Paola Cillo, Joseph C. Nunes, Emanuela Prandelli, I. Scopelliti
{"title":"Changing Style in Style-changing Industries: The Role of Critics as Gatekeepers in High-end Fashion","authors":"Paola Cillo, Joseph C. Nunes, Emanuela Prandelli, I. Scopelliti","doi":"10.1108/s0742-332220200000042007","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Mastering aesthetics is a precious source of competitive advantage in creative industries. In fashion, innovation is reflected by how and how much styles change. Elite designers claim to be the only endogenous force shaping fashion innovation season by season. Yet, each season, fashion critics vet the new collections these designers introduce, assessing what is original as opposed to reworked and uninspired, in this way playing a fundamental role as gatekeepers in setting taste within the industry. In this research, we document how stylistic innovation, vis-a-vis the styles premier design houses introduced each season, is impacted, among the others, by the specific exogenous force of critics' assessments of designers' past work. Our data, which include 61 measures detailing the styles introduced by 38 prestigious Italian and French design houses over a nine-year period, suggest designers move further away from styles reviewed less favourably while adhering more closely to styles reviewed more positively. Additionally, the styles a designer introduces are shown to depend on critical assessments of competing designers' styles, revealing how design houses attend to each other's work. This work documents the strong correlation between style dynamics and critics' feedback. It also has important implications for any company trying to find a balance between independence and conformity in setting its own unique positioning into the market.","PeriodicalId":46550,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Strategic Management-A Research Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1108/s0742-332220200000042007","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Advances in Strategic Management-A Research Annual","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/s0742-332220200000042007","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Economics, Econometrics and Finance","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Mastering aesthetics is a precious source of competitive advantage in creative industries. In fashion, innovation is reflected by how and how much styles change. Elite designers claim to be the only endogenous force shaping fashion innovation season by season. Yet, each season, fashion critics vet the new collections these designers introduce, assessing what is original as opposed to reworked and uninspired, in this way playing a fundamental role as gatekeepers in setting taste within the industry. In this research, we document how stylistic innovation, vis-a-vis the styles premier design houses introduced each season, is impacted, among the others, by the specific exogenous force of critics' assessments of designers' past work. Our data, which include 61 measures detailing the styles introduced by 38 prestigious Italian and French design houses over a nine-year period, suggest designers move further away from styles reviewed less favourably while adhering more closely to styles reviewed more positively. Additionally, the styles a designer introduces are shown to depend on critical assessments of competing designers' styles, revealing how design houses attend to each other's work. This work documents the strong correlation between style dynamics and critics' feedback. It also has important implications for any company trying to find a balance between independence and conformity in setting its own unique positioning into the market.
期刊介绍:
Advances in Strategic Management is dedicated to communicating innovative, new research that advances theory and practice in Strategic Management. The domain of the series encompasses, but is not limited to, corporate and business unit strategy, strategic organization and process, alliances and networks, and competitive dynamics. The series is committed to expanding the scope of Strategic Management theory and analysis and enriching practice by: -Encouraging multitheoretical approaches that span multiple social science disciplines -Welcoming papers using a diversity of innovative research methods -Creating focused volumes that explore in depth promising new research directions, consolidate research streams, and address significant current theoretical and practical problems.