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Creating Shared Identities in Collective Entrepreneurship:

The Process of Identity Construction in Emergent Organizational Collectives

Peter O. Foreman Illinois State University

Randall E. Westgren

University of Missouri

David L. Whetten Brigham Young University

This paper was presented at the 2013 Academy of Management conference, Orlando, Florida, August 13.

Abstract

The notion of "collective entrepreneurship" has grown as a counterweight to traditional ideas of

solo individuals as progenitors of new venture creation. Most recently, Ruef (2010) draws on the

concept of social identities to explain how individuals might identify and collaborate with others,

taking collective action to achieve entrepreneurial goals. But what happens when the "group" of

entrepreneurs consists of organizations, and the objective is creating a shared identity that

generates entrepreneurial rents arising from collective activity? What will be the basis of the

collective's sense of self and how will these decisions be made? And how do individual

organizational members balance the tension between the shared identity of the collective and

their own distinctive identity? These issues will be examined within the context of several

burgeoning wine regions and the efforts of individual wineries to establish a defined collective

identity as a wine trail

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Creating Shared Identities in Collective Entrepreneurship:

The Process of Identity Construction in Emergent Organizational Collectives

Beginning with Reich's (1987) essay on entrepreneurial teams, the notion of "collective

entrepreneurship" has grown as a counterweight to traditional ideas of solo individuals as

progenitors of new venture creation. Most recently, Reuf's book (2010) outlines in detail the

insights gained in recognizing the role of social groups or collectives in entrepreneurship. In that

book, Ruef draws on the concept of social identities to explain how individuals might identify

and collaborate with others, taking collective action to achieve entrepreneurial goals.

What happens when the "group" of entrepreneurs consists of organizations, and the

objective is creating a shared identity that generates entrepreneurial rents arising from

joint/collective activity, and which cannot exist within the individual organizations? These types

of initiatives are particularly salient in food and agriculture, where groups of potential

competitors find themselves considering the benefits of building a shared sense of identity,

image, and reputation. Whether it be regional wineries attempting to establish a new appellation,

or artisanal cheese producers seeking a defined brand, or organic vegetable growers founding a

new varietal, the individual organizations seek the value-added benefits of a joint identity and

collective action.

The challenge here is twofold. First of all, such collectives have the difficulty of

identifying the particular common features or characteristics that will form the basis of a clearly

defined sense of "who we are" and "what we are about". The process by which a nascent

organization constructs an identity is challenging enough, but when the "group" consists of

several organizations, each with their own unique identity, creating a shared self-definition

becomes a much more delicate and potentially intractable task. What will be the basis of the

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collective's sense of self and how will these decisions be made? Second, there is the inherent

tension involved in establishing a collective sense of "who we are" when the individuals within

the group are actually competing with one another. Does a strong joint identity (e.g. Finger

Lakes Wine Trail) add value to a particular winery, or should the winery put all its resources into

building its unique "estate" reputation? Some might see the collective identity as a competitor to

the individual firm ("what do we lose by joining with these others"), while others would see this

as an "additional identity".

This project seeks to explore the identity dynamics involved in collective

entrepreneurship, where the opportunities for economic gain lead individual organizations to

establish a shared identity as a means of facilitating a collective new venture creation. These

issues will be examined within the context of several regions or markets within the burgeoning

wine industry of Missouri, and the efforts of individual wineries to establish a defined collective

identity as a wine trail.

Collective Entrepreneurship

The term collective entrepreneurship appears only recently in the literatures of

economics, management, and entrepreneurship. In a review of the literature, Burress and Cook

(2009) note 240 publications that invoke this term since 1964, with more than half the references

occurring since 2000. They develop a taxonomy of the motivations for the juxtaposition of

collective with entrepreneurship, with the scope of the collective as the most significant axis; the

motivations increase in scope from “intra-organizational efficiency” to “inter-organizational

goals” to “economic growth and development” through “socio-political change”. In this paper

we take a similar view of the primacy of organizational scope, though we are less interested in

those collective actions where the benefits are not appropriable by the members of the collective;

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social and public benefits may exist but they are more à propos to social movements research.

We recognize, on the other hand, that social movements provide opportunities for entrepreneurs

to act, perhaps as a collective, and to appropriate entrepreneurial rents (Weber, Heinze, &

DeSoucey, 2008).

Let us consider three forms of collective entrepreneurship and the explicit boundaries

they engender. The first is the entrepreneurial team that collectively founds and manages an

organization. Reich (1987) raises the issue of the preponderance of entrepreneurial activities that

were not bounded by the iconic image of the lone inventor/entrepreneur. This view is elaborated

by Ruef (2010), who begins his treatise with Toqueville’s vision of an associative culture in

America and describes the phenomenon of collective action among “co-founders, employees,

investors, advisors, or unpaid helpers” (p. 13) to create new firms. He develops a model of the

relational demography of group adhesion built upon four key elements: structure (roles and

contracts), strong ties (networks and trust), homophily (shared characteristics), and identity

(shared subjective beliefs and goals).

The second common instantiation of collective entrepreneurship is the cooperative form

of organization. Most of the examples of this type of organization arise in the agricultural sector,

where cooperatives have more than a century of importance to the American economy.

Agricultural cooperatives have been institutionalized as a form of collective action to counteract

market power in the markets into which farmers sell and from which they purchase inputs

(Knapp 1969, 1977; Nourse 1942). The traditional cooperative had farms as members of the

collective enterprise, with one membership/voting share for each farm, though there are a

number of agricultural cooperatives that are organized as national or regional federations of

individual “local” cooperatives. The recent interest in collective entrepreneurship represents

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studies of whether these collective organizations can act “entrepreneurially” in the face of

changing market conditions (Bijman & Doorneweert 2008, Cook & Plunkett 2006, van Dijk

1999, Nilsson 1999). One interesting conceptual issue raised in these papers is whether

entrepreneurial activity (innovation, new products, new markets, etc.) occurs at the level of the

collective as an organizational strategy or at the level of the individual member-farmer.

Both the entrepreneurial team literature and the entrepreneurial cooperative literatures

require the establishment of a firm as the “envelope” around the collective action. The

entrepreneurial firm discussed by Ruef has a social identity, as well as legal status. The same

holds for the agricultural cooperative, which under various statutes in the United States, is

organized as a corporation. The “membrane” around the collective action is an organizational

form. The third stream of collective entrepreneurship literature considers collective action

without this membrane, and overlaps with Burress and Cook’s category of “economic growth

and development”. We might call this networked entrepreneurship. Networked

entrepreneurship, as we see it, follows closely the model proposed by Johannisson and

colleagues in describing a geographically delimited, networked community of entrepreneurs that

jointly enact their business environment in common (Johannisson & Dalhstrand 2008;

Johannisson, Ramirez-Pasillas & Karlsson 2002). These networks include research parks and

industrial clusters. The structure of the network is of lesser importance than its interface with the

physical and social environment (Steyaert & Katz 2004).

The literatures on collective entrepreneurship, to date, are based upon rational actor

theory. One joins the collective only in the expectation of payoffs superior to individual action.

This point is central to the foundational literature on collective action (Olson 1971, Ostrom,

1990). The rational actor will not engage in collective action without sufficient appropriable

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gains. Altruism is generally insufficient to maintain the collective; the members of the collective

will actively bargain over sharing of the costs and benefits of the incipient collective action.

Olson (1971) opens his treatise as follows.

The idea that groups tend to act in support of their group interests is supposed to follow logically from this widely accepted premise of rational, self-interested behavior. In other words, if the members of some group have a common interest or object, and if they would all be better off if that objective were achieved, it has been thought to follow logically that the individuals in that group would, if they were rational an self-interested, act to achieve that objective… [U]nless the number of individuals is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests. (pp. 5-6)

To what degree are the mechanisms proposed in Ruef’s (2010) relational demography –

homophily, identity, trust, and contracts -- the “special devices” that hold members in collective

entrepreneurial ventures?

We see the voluntary development of wine trails as a geographically delimited network

of firms that are seeking to enact a shared strategy for presenting themselves to latent and active

customers as individual wineries and as a collective. It is an empirical question how much

homophily (following Ruef) drives the collective action and how central to the success of the

collective are the physical characteristics of the bounded region: landscape, proximity, and

amenities.

The structure of the network (node connections between individual firms, centrality,

density) is less important than the motivations, or mechanisms, that hold members to the

collective. In this paper, we examine one “special device”: shared identity. To be sure, the

qualitative data that we present and analyze in this paper also allude to the other three elements

of Ruef’s relational demography, but we consider identity as the salient mechanism that governs

the collectives we study herein.

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ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY

Originating in Albert and Whetten’s (1985) essay, the concept of organizational identity

[OI] consists of members’ self-definitions of their organization—i.e., their consensual answers to

the question “Who are we?” (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Pratt & Foreman, 2000). Identity

constitutes of not only social claims about an organization, but to a certain degree also social

facts – i.e., generally recognized notions of what the organization is and is about (Gioia, Price,

Hamilton, & Thomas, 2010; Whetten, 2006). According to Albert and Whetten (1985), an

organization’s identity is that which is central, enduring, and distinctive—i.e. those self-defining

features and characteristics that are core rather than peripheral, relatively consistent rather than

ephemeral, and which serve to distinguish the organization from similar others.

Organizational identity has its roots in individual-level theories of identity, particularly

embodying elements of Social Identity Theory, which postulates that the self is defined in part by

the social groups that one affiliates with and the expectations accompanying those affiliations

(Tajfel, 1978; Turner, 1982). From a social identity theory perspective, an organization’s identity

is derived from the collectives or categories it is associated with. It is from a cultural-specific

menu of social categories that founders construct a fledgling organization’s shared identity (King

& Whetten, 2008; Whetten, 2006). This “social” identity follows from the organization’s

similarity with others in the same group/category and highlights distinctions between groups—

i.e. denoting “who” and “what” the organization is and is not.

The Basis for a Collective Identity

In recent years, scholars have paid increasing attention to the topic of organizational

identity construction [OIC], developing a body of work on how organizations and their leaders

create, change, or re-orient their identity (e.g., Clegg, Rhodes, & Kornberger, 2007; Corley &

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Gioia, 2004; Czarniawska & Wolff, 1998; Fiol, 2002; Foreman & Parent, 2008; Gioia et al,

2010; Ravasi & Schultz, 2006). Interestingly, the overall emphasis of the body of extant research

has been on issues of process rather than content. That is, while there has been progress in

explicating the dynamics of how organizational identities come into being or change, the related

questions of where these identities came from, what their key elements or components are, and

how these self-defining attributes were selected or determined, have been far less examined.

Some research has recognized that, when creating a new identity or attempting to reframe

an existing identity, organizations often look to others as targets to emulate or referents to guide

(Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Labianca et al, 2001). But what specific aspects or elements serve as

bases for a new identity is still an open question. Other papers have revealed the roles that certain

factors have played in creating or shaping new identities, such as organizational leaders (Corley,

2004), human resource practices (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006), or core operations (Kilduff et al,

1997). But overall, there is little conceptual foundation to draw on in terms of identifying

common, archetypal sources or bases of organizational identity.

In their essay on OIC in iterative major event organizations, such as the Olympics or the

World Cup, Foreman & Parent (2008) provide some insights into the OIC process and possible

bases of new organizational identities. More specifically, as these nascent organizations

construct and project ideal identities to external stakeholders and then manage the images

reflected back to them, the majority of the projected identities were grounded in three main types

of referents: (1) key aspects and/or history of the local context, (2) characteristics of the activities

associated with the event itself, and (3) highly-visible individuals involved with the event. When

applied to the issue of the identity construction of wine trails, the parallel referent categories

would be: (1) key characteristics of the region or surrounding community, (2) the common

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product (wine) being offered by wineries on the trail and/or events being hosted by the trail, and

(3) highly-visible "lead" wineries and/or their managers.

Belongingness and Individuation

Recent work in macro theories of identity has argued that the identity of an individual

organization is linked to the development and establishment of organizational forms and the

identity-related norms and expectations that follow from an organization’s association with such

a form or type (Foreman & Whetten, 2002; Glynn & Abzug, 2002; King & Whetten, 2008;

Whetten & Mackey, 2002). More specifically, as organizational forms or types become

institutionalized, they become increasingly defined by certain identity “codes” or norms or

characteristics (Hsu & Hannan, 2006; Ruef, 2000). Individual organizations derived from these

forms are themselves defined and constrained by these norms (Foreman & Whetten, 2002), such

that significant deviation from them is seen as a violation. Such violations result in loss of

credibility and legitimacy: as Glynn and Abzug (2002) showed, there is significant pressure to

ensure that the OI conforms to the institutional environment.

However, inherent in the construct of identity is also a pressure to create an identity

which distinguishes the organization from similar others—one that is unique or distinctive

(Navis & Glynn, 2010; Whetten, 2006). As Deephouse (1999) argues in his theory of strategic

balance, a firm must maintain enough similarity to its industry or competitive group to be seen as

a legitimate operation, but it must also seek to establish some separation from its rivals if it hopes

to gain a competitive advantage. Whether it is framed in terms of Navis and Glynn’s (2010)

principle of “legitimate distinctiveness” or Deephouse’s (1999) concept of “strategic balance”,

the organization seeks to simultaneously meet the dual (and often competing) pressures for

similarity and difference.

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When translated into our framework of collective identity construction, this tension

between similarity and difference becomes closely tied to the issue of individual versus joint

identity. The more established the identity of an individual member of the collective, the greater

the need to differentiate, to create an identity for that particular organization which distinguishes

it from its collective partners and/or similar other organizations; and the greater the freedom to

create some distance from the collective and make such distinctions. Conversely, when the

individual organization is relatively young, and as such does not have a well-established

reputation, there is pressure to reinforce a stable and legitimate identity, pushing that member

organization towards conformity and similarity with the collective.

METHODS AND CONTEXT

In describing the methodological approach to his research, Van Maanen (1979:540)

stated, “Analytically, the aim of these studies has been to uncover and explicate the ways in

which people in particular settings come to understand, account for, take action, and otherwise

manage their day-to-day situation.” Similarly, we have chosen to employ the ethnographic

method in this study as a means of explicating how managers perceive and cope with multiple

identities. We chose as our context a particularly unique and illustrative setting: the rapidly

growing wine industry within the state of Missouri. As will be explained below, the wine

industry in Missouri has experienced rapid growth in the past decade, with dramatic increases in

the overall volume and variety of wine produced matched by rising consumer interest. As part of

the growth of this industry, wineries have sought to increase their exposure, attract more visitors,

and raise the status of their brand by establishing wine trails. The relatively nascent state of these

wine trails offers an advantageous opportunity to examine the focal topic of collective identity

formation. Furthermore, the inherent importance of distinctiveness in the wine industry—i.e. that

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winery X offers a product that is qualitatively different from winery Y—accentuates the tension

between similarity and difference in establishing a collective identity. As such, this context

constitutes an “extreme case”—a  situation wherein the phenomena of interest is particularly

evident (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994).

To understand how these Missouri wine trails establish a collective identity, a

comparative case study research design was chosen (Eisenhardt, 1989; Miles & Huberman,

1994; Stake, 1995). That is, we examined the process within three very different wine trails, with

the intention of identifying key commonalities as well as differences. The choice of wine trails,

as well as the individual wineries within each, was guided by the principles of theoretical or

purposeful sampling (Eisenhardt, 1989; Maxwell, 1996; Stake, 1995; Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

That is, the selection of cases was made primarily on the basis of each one’s potential for

exploring relevant theoretical concepts and categories. Furthermore, the case selection decisions

were guided by Miles and Huberman (1994) notion of maximum variation sampling, ensuring

that the data capture the relevant heterogeneity of the phenomenon. Finally, this study used both

multiple-case sampling (by selecting three different wine trails) and within-case sampling (Miles

& Huberman, 1994) (by interviewing multiple wineries within each wine trail). We made these

decisions with the aid of information supplied by a key industry insider.

Context of the Study: The Missouri Wine Industry

The wine industry in the State of Missouri has a long and turbulent history (Dufurr 2009;

Kliman, 2010). The industry was founded in the late 1830s by German immigrants who followed

the Ohio River system west and settled the new State of Missouri along the Missouri River

between St Louis and Boonville, a distance of around 150 km. The area was known as

Deutschheim and by 1860, more than 50% of immigrants in the state were Germans. The center

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of Deutschheim, the village of Hermann, was also the center of wine production with more than

200 ha in production by 1860. By the 1880s, wine production from the state was in excess of 2

million gallons per year, making it the leading wine production state in the US by a wide margin.

Stone Hill Winery, in Hermann, was the 3rd largest winery in the world by 1895. By this time,

wines from Missouri were exported to Europe, and when the epidemic of phylloxera threatened

the industry in Bordeaux, millions of cuttings from disease-resistant rootstock from Missouri

were exported to France—essentially saving the venerated French wine industry.

The 70-year success of the Missouri wine industry was undone completely by the passage

of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution – Prohibition – in 1920. Within 5 years, all but

one winery and vineyard – a Jesuit novitiate -- were abandoned or destroyed. Tax laws and

bonding regulations beyond the repeal of Prohibition constrained the industry for three more

decades, when Stone Hill was re-opened in 1965. The scope of the industry remained small until

the 1990s; fewer than 25 commercial wineries were in place in 1992. Since that time, the

industry has grown through he addition of a large number of small vineyards and wineries. As of

2009, there were 97 wineries in place and 393 vineyards, comprising 1600 acres (Stonebridge

Research, 2010). By volume of production (950,000 gallons), Missouri was ranked 8th among US

states in wine production and 12th in grape production. The structure of the industry in 2009 is as

expected for an emerging industry. Six wineries produce more than 50,000 gallons each and 79

wineries produce less than 5,000 gallons. The six industry leaders produce 81% of the state total

of wine. (Stonebridge Research 2010)

In this (re-)emerging market, there is a relatively recent development of localized

promotion and marketing: wine trails. These are self-organized, voluntary groups with explicit

goals of collective action in strictly delimited areas. They represent small-group collective action

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to target marketing expenditures for higher impact than is afforded by statewide marketing

programs. To do this, the wine trails are organized around some common themes and activities

within sufficiently close proximity to afford customers the chance to experience most or all of

the members’ wines and wineries on a single outing. The development of wine trails at the

juncture of agri-food and tourism is seen as a global phenomenon (Marsden 1999; Mason &

O’Mahony, 2007)

There are eight wine trails operating in Missouri in 2013. For this study, we purposefully

sampled (Maxwell, 1996; Stake, 1995) three different trails, capturing a representative range of

maturity and development as a collective entity. The Hermann Wine Trail [HWT] runs for 20

miles along the Missouri River between Hermann and New Haven, with six participating

wineries. It is the oldest established wine trail in Missouri and consequently has the strongest

reputation. Hermann exploits its long heritage as a German site; it links to tourist sites in

Deutschheim and organizes popular festivals for Octoberfest and Maifest. This carries over into

the wine trail—the HWT hosts five events per year that average over 1000 in attendance. The

Route du Vin [RDV] is established in the old French region around Ste. Genevieve (south of St.

Louis), with six participating wineries. Route du Vin seeks to exploit its location among the

French-named towns that were founded in the 17th century and has a commitment to unique food

and wine experiences, as opposed to large events. The Northwest Missouri Wine Trail [NMWT]

is in the three counties north and east of Kansas City. It is the newest wine trail and has seven

members, and all but two of the member wineries are themselves relatively young (less than 10

years old). It is characterized by having the widest geographic scope of any Missouri wine trail.

None of these wine trails has developed a specific wine profile or style that is an element of their

collective identity, in large part because these young wineries do not have sufficient experience

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to exploit variety trials and other viticultural strategies related to grape and wine blending that

one might see in older regions, such as Napa Valley in California.

 Data and Analysis

This study involved the collection of several different types of qualitative data. The most

critical source of information came in the form of semi-structured interviews with 14 key

informants. Twelve of these were winery owners or managers within the three wine trails—four

in each one; the other two were a senior staff member in a wine industry association and a key

consultant to the regional wine industry. The interviews were conducted on site and lasted

between 60 and 90 minutes. All interviews were taped and transcribed, with the resulting texts

being analyzed with the aid of NVivo—a popular qualitative data analysis software package. To

supplement the data in the interviews, non-participant observations, casual conversations, and

organizational documents (marketing brochures, website content, trade association bulletins,

etc.) provided additional information (Maxwell, 1996; Yin, 1994).

The collective data were analyzed via a systematic process of thematic coding and

pattern-matching, whereby the raw data were coded according to emerging themes in the text

(Eisenhardt, 1989; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Lofland & Lofland, 1995; Yin, 1994). We then

searched these themes for patterns and trends across coding categories and cases, leading to the

identification of key commonalities and differences between the three wine trails. The stark

contrasts that emerged—both in terms of the content of the collective identity and the process of

forming it—were so prominent that it serves to frame the reporting of our results that follow.

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RESULTS

The three main issues of interest for this study are the content of the wine trail identity,

the key factors affecting the development of a collective identity, and the rationale for engaging

in collective action—including the inherent tension between the individual and group identity.

For each of these three main topics, there were clear commonalities as well as distinct

differences across the wine trails. Although the three wine trails had been purposefully selected

with the expressed intention of capturing variation in the process of collective identity

construction, we were not prepared for the degree of dissimilarity that we found. As a result, we

organize our findings in a serial commonalities/distinctions form: i.e. for each of the three topics,

we first identify the common themes across all three wine trails and then discuss important

differences between them.

Elements of a Wine Trail Identity

Commonalities

In all three of the wine trails, winery owners cited four major elements or characteristics

that were central to the collective identity: local wine production, tasting room facilities,

geographical boundaries, and mutual trust and commitment. By far the most cited identity

attribute was that members of the wine trail had to produce Missouri wine. Virtually every one of

the respondents mentioned this, and many added the stipulation that all or most of the wine

produced be from Missouri grapes. As one owner put it

We are fiercely proud of the wine we make. And we’ll defend it against any European wine. I think there have been a few people that wanted to maybe join the Route de Vin that didn’t have that passion. And that’s why they aren’t here, they aren’t with us and I’ll defend that, if you don’t have a passion for it and you are not there, for I guess the art of the craft, I don’t consider you part of it.

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This attribute of local wine production—ideally from estate-grown grapes—served as an identity

requirement (King & Whetten, 2008), reinforcing the legitimacy of the wine trail (Foreman,

Whetten & Mackey, 2012; Ruef, 2000). Allowing a winery that only made wines from California

grapes, or a retail outlet that did not produce any of their own wine, to be a member of the wine

trail was considered to be an act that compromised the very integrity of the entity: “It would be

like a baker buying all their pies and selling them. You’re not a bakery.” Almost all of the winery

owners also cited, typically immediately along with local wine production, the presence of a

tasting room. Having tasting room facilities, and the requisite staffing for those facilities, was

essentially a corollary of the production requirement.

Yes. I think you need to make wine and have a tasting room. ‘Cause we’re kind of cooperatively marketing our tasting rooms. Our wineries and tasting rooms. All eight currently have tasting rooms and make wine on the premises.

In part, this reflects the fact that grape varieties that are optimized for Missouri growing

conditions may be unfamiliar to consumers “trained” by California, Australian, and European

wineries. Because this results in a different taste profile, informed staff pouring wine for

customers on site creates the “teachable moment” about taste and quality. These elements of

local wine production and tasting rooms may seem obvious as identifying attributes common to

all members of a wine trail, but several winery owners recounted instances where an entity

wanted to join the trail, and yet they did not make any of their own wine, or they only made wine

from non-Missouri grapes, and/or they did not have an even rudimentary facility for visitors to

taste their wine.

Geographic proximity also played a critical role in all three wine trail identities, although

there were some nuances in how this was interpreted, as is discussed below. This is not entirely

unexpected, since the essence of a wine trail is to have a collection of wineries that can be linked

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together in a logical fashion, encouraging travel along such a “trail”. Like Missouri wine

production and tasting room facilities, geography—typically expressed in terms of geographic

proximity—acted as an identity requirement or obligation. On several occasions, when posed

with the question, “what would keep a winery from joining the trail?”, member wineries

responded by saying “being outside the geographical boundaries.”

We had one guy who wanted to join, and he was heck, 40 miles away. You can’t do a trail and have one of them that people have to drive 40 miles to get there.

The final common identity element cited by winery owners and managers was the

presence of trust and commitment, often labeled as “buy-in” to the group concept, or “being a

team player.” As one very prominent member of a wine trail stated:

You need buy-in from everybody. They got to buy into the trail. They gotta buy into the fact that you’re going to spend money to eventually hopefully make money. And you have to get past notions that, if I’m spending $1000 on this trail, I may only make $500 back. And some people think, if they spend five hundred or a thousand or, you know, then they need to make that back. And if they don’t see the benefits immediately, then the trail’s not successful. You have to give these things time.

These statements of commitment to the group often went beyond recognition of the economic

issues involved. Some respondents were quite adamant that there needed to be an almost moral

commitment—a sense of altruism or others-centeredness, otherwise the membership relationship

between that winery and the collective would not be viable.

The person would need to at least express a desire and possess an understanding that promoting other wineries benefits your own. If you’re simply focused on, I’m going to be the only winery, the best winery in the world, and I want them to come to my winery and go nowhere else? Then it won’t work. And I think if you have that mentality, it will be obvious over time, you know, if we spend any time together. And it won’t work. You have to possess an understanding that I benefit when I speak highly of my fellow wineries.

Distinctions:

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In spite of the references to the four common elements noted above as critical identifying

features or characteristics of each wine trail, there were key differences in the collective

identities of the wine trails. Without question the wine trail with the most distinctive identity, and

prominent reputation, was the Hermann Wine Trail. All four of the winery owners, as well as the

two industry experts, referred to the history, culture, and tradition of the Hermann region as a

definitive characteristic of the HWT’s identity. Most of the wineries in HWT had roots back to

the late 1800s or early 1900s. This heritage undoubtedly contributed to the strong recognition

and status of the wine trail.

We're recognized as the oldest wine region in the state. I think people, if you surveyed them, I think if you said, you know, "What's the number one wine region in Missouri?" I'm guessing that most of them would say Hermann.

In stark contrast to this history of Hermann, the newest wine trail—the NMWT—was noticeably

defined by their complete lack of history or tradition. With the exception of a few wineries near

Kansas City, wine production was a very new industry in this region. This “newness” was

reflected in the identity of the collective.

We don’t have a good identity as a group other than it’s a group o’ wineries located north o’ the river. In northwest Missouri. We’re just got the basics started. And so with that, I don’t think we have an identity quite yet. Other than geographic. And that’s what’s defined us so far. The identities of the wine trails also differed with respect to the role or interpretation of

events. As has been mentioned, the hosting of events plays a key role in the rationale for

engaging in collective action as a wine trail. This was in fact a universal assumption of the

members of HWT and RDV, in contrast to the lack of events in the NMWT.

I think the structure of all the wine trails are pretty much the same. It is trying to get people to buy tickets to come and try you all, I think that’s absolutely the same. [RDV]

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The commonality is the theme [of the event], not the members. Now for our own individual benefits, each winery is totally different. [HWT] We’re still so new in terms of we haven’t yet worked together very much on, you know, extended activities, additional promotions and events. [NMWT]

However, what those events mean to the identity of HWT and RDV—how the role of events in

defining the wine trail was interpreted by members of each—differed significantly. For the

wineries in Hermann Wine Trail, the events took on a disproportionate effect in defining “who

we are” as HWT. In fact, all four respondents indicated that having the capacity to host an event

with over 1000 attendees, along with the requisite staffing and customer service capabilities to

ensure a good experience for each visitor, was paramount.

So I think the one thing you have to do to start with is to prove yourself that you are capable of producing wine, having a location that is within our jurisdiction, and then having a facility probably large enough to handle 1,000 people on a weekend and keep them happy. [italics ours]

On the other hand, members of the RDV de-emphasized capacity and staffing

capabilities, since the wine trail’s events typically only attracted 150-200 people. Instead, they

took pains to note how they hosted very unique, “non-traditional” wine events. For example,

they have an event titled “Tour de Terre” (exploiting their French heritage), where each winery

chooses a particular herb, creates a characteristic dish made with that herb, and then pairs that

with one of their signature wines. The RDV also hosts a “Wine Diva” event, geared largely

toward women, where participants are given boas and hats as elegant music is played in the

background. One winery owner summed up the issue by saying:

I think that we aren’t as sort of set in our ways [as Hermann]. I think we’re ready to provide and offer people some really different experiences.

The wine trails also differed with respect to the common element of geography in their

collective identity. Although geographical boundaries and proximity were discussed earlier as a

20    

common identity theme, there were however key differences in how this was interpreted. For

HWT, geographic proximity was defined in extremely narrow and uncompromising terms.

We just had one [applicant] that wants in. Fairly new winery. It’s within a 15-mile. Just at the border. But it’s in the wrong direction. Okay? It goes against the logistical flow. There’s no way that we can add an eighth winery that will allow people to be able to get there in a proper timeframe. It won’t happen, so logistically, if one of ‘em starts to…, it’s not gonna happen. Yes, and I am thinking there are places, there are wine trails where they are further apart, but that is the characteristic of that wine trail. What we have is within I would say a 20 mile geographic distance. That is what makes us unique. We are fairly close together. Some of the others are more spread out

By way of contrast, the role of geography was interpreted very differently in the NMWT. The

winery owners took pride in the open, expansive, “prairie-like” terrain and the uniqueness of the

soil and climate relative to the southern and eastern parts of the state.

We’re in the northwest of the state so we have a different climate than the southern state. We have different produce and our grapes do different things. This year I think in the Missouri wine competition, our area did very well in terms of medals and best of classes, so that’s a good thing.

Finally, one particular element was unique to NMWT—an aspect not mentioned by any

of the members of the other two wine trails. For those newly-founded wineries in the far corner

of the state, personal relationships and the need to “be neighborly” played a prominent role as a

defining characteristic of the wine trail. Winery owners made multiple references to frequent

personal interactions and referenced a unique sense of connectedness not evidenced in the other

wine trails, as illustrated in the two quotes below.

I don’t know if it would work just having a piece of paper and a map and saying, “Yeah, there’s a winery there,” if we didn’t know the people, like, and feel like, yes, I want to help my neighbor. I think that’s important.

‘Cause if you don’t have this neighbor relationship, then why would you tell anybody to go there? You know, for example, one of our wine trail members personally has been struggling with a health condition. And, boy, the day, the weekend that they’re closed due to a family issue, and word gets back to the other

21    

winery, he’s on the phone, “Have you heard from ____?” Or, ya know, “Is everything okay?” Because the first thought is, “Oh, no, something bad’s happening.” So it becomes a much more personal and kind of that neighbor…, there’s gotta be a neighborly relationship for it to work, I think.

The Process of Forming a Collective Identity

Commonalities

The wine trails also displayed a degree of commonality in the process of forming a

collective identity. In particular, respondents noted the pivotal role of a key individual in

initiating the process, and then in each case there were other individuals mentioned as being vital

to the ongoing health and maintenance of the entity. Because of the desire to protect the

anonymity of all parties involved, we do not display quotes related to these key individuals. It is

sufficient to recognize that every single respondent in every single wine trail, when asked “how

did this trail get started”, shared a story about the role of certain individuals. The fact that these

stories were nearly identical within each wine trail—i.e. all members of a given wine trail would

share the same details, indicated just how significant and prominent the role of key individuals

was (and still is).

 Distinctions:

Apart from the common role of key individuals, the majority of the remaining

information conveyed about the process of establishing the collective and forming an identity

was very idiosyncratic. For example, when asked about how the Route de Vin came about and

the development of the wine trail as a vehicle for collective action, one winery owner said:

Well, I guess we feel like a lot of people come to our tasting rooms and are going to go to another winery’s tasting room on that same day, so we thought we would put together a few events where if they went to all the wineries that they could buy a ticket and get food and wine and get a better experience. And they were going to go to the other wineries, anyway, so it behooves them to buy this ticket and have some wine and food.

22    

In essence, the message is that the RDV’s sponsorship of events came about in a somewhat

nonchalant manner, as a natural consequence of being associated with one another in the form of

a wine trail, with little foresight, vision, goals, or planning. This of course stands in stark contrast

to the “event-oriented” identity of HWT, where hosting events takes center stage in the outward

image and branding of the wine trail, with associated identity-related expectations shared by the

members themselves. Somewhat similar to the sentiments expressed in the RDV winery quote

above, member wineries in the NMWT offered a rather matter-of-fact explanation for how and

why their wine trail came into being. With the exception of the impetus provided by one

particularly fervent winery owner, the process of forming a collective identity was characterized

as a response to a very simple and straightforward problem.

I think the reason this wine trail came about in all honesty is because everybody on it got tired of having to give directions and draw maps to the other wineries in this part of the state. And so the thought was that if we formed a wine trail we can publish a brochure, get a map out there, and we could hand the map to other people and they able to find the other wineries, which is going to save a lot of time for all of us. It wasn’t an effort made to say, okay, here’s our identity, this is what’s unique about this particular area, a lot like an appellation would be or something like “this is what we focus on.” That wasn’t done. It wasn’t really an effort to decide on how to market this outside of the wineries.

  The Rationale for Collective Action

Commonalities

With respect to the third and final major issue of concern, the rationale or motivation for

engaging in collective action, there were again common themes and trends, as well as clear

differences. When posed with the question of “why be part of a wine trail… what’s in it for

you?”, there was a common narrative of establishing a critical mass—what one winery owner

called “flying a bigger flag”—so as to attract more visitors. It was commonly believed that all

23    

wineries would share in the benefits of these increased visits—“a rising tide raises all ships”,

even if those benefits could not be immediately monetized and measured.

You have to count to matter. So if there was just one winery out here, what is the frequency of somebody going, picking up driving to go to one winery? There’s synergy in having a cluster. Because they’ll just stay home, if we were the only one out here in the middle of nowhere, they wouldn’t make the drive. But when there’s multiple of us, then they will make the effort to come up. So you know, the concept of pooling together to make a bigger image. I mean, sure, there's competition amongst you, you know, for people's time and we want people to come to Hermann [and visit our own winery]. But if you have a bigger flag, so to speak, than just your own little flag, it's like there's a reason to come to Hermann. There's six and now seven wineries; that’s better than just “come to Hermann, there's one of us.” So by getting everybody together-, I mean, like I said, you get to wave a bigger flag. You make a stronger destination for people in their mind and then they want to come to the destination.

Interestingly, the largest, most well-established wineries in each trail had the greatest

understanding of this collective action narrative, even while recognizing that they were lending

value to their smaller partners via their larger and stronger reputation.

This leads to the related issue of the tension between commonality or sharedness and

individuality or distinctiveness. Somewhat unexpectedly, none of the wineries expressed any

concerns over this issue. Instead, every respondent, when posed either the question “how would

you characterize the tension between needing to be part of the group versus wanting to be

unique?”, or the question “what did you have to give up in your identity to be part of the wine

trail?”, replied that there was no issue or tension or conflict involved. Instead, in all three wine

trails, the general sentiment of winery owners was that wine trail members were very different

from one another. That is, although there were a few comments about other wineries adopting

24    

similar practices or activities, they felt that they were able to maintain a very unique individual

identity. And that these differences mitigated any serious competition.

Variety is what makes the trail interesting. I’m telling you that there’s a lot of variety, here. We’re not the same.

 There’s enough for everyone to go around. I don’t feel like we’re in direct competition with anyone on the trail.

 This sentiment was widely shared. In fact, two wineries in different wine trails used a strikingly

similar analogy, that of a fruit bowl or basket, to illustrate the shared but distinct nature of their

collectives.

I think they’re all different pieces of fruit in the fruit bowl,

Well the thing is that the wine trail is kind of a fruit basket. So everybody is a little bit different. Hey, this guy is the banana, that’s the orange, every time you look in the basket you see something a little different and each of the wineries are different that way. So together they kind of all come together with a very kind of nicely presented compliment of each other.

Distinctions There was however a few key distinctions in how the rationale for collective action was

interpreted in different wine trails. Particularly in the case of NMWT, the issue of geography and

distance was unique in the meaning it had for collective action. In a prior quote, a winery owner

state the importance of having a “cluster” of wineries, so as to motivate people from Kansas City

to drive out into the country to visit a winery. Yet this “cluster” may consist of wineries that are

30-45 minutes apart. This interesting way of interpreting (or re-interpreting) distance and

proximity was also reflected in the following quote:

I felt like when people come out for a day, an afternoon to go to a winery, they don't just want to go to one winery, I mean they come out, what if they don't like the place that they're at? They drove 20, 30 miles, 40 miles, 50, 60 miles, and they get up there and maybe they don't like the wine, maybe they don't like the

25    

atmosphere, maybe somebody was rude to them, and they had a bad experience. What are they gonna do, they turn around and drive all that way back home and they go, God, I'm not gonna do this again. So when you can pull a person 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 miles away from their house, you better have something good in store, you also need to have more than just one winery. So it's logical, that's the reason wine trails are even in existence is because you offer more variety, it's being diversified for selling the same product that we are.

Other winery owners in the NMWT expressed a similar perspective, somewhat counter-

intuitively stating that the geographical distance from Kansas City (and from one another)

made it even more important to have multiple destinations. This sentiment carried over

into a unique element of cooperative action among members of the NMWT. That is,

unlike the other two wine trails, the wineries of this area engaged in frequent cooperative

and supportive ventures, sharing resources such as wine tanks and equipment, engaging

in joint purchasing, exchanging ideas and techniques, and so forth

Offering to, you know, if I needed…right now I could call him up and say hey I’m short 200 bottles, do you have any. If he had them he’d say come get them, or I’ll bring them up to you. And I’m the same way with him or her. Piece of equipment breaks down or something, you kind of sort forming that coop, so it helps us too in the industry because it just helps our business run smoother

And we've done it with filters, some of the wineries have gotten together and now we're talking too, where none of us were talking before, we're all talking, and we all get together and who needs, you puttin' in an order? Yeah. Well how much you getting that much for? Okay, let's do this see if we can't get a little better pricing,

 

DISCUSSION

In this study we examined the issue of collective entrepreneurship and the role that

collective identity plays in that process. Individual orgs have the challenge of “giving up” or

sacrificing individual identity, and its associated competitive distinctiveness, to be part of a

collective with a clear identity. There is the inherent tension between an identity common to

others and one that is truly unique and distinctive and which differentiates the organization. One

26    

way to resolve this is to create a collective identity [CI] that is relatively vague, ambiguous, or

multi-faceted, such that different member organizations can find common ground between the

identity of the collective and their organization’s unique identity. To a certain degree, this seems

to be the approach that Route de Vin took, where the wine trail’s identity was relatively general,

based on the common elements noted above, but having virtually none of the historical, cultural,

demographic, or other types of distinctive characteristics found in the Herman Wine Trail.

Another way to address the challenge is to create a CI based on elements that are not

“organizational”, i.e. not directly organization-related or organization-specific. Hermann Wine

Trail has built a CI around its unique history and culture, largely a product of the surrounding

community’s Germanic heritage. But in addition, they have purposefully accentuated the role of

events. The core identity elements, of having a large facility capable of hosting an event with

hundreds of visitors, having the ability to serve food to pair with wines, having good customer

service capabilities, being geographically located along Route 100, etc. – all are related to the

primacy of events as the core of the HWT identity. And as a result, the CI does not necessarily

impose constraints on the OI of each member winery. This is particularly crucial for this wine

trail, because most of the member organizations have a long and rich history, many going back

multiple generations, and thus there is a strong sense of particular identity. The aspects of the

Herman Wine Trail identity which draw on the history and heritage of the community, and the

legacy and leadership of the wine trail itself, provide a shared identity that all members can

adopt. And yet, the emphasis on events—almost to the point of being more central to the wine

trail identity than historical or cultural elements, allows each winery the freedom to adopt the

collective identity without compromising their distinctiveness.

27    

Another approach is to have a collective with an identity that emerges over time from

working relationships between members. Here there is less of a clear compelling identity story of

“who we are” and “what we are about as a group or collective”. Rather, the “who we are” is a

function of a series of collaborative efforts and working relationships among the wineries and

their founders. The Northwest MO Wine Trail seems to have an evolving sense of “group

identity” as individual wineries interact, form collegial relationships, begin asking and giving

advice, sharing resources, engaging in joint purchasing of key inputs, etc. In this case, the shared

identity is less of a calculated product of negotiation among members with strong distinctive

identities, and more of an emergent property of relationships and interactions.

The results of this study also indicate that time and history play a particularly significant

role in the forming of a collective identity, in that an emerging collective seems to take on some

of the identity of the surrounding place and its history, as well as the history of relationships and

personal interactions among winery founders and their successive generations. In the case of the

Hermann Wine Trail, the CI is clearly influenced by the German history of the Hermann area,

the long tradition of festivals (events) hosted by the town and surrounding area, and the several

generations of relationships among some of the wineries.

On the other extreme, there is an almost total lack of history in the Northwest MO Wine

Trail—all but a couple of the wineries are less than 4 or 5 years old. It’s as if they are creating or

writing their own history as they go along. The comments from winery owners point to this lack

of history, along with the huge geographical distance, as creating a felt need for belongingness,

connectedness, and a group identity. Interestingly, perhaps even ironically, these folks frequently

used the terms “neighbors” and “neighborly”, along with “colleagues”, to describe their partners

in the wine trail. Meanwhile, in Route de Vin, history may be playing a negative role, in that

28    

several folks made reference to certain wineries or individuals whose past actions had impeded

the development of a CI or who were still constraining the CI in some way.

One salient conclusion that we draw from the within- and between-collective design that

we followed is that the creation of a shared or collective identity is an evolutionary process. It is

profoundly obvious that the well-established Hermann Wine Trail has the most coherent CI and

that the nascent NW Missouri Wine Trail has an underdeveloped CI. And several informants

mentioned, with some degree of envy, the well-established and well-understood identity of the

wine trails of the Finger Lakes (NY) region, which have more than 30 years of collective history.

It behooves us to investigate further how the strong cultural heritage in Hermann affected the

speed of formation, as well as the content, of the trail’s identity. Did it quash incipient

organizational conflict among members? Does the heritage provide an immediate and vivid

“strategic balance” (Deephouse 1999) for individual firm strategies to coexist within the

collective (culturally-dominant) identity?

If one compares the nature of the strategic balance in the Hermann Wine Trail with what

might arise in the NW Missouri Wine trail in the coming years, there could be an interesting

insight into the CI process/content system. If The NWMO members begin with a basis of affinity

and sharing because they do not have an obvious heritage or other cultural element that

dominates the CI, the process of negotiating the CI while individual members seek a strategic

balance will likely lead to a completely different outcome from that of Hermann.

29    

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