The impact of firmographics on philanthropic engagement in the global wine industry

The pursuit of community engagement and support is commonly considered to be essential to the achievement of corporate social responsibility goals, irrespective of a firm's age, size, legal formation, or industry sector. Less well understood are the firmographic characteristics that may influence these philanthropic pursuits, namely, firm formation, firm closure, firm growth or decline, and firm relocation. This investigation into philanthropic engagement seeks to understand the impact of firmographics across the global wine industry. Data were collected via survey from 302 firms in the Old and New World wine sectors: Spain, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States. Ordinal logistic and multiple linear regressions were applied. Findings reveal that the cultural heritage of a wine business, and, to a lesser extent, its form of ownership, appear to be the two major determinants of philanthropic engagement.