The Wine Pioneers

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WHO ARE THE WINE PIONEERS OF OREGON?

Several alternative explanations are pertinent to our study. First, imitation and non-imitation could reside more on the level of discourse than of practice.

Our research design is based on the assumption that non-imitation can be meaningfully captured by looking at eight product-level practices. If actual practices were less scrutinized, institutional pressure to conform to the practices associated with Grange would be lower, which could in turn explain the relatively large share of non-imitators in our sample e. However, even if decoupling between discourse and practices occurred, its effect would be limited in fine-wine fields, because wine-production practices are normally at the core of public exposure and discussion.

Moreover, our data-collection process included information provided by wine-producers, and by wine critics and auction houses, which together represent a major part of the public discourse about a given wine. During our study, we noticed no clear evidence of decoupling, or even of loose coupling between reported practices and the surrounding discourses. A second set of alternative explanations builds on the idea of strategic differentiation. Both mainstream strategy literature e.

However, we also observed in our study a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity at field level, together with clear evidence of highly successful imitators of Grange, which contradicts the strategic-differentiation explanation. Third, since the wine industry more generally has both regional and global aspects, practices other than those associated with Grange might equally function as sources of legitimation, be imitated by wine-producers, and so explain the non-imitation of Grange.

However, on investigating the instances of potential alternative templates in detail, we found that these alternative references were also clearly related to terroir logic, one cultural mechanism included in our analysis. A last alternative explanation relates to whether all non-imitating actors actually had the ability, competencies, information, and resources necessary to imitate Grange. Moreover, only three of the eight practices we used to capture non-imitation—time before commercialization, origin of wood, and age of barrels—are clearly associated with financial or technical barriers.

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We therefore argue that—for the wineries in our sample—knowledge and resource levels had only limited bearing on non-imitation. We would expect this influence to be stronger for pioneers, having to focus on their local terroir. Meanwhile, strangers entering the fine-wine field later positioned themselves in the heart of the field and seemed not to face resource issues.

We believe that our more general proposition concerning the specific positional opportunities associated with complex field-positions applies whether non-imitation is agentic, constrained, or mimetic. In this study, we aimed to build a typology of complex field-positions associated with non-imitation.

Wine Pioneers: Pushing the frontiers of the new world | Clos19 Germany

Our analysis yielded three complex field-positions: Our findings first contribute to institutional literature on non- imitation and heterogeneity in fields Powell, ; Thornton, et al. Institutional theory is usually associated with an emphasis on structural and cultural isomorphic mechanisms to explain imitation and homogeneity in organizational fields. However, the institutional literature on non-imitation remains fragmented and relies on multiple concepts—such as resistance, innovation, and manipulation—which we propose to regroup under the more general concept of non-imitation.

By conceptualizing deviance from established practices as non-imitation, our study contributes to research on field heterogeneity by offering a more general framework encompassing a range of phenomena that have previously been addressed separately. We do not claim that the phenomena described in prior research are all the same, but suggest considering them as multiple empirical instantiations of the same larger issue. Our empirical findings contribute to understanding how diversity and innovation—characteristic for creative and entrepreneurial fields—can occur in the presence of strong field-level isomorphic pressures.

Ultimately, all the organizations we studied played a role in the development of the Australian fine-wine field and contributed to promoting an overall distinctly Australian fine-wine style. Non-imitators participated in—and benefited from—the development of the Australian fine-wine field, simultaneously developing creatively divergent ways to express themselves. Our findings suggest that non-imitating actors cluster consistently around distinct combinations of structural and cultural mechanisms, which we interpret as complex field-positions. If Johnson and Powell showed how time matters to explain the institutional poisedness of non-imitation and Sgourev highlighted the relational conditions necessary for such deviance to be successful, we add to their study the role of place and cultural mechanisms.

Taken together, these positional opportunities facilitate the success of deviant actors, thus contributing to maintaining field-level diversity. Our second contribution concerns the idea of field-positions as complex combinations of structural and cultural mechanisms. As argued above, the concept of field-position has previously been studied mainly from a structural perspective, yet needs also to embrace institutional complexity in terms of both structural or relational embeddedness and cultural immersion.

Our findings suggest that structural mechanisms are important conditions for non-imitation. Taken alone, however, they are not sufficient for non-imitation, and their relation with non-imitation is inconsistent across the three types of field-positions identified: Pioneers deviate early on, are small, and are located far from the center of the field; insulars are also located far from the center of the field, but are large and deviate later; and strangers are close to the center, small, and late non-imitators.

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Our findings suggest an important role in non-imitation played by combinations of cultural and structural mechanisms: All our pioneers partake in terroir logic; all our insulars support brand logic; and all our strangers lack exposure to professional norms because of their origins outside the fine-wine field. On our sample, the Barossa Valley wine-producers Greenock Creek and Hewitson, for example, share the same structural position as small producers and late entrants geographically located at the center of the field. It is only by taking into account the cultural mechanisms distinguishing their respective complex field-positions that we can explain why the former established by a non-professional engaged in non-imitation, while the latter founded by a professionally trained winemaker imitated Grange.

The idea of complex field-positions thus sheds light on non-imitating actors and enriches the established field-position concept Greenwood, et al. The empirical findings of our study on non-imitation and complex field-positions yield a third contribution. We found three highly consistent and distinctive complex positions associated with non-imitation in Australian fine-wine. Our findings suggest a more general typology of distinctive positions associated with non-imitation, which enriches recent discussions of field-positions and non-imitation.

Pioneers are field-actors who explore new territories and find themselves ahead or on the side of the mainstream. In light of the historical dominance of brand logic in Australian wine, the adoption of terroir logic could mean that the lack of institutional support for wine production in geographical locations far from the prestigious center of Australian fine-wine actually provided these actors with an opportunity to innovate by positively valorizing unique terroir as their main resource at hand.

Their professional education and prior exposure to the dominant professional norms should have made it easy for them to revert to brand logic and to adhere to the Grange template. However, they all opted for an alternative solution emphasizing their specific geographic location, just as a maverick or a jazz musician would innovate by incorporating influences from local artistic scenes.

By combining a particular geographic location with a unique mindset, pioneers benefited from a positional opportunity available during early institutionalization of the Australian fine-wine field. Looking at resourceful actors e. As strangers are geographically located in the most prestigious areas in the center of South Australia, one could have expected terroir logic as the common cultural mechanism. However, the common cultural feature shared by all strangers, allowing them to deviate from prevalent prescriptions on joining the fine-wine field, is the non-professionalism of their winemakers.

In other words, whereas pioneers both professionals and non-professionals made the best of local influences in their geographically distant locations, strangers clustered at the center of the field but deviated by disregarding professional norms and standards. However, whereas most studies emphasize the role of alternative cultural logics as a basis of deviation by central actors, our insulars combine a non-central structural position geographical distance from the center of the fine-wine field with the dominant brand logic. Taken together, these two routes toward non-imitation suggest that insulars innovate on the basis of a partial shift in their complex field-position, maintaining either their traditional logic or their structural relations, while exploring new ways of acting.

From an institutional perspective, this field-position type reflects a rather cautious move, suggesting these actors might have the most to lose by deviating from prevalent prescriptions. The insights gained from our typology also matter for institutional theory more generally. We add to this conversation a set of empirically grounded types that embrace these issues.

Second, our results also link to the broader issue of agency in the face of institutional prescriptions. Pioneers in our study are small and entered the field early, operating at its margins; one could wonder to what extent their non-imitating practices reflect a lack of resources or opportunities to follow Grange. Our discussion of insulars, on the other hand, suggests more-intentional strategic moves to operate a partial shift in complex field-position. Our strangers too seem fairly agentic by investing in structural locations at the center of the Australian fine-wine field.

These observations challenge established views within institutional analysis, which predict that late adopters are more likely to engage in imitation because practices become taken-for-granted over time. In other words, our findings suggest that the different forms of non-imitation captured by our three types of field-positions are associated with different kinds of agency. This reinforces our proposition that complex field-positions—characterized by the interaction of structural and cultural mechanisms—provide a fruitful perspective on positional opportunities.

The Australian fine-wine field reveals the dynamics we sought to explore, but also has characteristics that influence the generalizability of our findings. The Australian fine-wine field is—compared to that in, say, France or Germany—relatively recent and should be seen in the context of the overall Australian wine and beverage industry, including overlapping ownership structures, distribution channels, and consumers. By definition, the field-positions available in an organizational field depend on its overall structure, which can be more or less centralized, fragmented, etc.

The young age and particular structure of the Australian fine-wine field influence field-positions and non-imitation. Our study addressed a single field, used a retrospective design, and focused on successful cases—common limitations in non- imitation studies. Our approach to structural and cultural mechanisms is relatively extensive; we look at how five mechanisms interact, but our empirical operationalization naturally does not exhaust all possible ways of capturing these.

Our study clearly lacks more-specific network measures, although we collected information on professional affiliations and provided an operationalization of structural equivalence, which we believe to be meaningful in the fine-wine context. Finally, our qualitative-research approach did not allow us to study whether non-imitation is contagious, or to identify how it unfolds concretely over time.

Such analysis would help gain a better historical and theoretical understanding of whether and when dominant field norms might have shifted from imitation to non-imitation; this could indicate when fine-wine was first considered a creative field in Australia. Our paper proposes a typology of field-positions accounting for the institutional complexity that shapes non-imitation.

It provides an opportunity to reflect on how diversity gradually develops and persists within organizational fields, instead of being the consequence of radically radical changes consciously brought about by central, peripheral, or external actors. These more mundane forms of non-imitation and the less heroic field-positions with which they are associated point to field dynamics that challenge dominant prescriptions without entering open conflict or contestation.

Complex field-positions allow actors to deviate structurally and culturally, giving them opportunities for innovation. We are very grateful for the insightful comments of co-editor-in-chief Sebastien Liarte and three anonymous reviewers. We would like to thank all the seminar participants for their contributions.

Our distinction between structural and cultural builds on longstanding institutional studies of diffusion and imitation, which used these concepts to organize a dense and prolific literature Strang and Soule, En continuant votre visite vous acceptez de recevoir ces cookies.

Revues Ouvrages Que sais-je? Vous consultez Complex field-positions and non-imitation: Voir aussi Sur un sujet proche. Erreur lors de l'enregistrement de votre alerte. The Institutional Context of Industry Creation. Shielding Idiosyncrasy from Isomorphic Pressures: Towards Optimal Distinctiveness in European Filmmaking. A Statistical Compendium, Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. How Practices Vary as They Diffuse. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Towards a Theory of Institutional Entrepreneurship. Cultivating an Institutional Ecology of Organizations: Comment on Hannan, Carroll, Dundon, and Torres.

Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. The Free Press of Glencoe. University of California Press. The Case of Luxury Wines. The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups. Predicting the Quality of an Unborn Grange. Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. American Journal of Sociology , SS Disentangling Diffusion and Institutionalization.


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The Case of the Australian Wine Industry. The Embeddedness of Organizations: The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Entrepreneurship, Partaking, and Convening. Journal of Business Research , 60 5 , Better Stories and Better Constructs: The Case for Rigor and Comparative Logic.

Wine Pioneers

Theory Building from Cases: Building Better Causal Theories: How Golden Parachutes Unfolded: Diffusion and Variation of a Controversial Practice. The Diffusion of Ideas over Contested Terrain: The Endless Fields of Pierre Bourdieu. A Chemistry of Organization: Combinatory Analysis and Design.

The birth of Ao Yun is an inspiring and extraordinary story; one that challenges the status quo of the entire, global winemaking scene. The location had to be perfect and it took four years to find it; a terroir with gravelly soil like that of Bordeaux and a climate with similar maximum temperatures. Thanks to its spectacular elevation however, Ao Yun is also blessed with cooler, drier nights and a higher UV index, which concentrates grape flavours and enhances ageing potential.

The inaugural vintage of Ao Yun was and it has impressed wine connoisseur and critics around the world. With Ao Yun, the boundaries of fine wine production have been truly pushed and changed forever. The journey of Cape Mentelle to the forefront of the world winemaking stage was not an easy one. Located in Margaret River, in the rugged far south-western corner of Australia, David Hohnen and his brothers planted their first vines in , determined that these ancient soils in one of the most isolated wine regions in the world, showed enough potential to create world class wines.

The Cape Mentelle style became synonymous with the Margaret River wine region itself after winning dozens of awards, including consecutive wins of the Jimmy Watson trophy: Dissatisfied with the Mission grape, he imported vines from France. Major wine production shifted to the Sonoma Valley in northern California largely because of its excellent climate for growing grapes. General Mariano Vallejo , former commander of the presidio of Sonoma, became the first large-scale winegrower in the valley.

In , Agoston Haraszthy bought acres 2. In contrast to Vallejo and most others, Haraszthy planted his vines on dry slopes and did not irrigate them. Today, the value of dry farming to creating superior wine is generally recognized. Haraszthy has been called the "Father of Modern Viticulture in California. He also urged the government to collect cuttings from Europe and distribute them to growers in California. In , the State Legislature commissioned Haraszthy to travel to Europe and purchase a diversity of grapevines. He did so, and obtained , vines of different varieties. LeFranc produced good wine as did his son-in-law, Paul Masson.

In , John Patchett planted the first commercial vineyard in Napa Valley and established the first winery there in Helena and began making his own wine. The land on which Krug founded his winery was part of his wife's Carolina Bale's dowry. Krug became an important leader of winemaking in the Napa Valley.

English wine pioneers rush to start UK vineyards

Early on, the Napa Valley demonstrated leadership in producing quality wine. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in , Napa Valley wines won 20 of the 34 medals or awards including four gold medals won by California entries. This was the high point that was followed by 40 years of natural and human-caused disasters. Some wineries managed to survive by making wine for religious services.