Sustainable Environmental Practices in the New Zealand Wine Industry: An Analysis of Perceived Institutional Pressures and the Role of Exports

Abstract

The focus of this article is to use institutional theory to provide a better understanding of environmental issues facing New Zealand wineries. Findings from a survey of New Zealand wineries indicate that institutional pressures do not fully explain the adoption of sustainable environmental practices in the New Zealand wine industry. The authors found that firms with a higher commitment to exports will adopt one of the environmental practices identified to a greater degree. The authors present explanations for these results in terms of the nature of the industry, size of the winery operations, and the higher overall export orientation of this industry.

KEYWORDS:

• institutional pressures
• sustainable environmental practices
• New Zealand wine industry
• exports

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the ANZAM 2008 conference. The authors gratefully acknowledge a contestable research grant from the Waikato Management School in support of this research. We are also grateful to R. Scott Marshall of Portland State University for obtaining permission from his co-authors to allow us to use the survey instrument developed for Marshall, Cordano, and Silverman's (2005) study of drivers of proactive environmentalism in the U.S. wine industry.