Exploring entrepreneurship integrating human capital, business characteristics, and strategic decisions: The case of the wine sector in Veneto

This thesis stems from the collaboration between the Department of Management of the University of Verona and the Federazione Veneta delle Banche di Credito Cooperativo. This collaboration responds to shared knowledge gaps regarding the availability of specific and reliable entrepreneurial, financial and social information that can represent the characteristics of the production systems where banks operate. It aims to understand the dynamics of territorial systems and their potential future trajectories, and therefore the role of banks in supporting businesses in their decisions of development. In the light of this collaboration objective, the wine sector has been identified as the subject of analysis. This thesis looks at the complexity of entrepreneurship in the wine industry integrating three levels of analysis at the entrepreneurial ecosystem level, the entrepreneurship level, and the entrepreneur decision level. This thesis adopts a multi-method combining a systematic literature review with survey-based quantitative analyses, and econometric modelling on a sample of wineries located in the Veneto region of Italy. The core of thesis consists of three papers. The first paper offers a conceptual contribution by systematically reviewing emerging literature regarding entrepreneurial ecosystems in the food industry. The research emphasises the role of the Complex Adaptive System theory dimensions: non-linearity, hierarchy, feedback loops, and emergence in ecosystem evolution. It refines this theory by revealing how institutional inertia, path-dependent financing, and culturally embedded relational structures constrain adaptability in agri-food ecosystems. The second paper centres on the entrepreneur as the key agent of change. It empirically examines how wine entrepreneurs’ intentions towards business enhancement are influenced by psychological capital (optimism, resilience, self-efficacy, and hope) and relational capital (networks of trust and collaboration). Findings show that psychological capital exerts the strongest influence, underscoring the role of individual agency and internal resources in driving entrepreneurial commitment and growth. In the third paper, the analysis is brought to the level of strategic decision-making by investigating factors related to export propensity and export intensity as two indicators of the entrepreneurial strategy. The model incorporates characteristics of the firm (firm size, financial structure, production characteristics), adoption of innovation (vineyard, cellar and marketing), human and social capital, and a sustainability-oriented perspective. Findings suggest both structural and behavioural variables jointly shape wineries’ internationalisation patterns. This thesis addresses a set of knowledge gaps with practical and theoretical significance. Theoretically, this thesis contributes to entrepreneurship and wine business research by examining different but complementary drivers of winery strategies. From a practical perspective, it provides sector-specific evidence on the strategic context where financial institutions and policymakers seek new tools to evaluate firms’ capacities and constraints. Additionally, it provides wine entrepreneurs with insights into how different factors, ranging from personal resources to financial aspects and innovation, affect strategic choices. Understanding these dynamics can help wine entrepreneurs identify personal strengths to leverage and system constraints to overcome, thereby supporting more informed decisions in managing growth, market positioning, and collaboration within their territorial context.