Behind the Australian wine industry's success: does environment matter?

The success of the Australian wine industry is well documented. However, there have been few comparative studies of the reasons for this success as compared to Australia's main competitors. Most of the anecdotal evidence and trade publications focus on 'value for money' and fruit-driven wines, without looking at how the Australian wine businesses operate. This paper investigates the external environment in France and Australia as one of the drivers for Australian wine sector success. In-depth interviews with two French and two Australian wineries led to a series of hypotheses about the role of market orientation, strategic orientation, innovative and entrepreneurial environment orientation, constraining legislation, industry infrastructure usage, industry plan support, and interorganizational collaboration as factors differentiating the two countries. An online survey of wineries in the two countries provided 82 French and 63 Australian responses. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences with Australian wineries higher in market orientation, growth strategy, export proactiveness, perceived innovative environment, perceived entrepreneurial environment, more interorganizational collaboration, and less perceived constraining legislation. These results not only provide some basis for Australia's success in wine exporting, but also add to the literature on the effect of the external environment on business performance.