Characterising governance, innovations and sustainability in the French wine industry: a comparison between cooperatives and investor owned firms

Wine industry is transitioning through innovations to be more efficient and more sustainable. However, managerial decisions for sustainability can be influenced by the type of governance, i.e. Cooperatives and investor owned firms (IOF). Cooperatives, as social economy organisations, play a central role in achieving sustainability. However, contrary to the IOF, cooperatives face a dilemma between their solidarity principles and the competitive and capitalistic needs (Draperi and Le Corroller, 2016). To apprehend these differences, we apply a multi-paradigmatic theoretical perspective, including social economy, transaction cost economics and the cognitive theory of the firm (Saïsset & Codron, 2019). Using a step-by-step thematic analysis (Nowell et al.,2017), we analyzed 22 interviews to leaders of 16 French wine cooperatives and IOF. 2 We found that process-related innovations are the most frequent (e.g. oenological practices, new niche wines, recycling), along with organizational and commercial innovations related to governance (e.g. committees, direct sales). These innovations are numerous in the biggest and more decentralized firms (including wine co-ops). Upstream oriented firms developed significant governance innovations towards their stakeholders. Few innovations address the three dimensions of sustainability, whereas most of them are economic centered and are not systematically linked to the type of firm.