Abstract
Aim of study: Cava is Spain’s largest wine exporter. However, in the last 20 years, the growth of exports from Cava protected designation of origin (PDO) wineries has been lower than that of other Spanish PDO wines, and Cava’s domestic market share has fallen. From the point of view of strategic management, it could be said that it seems that the wineries of the Cava PDO are losing their competitive advantage. It is therefore fundamental to perform an analysis of the wineries that maintain a better performance to understand the elements that give them a competitive advantage. In this article, to analyse competitive advantage, both management capabilities and Robinson and Pearce’s generic business strategies are studied. The objective is twofold; on the one hand, we pursue the level of the managerial capabilities in the wineries of Cava PDO, while on the other hand, we seek to know the influence of the managerial capabilities and the strategies as reflected in their business performance.Area of study: Spanish wineries of the Cava PDO.Material and methods: Sixty-six wineries were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U Test and Bayesian regression to determine the relationship between the managerial capabilities, strategy, and business performance.Main results: The results show a lower level of managerial capabilities in Cava PDO wineries as compared with Rioja PDO wineries, a strong relationship between management capabilities and performance.Research highlights: These results are highly applicable since they show what resources and what strategies should be promoted to achieve a competitive advantage.
Highlights
Wines from the Cava protected designation of origin (PDO) generated the second highest revenue among the PDO regions of Spain, behind only Rioja in the 201819 season, when it accounted for 733 million euros and 18% of all Spanish PDO sales
Main results: The results show a lower level of managerial capabilities in Cava PDO wineries as compared with Rioja PDO wineries, a strong relationship between management capabilities and performance
The factors that determine the competitive advantage and the outsized business performance of the Cava PDO wineries are ripe for detailed analysis, given that they were only partially addressed by a study on the differentiating resources of the Cava PDO conducted by Duarte Alonso (2017)
Summary
Wines from the Cava protected designation of origin (PDO) generated the second highest revenue among the PDO regions of Spain, behind only Rioja in the 201819 season, when it accounted for 733 million euros and 18% of all Spanish PDO sales. The surface area occupied by the Cava PDO is just 37,955 ha, about 6% of the total surface area of the PDOs in Spain (MAPA, 2020). The Cava PDO has been one of the major exporters of Spanish wines, being one of the leading PDOs in performance and development, since its origins in the early 19th century (Fernández & Pinilla, 2014). The factors that determine the competitive advantage and the outsized business performance of the Cava PDO wineries are ripe for detailed analysis, given that they were only partially addressed by a study on the differentiating resources of the Cava PDO conducted by Duarte Alonso (2017)
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