Collaboration as a means to stand out in a competitive market: an exploratory study of Uruguay's exporting wineries

Abstract

This study examines the perceptions of owners/managers of Uruguayan wineries currently exporting wines regarding perceived potential and actual benefits of collaboration and challenges to collaboration through the lens of the theory of collaboration. In addition, perceived general challenges of the wine industry are investigated. Fifteen of the currently 23 exporting wineries participated via an online questionnaire. These data were complemented through two face-to-face interviews with the general manager of Wines of Uruguay and the co-owner of one of the country's most established wineries. Overall, collaboration is perceived as the source of various key benefits, including positive impacts on participants at a personal level, in helping facilitate relationship building, mutual support, or broaden knowledge of the local wine industry. However, a sense of limited collaboration emerged, with lack of reciprocating collaboration being one key challenge identified. Other perceived challenges of the wine industry, particularly the little knowledge of Uruguayan wines internationally, and limited resources to promote wines internationally, further suggest the importance of collaboration as a crucial strategy to address these issues. Alignments between the findings and some of the tenets of the theory of collaboration were identified, underlining its usefulness.