Title: Strategic groups in the fashion industry

Authors: Enrico Bonetti

Addresses: Department of Economics, Second University of Naples, Corso Gran Priorato di Malta, 81043 – Capua, CE, Italy

Abstract: Over the last two decades, scholars of management have paid increasing attention to various managerial aspects of fashion companies. Theory has mainly focused on marketing and consumption dynamics of these markets, management of supply chains and organisational forms, while very few works attempted to map and to analyse in detail strategic groups that fashion companies may constitute within their industry. This article contributes to this body of literature by applying the standard method of 'critical success factors' in order to shed light on the differences in the strategies among companies in the fashion industry. Therefore, the research question of this article is: how do critical success factors identify strategic groups in the fashion industry? The article reports a case study in which emerges a taxonomy of the main strategic groups of the fashion industry in Campania, a region of Italy. The study provides relevant insights for scholars, managers and policy-makers.

Keywords: fashion industry; strategic groups; critical success factors; CSFs; value chain; Italy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2014.064132

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2014 Vol.13 No.2, pp.153 - 172

Published online: 28 Aug 2014 *

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