SMALL FIRMS RESILIENCE AND LONGEVITY: AN ENQUIRY IN THE WINE INDUSTRY

The present thesis is a qualitative study and aims to understand how wealth long term outcomes of a sustainable competitive advantage, as business longevity, are assessed in long lasting firms. A collection of papers addresses the following overarching research question: how resilient small and family firms operating in dynamic environments sustain their competitive advantage for long decades? The wine industry, a sector characterized by century-old firms with a history of up and downs made this business area an excellent empirical contest to investigate the argument. The Introduction offers the ontological, epistemological and methodological evolution of the enquiry, underlying for each paper (Chapter 1, 2, 3 and 4) issue statements, research question, philosophical orientation, nature of the research process, research methodology and method. Chapter 1 proposes a revised evolutionary model for the resilience strategies of small firms, combining firm and cluster level and explaining how small firms embedded in a local cluster can foster their resilience. Findings show that the resilience of small firms is primarily driven by internal resilience strategies, and their resilience characteristics are fostered by the implementation of internal strategies rather than by the influence of the cluster. Chapter 2 presents a conceptual framework for the resilience of firms, providing a conceptualization of resilience within the management field. The inductive content analysis of the literature provides four different interpretations of resilience: resilience as an absorptive and adaptive ability, developed at time (t), the timeframe in which a firm is experiencing a change; resilience as proactive capability, improved at time (t-1), the time before the change, and resilience as a reactive capacity, implemented at time (t+1), after the change. Finally, the three emerging categorizations are correlated in the resilience building process, defined as a dynamic capability of the firm. Chapter 3 focuses on the role of the individual in sustaining the longevity of family firms. The outcome of longevity of family firms is investigated from the perspective of the individual. The study adopts an interpretive research design. The outcome of the analysis is a multilevel model that integrates in the dual relationship firm-family with the level of analysis of the individual, considering owner/managers and their characteristics, as separate entities from the family. Finally, Chapter 4 investigates through phenomenography how owner/managers of family firms understand and practice resilience. The understanding-based framework explains how, according to four different understandings, owner/managers perform different resilience activities. Finally, the Conclusion addresses principal findings, the theoretical and methodological contribution of the study, limitations, areas for further studies and practical implications.