Abstract
" Here, wine growers hide themselves to die... " said the president of the Agricultural Chamber of Languedoc-Roussillon. This research work focuses on the strategic choices and competitive behaviors of (very) small firms investigated in the crisis situation of Languedoc-Roussillon wine industry in France. First we should state that very few existing research attempt to identify the strategies applied by small firms in a crisis context characterized as times of resources scarcity and a major downward shift in performance trends. Therefore, our theoretical background focuses on identifying related works concerning strategies used in declining and deregulated sectors, in hypercompetition or during difficult economic times. Our study will try to answer some of the following questions, all related to a specific crisis context: What are the strategic behaviors of small firms and how to explain different levels of performance? What significant links exist between small firms' strategic choices and global performance? What are the determinants - and especially managerial determinants - of strategic success and failure? To conduct this research, we first applied an exploratory qualitative approach in order to refine our research proposals that emerged from the theoretical background. Then we formulated our research hypotheses in order to test them with SPSS software using a quantitative approach. We used primary data collected through a questionnaire survey about the strategic behaviors adopted by 160 small wine producers in the region. Our descriptive results indicate that rather than using cost leadership strategies, small firms attempt to grow through niche and differentiation strategies. Moreover our results show that information search and market prospection are good practices to perform better in a crisis context. Those practices are reinforced by the managing director through both its reactivity and search for independence. Therefore, these results underline the impact of the managing director on the small firm's performance, particularly through his/her capacity to understand new forms of competitive pressure and his/her will to search for independence, especially financial independence, in a crisis context.