Key factors influencing family businesses: a qualitative study of selected world wineries

Faculty of Business and Management, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic

Abstract

This research study is based on the elaboration of nineteen case studies of family wineries from all over the world and one case study from the Czech Republic. All family wineries were visited by the author and semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected representatives of family wineries. The aim of the research was to look at the family winery through the lens of two systems: the family system and the business system, in order to find out the involvement of family members in a winery and the most important factors affecting a winery. Websites of family wineries were examined through contextual analysis. Based on the analysis of all case studies, four key groups of family wineries in the world were compiled. The research study identifies key family factors, i.e. familiness and the generation of the family which owns a winery. On the business side, the study identifies two key factors important for the sustainability of a family winery, namely corporate innovation and the degree of internationalization. The results of the analysis of world family wineries were compared with one winery selected from the Czech Republic.