ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION, AGGLOMERATION, NETWORKS AND FIRMS’ PERFORMANCE - EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE ITALIAN WINE SECTOR

This paper contributes to literature on entrepreneurship, by providing insights on the impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) on the performance of Small and-Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Particularly, the study explores to what extent agglomerations of firms (i.e., firm clusters) can influence SMEs performance, as well as being part of a territorial network, in which firms can exchange resources and knowledge. EO can be conceived as a general attitude of entrepreneurs in managing their firms (e.g., strong orientation to innovate and take risks, Morris and Paul, 1987). Analyzing EO can be helpful in understanding the agglomerating, and networking patterns of firms, as well as their performance (e.g., Acs and Armington, 2004; Acs and Varga, 2005; Aghion et al., 2009; Fritsch and Mueller, 2008; Acs et al., 2010; Bosma et al., 2011). Albeit literature has recognized agglomerations as surely having an impact on firm performance, it is not clear whether this impact is positive (e.g., Harrison, 1992; Krugman, 1991; Marshall, 1920), or negative (e.g., Buenstorf and Guenther, 2011). Although in recent years there was an increasing academic attention in understanding differences in performances between agglomerating and non-agglomerating firms, results of research still appear fragmented and inconsistent (e.g., Klumbies and Bausch, 2011). Research has long recognized the importance of networks in fostering innovation. However, interest in understanding their complex evolutionary dynamics is relatively recent (Martin and Sunley, 2006; Glückler, 2007; Giuliani and Bell, 2008; Boschma and Frenken, 2010; Martin, 2010; Menzel and Fornhal, 2010; Boschma and Fornahl, 2011; Martin and Sunley, 2011; Staber, 2011; Ter Wal and Boschma, 2011; Balland, 2012; Balland et al., 2012; Li et al., 2012). Contributions on this topic suggest that, changes in the evolutionary patterns of networks can be considered as predictors -at least partially- of the likely future success or failure of an agglomeration (i.e., cluster). Hence, networks and their evolutionary patterns appear to have an impact on the performance of single participating firms. According to the above considerations, this paper provides an exploration of the impact of EO on firm performance, considering agglomeration and network (i.e., the firm being part of a network) as moderating variables in the relationship EO-performance. The paper focuses on the Italian wine industry, one of the most important sectors in agri-food production in Italy, and one of the most recognizable Italian excellences. The wine industry is considered as an emblematic case study for agglomerating effects, given that a similar firm clustering is present among wine industries all over the world (hence, with comparable characteristics, e.g., Cusmano et al, 2010; Bell and Giuliani, 2007). After providing some measurement of agglomeration (using Moran’s LMi statistic), the paper presents the moderate regression that has been performed on data from a sample of 234 Italian wine firms (collected through the administration of a structured questionnaire). Results confirm the importance of agglomeration and entrepreneurial risk taking attitude on performance, but providing no significant evidence on the role of networks