ABSTRACT
Amarone della Valpolicella wine is a doubtlessly quality-oriented, sustainable agri-food product. The section makes the use of the theoretical background provided in previous chapters to show (1) why the production is managed and organized in a consortium, seen as an efficient transaction costs (TC) minimizing governance structure and (2) how economic efficiency of the organization, food quality, and environmental sustainability can self-enforce and cause no trade-off in the case of the Amarone della Valpolicella wine. These questions are addressed with the theoretical framework of TCE.
The main findings show that the degree of complexity/frequency, brand name, and site asset specificity that affects the level of TC is mostly linked to the “unicity” of the product and the requirement to keep the quality standards. Moreover, the regulation on quality standards increases TC, through a complexity increase, for the sake of defining the unicity and idiosyncrasy of the product. This affects the TC and the related organization of the transactions. The Consortium represents the most efficient, hybrid structure for coordinating and regulating transaction costs (in the case at issue mostly generated by complexity). By regulating the quality, the Consortium also preserves sustainability with an emphasis of environmental sustainability that is pursued even at the cost to increase production risks.
