currently going through a dynamic transformation, are no exceptions to this trend. The objective of this paper is to measure how social capital can influence network or cluster formation through soft factors such as trust and confidence, connectedness and regional identity. The paper also focuses on clustering and characterizing cooperation among wine growers and cellars. This typology serves then as a basis for analyzing product policy of cooperating members.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This paper is empirically based, therefore quantitative descriptive research methods were chosen and deployed. The character of the primary research indicated the quantitative research method, ln all, 179 firms were included in the sample with the restriction, that they must belong to an active operating wine cluster or network. All of these firms were surveyed, outofl79firms, 129 replied resulting in a response rate of 72%. By testing the hypothesis not only univariate but also multivariate statistics were applied, namely factor and cluster analysis.

RESULTS

It has been proven that the cooperation of winery firms in Transdanubia is based on trust, which is significantly affected by regional identity, namely, by the attachment to the particular wine region. Using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis we found Transdanubian winery firms can be arranged into three homogeneous clusters by the soft factors of social capital. It has been confirmed that winery cooperation promotes only a small group of members, namely the Optimistic sociables in their product range expansion.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

The findings can be utilized by professionals after having identified the attitudes of their companies. They can easily draw conclusions, what benefits will be experienced by the cooperation in case of marketing. Consequently, these results also call the attention of cluster managers on which points they need to intervene in the course of cluster life cycle. We recommend that cluster managers should organize workshops, forums and lectures to improve the interactions between members.