The development of Indonesian textile design is mostly based on culture and tradition. The Indonesian government has cultural preservation program (Indonesian constitution, no 5, 1992), to promote Indonesian local culture in sustaining tradition by exploring the possibility of shifting the function of traditional textiles from ceremonial purposes to becoming commodity products. The shifted function into product commodity creates new market and situation among Indonesian craft-makers. This situation also happened for stitch resist dyeing technique, which is an Indonesian traditional textile technique used to manufacture traditional fabrics in three regions, namely tritik cloth in Yogyakarta, pelangi cloth in Palembang, and sasirangan cloth in Banjarmasin. Stitch resist dyeing, as a particular form of resist dyeing technique, is a textile technique that creates patterns in various shapes with small holes along the line of stitching, as a mark of any stitched resist pattern. Most of this technique are done manually, which are generally recognized as being time-consuming. This study will focus on preserving the stitch resist dyeing technique by producing elaborate description about the technique, focusing on the organisational structure and supply chain. The study will use a combination of ethnographic and soft system methodology. The methods use in this study are questionnaires, interviews, and observation. By producing rich pictures from each survey area, describing the character of the organisational workflow of stitch resist dyeing enterprises in Indonesia. Finally, this study discusses the critical points of the supply chain in the stitch resist dyeing enterprises that are related to the production capacity and quality. The unprecedented long chain of the process and the sense of ownership from the craft makers consider the main aspects in supporting the practices.

The paper proposes an analytical approach that explores brands in virtual environments by combining indicators of consumer brand alignment with measurements of social engagement. The results illustrated can be useful to devise adjustments to brand communication. The analysis is applied to brands belonging to the fashion industry.

The current research aims to shed light on consumer-brand relationship, adopting the self-determination theory as theoretical lens for defining the antecedents and the consequences of the Brand Engagement in Self Concept (Sprott, Czellar, & Spangenberg, 2009). The originality of the study stems in the contest of analysis, that is the international cosplayer community, given the extreme engagement manifestation of the actors of the community in comics characters. Thus, the goal of this study is to test a model previously proposed by Razmus, Jaroszyńska, & Palęga (2017) in a community of high engagement manifestations, that is the cosplayer community (e.g. dress-up as their own favourite character). Moreover, authors would like to introduce a novel variable that is the brand-self congruity (Aaker, 1997; Sirgy, 1982), able to influence the relationship between personal aspirations (Kasser and Ryan, 1993; 1996), brand engagement in self-concept, brand advocacy (Kim et al. 2001) and brand loyalty (Oliver, 1999).

This paper aims to monitor brand image of two important fashion cities on social media (Instagram). Through a content analysis of pictures and texts authors attempt to identify the main associations that various actors have of London and Florence, both traditionally strictly related to the fashion system. As recent literature has argued for brands or products, even for places and cities (Gilboa et al. 2015), it is important to monitor the perceived city brand image resulting from the overall online experience (Choi et al. 2007), especially on social media. Indeed, it is demonstrated that word of mouth on social media is able to strongly affect users’ perceptions (Gretzel, Yuan, and Fosenmaier, 2000), thus contributing at the construction of the city brand image. This paper is one of the first one that applies content analysis on Instagram in city/place branding, where the core of communication is based on images. Therefore, differently from previous studies (Andéhn et al. 2014; De Moya and Jain, 2013), this work principally focuses on visual communication, as form of textual paralanguage communication (Luangrath, Peck, and Barger, 2016), for the construction of city image of London and Florence.

Search advertising, the paid listings on a search engine website based on consumers’ keyword searches, has become one of the most important advertising formats and have thus received a huge amount of attention from both academics and practitioners. While many researchers have studied search advertising in a single keyword framework, in practice, consumers’ search usually involve multiple keywords related to their purchase, and similarly, firms advertise on a set of related keywords. Thus, understanding a utilization of multiple keywords is important for firms to efficiently allocate their advertising budget to each keyword, based on consumers’ decision of which keywords to search and which advertising to click. Therefore, this study aims to examine consumers’ search behavior in terms of their click decisions and retailers’ bidding strategy over a set of related multiple keywords. We empirically examine the aforementioned issues regarding consumer clicks and advertiser bids in a search advertising campaign. We use in our empirical analysis a unique dataset containing a number of related keywords in a running shoes product category, in which consumers frequently make online purchases, pertaining to two leading brands in the product category, Nike and Adidas. Based on the consumer purchase funnel framework, we have classified the keywords into five keyword groups at three different levels, the category, brand, and model level keywords. Our data contain daily information from 242 online retailers on their search advertising metrics such as payments per clicks, bids, quality scores, ranks, and the number of clicks from September 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012. Our empirical findings show that overall, consumers search for keywords in a manner consistent with purchase funnel, although some inconsistencies exist in the detailed behavior, depending on different keyword groups and brands. Our findings also show that retailers simultaneously bid on multiple keywords at different stages of the consumer purchase funnel, suggesting that retailers regard the different keywords as strategic complements. However, our findings suggest that retailers’ allocation of their bids across multiple keywords are often inconsistent with the consumer search behavior. Those findings provide advertisers with new insights on multiple keyword management to develop and implement a more effective search advertising strategy.

Social interactions have been established as a means to help promotions and sales for manufacturers and retailers. Word-of-mouth (WOM), in particular, is proven to increase awareness and drive purchases. Given that small offline retailers have limited resources in marketing, online WOM can play a key role for their offline business performance. In this paper, we focus on two types of online WOM, public discussion and social referral, and study their generation processes by taking into account the multichannel context of both online purchases and offline consumption. To this end, we combine data from three sources: product (or deal)-level sales from a major deal site in South Korea, social interaction records collected by web crawling, and retail revenues at a district level from Korea National Statistical Office. We use a multivariate poison lognormal model to estimate three equations in the same structure with correlated errors, which only differs by the following dependent variables: number of product discussion, number of social referral, and the number of social coupons sold. Our empirical analyses suggest the following. First, the two types of WOM respond in opposite directions for the influencers in the multichannel sales context: the greater number of co-located online deals decreases public discussion but increases social referral. Next, the larger offline retail size increases public discussion, but has no significant effect on social referral. Finally, the results provide practical insights that small offline retailers can improve sales in the multichannel context by effectively managing the generation of different types of online WOM.

Fashion and apparel industry is facing difficult challenges due to several factors such as technology development, environmental changes, inherent characteristics of fashion industry itself, fast changing demands, supply chain, and consumer’s expectation of seamless purchase process. Consumers have the power in that fashion retailers need to provide variety and new products, to build brand loyalty, to provide corporate responsibility and sustainability, and to develop inventory intelligence (Beswick 2016). That said, enhanced efficiencies in those will grant fashion retailers and firms with sustainable competitive advantages. Such efficiencies are often based on digital technology development, creating a new trend. In this study, we examine and compare three big trends in the fashion industry along with an advance of technology in digital marketing. First, Ritzer (1993) observed a process by which the four principles of the fast-food restaurant began to increasingly dominate several aspects of American society. The four principles are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control, based on the observation of McDonald’s daily operation. He labeled this process and phenomenon as McDonaldization. In other words, any society or subsectors of society can be very successful with the four principles of McDonaldization, including the fashion industry. Second, in addition to McDonaldization, Netflix added one more, yet an extremely important aspect of such operation, that is personalized suggestions. Personalization becomes essential for most services and even for lots of products (personalized T-shirts, bags, etc.). Based on customers’ history of what they had watched, Netflix provides personalized suggestions of next movies, dramas, or episodes. More importantly, instead of physical DVD, Netflix provides online streaming services with personalized suggestions. Thus, an online order system with personalized suggestions for clothes would be an important aspect of fashion industry and retailers, which can be called as Netflixization. Lastly, from the case of Stitch Fix, we’d like to propose a new concept, that is, Netflix of fashion. Stitch Fix is an interesting firm in the fashion industry. The firm uses customized stylists for each customer based on the responses from style quiz. Thus, it focuses on personalization of what customers really want and need in terms of occasions and preferences. Second, it delivers, by mail, five clothes to customers so that customers can choose one or more from the five clothes or choose nothing. By doing this, the firm provides not only convenience, but also choice options for customers. Third, the firm guarantees customer satisfaction with an easy return policy. A more important thing is the fact that the firm can accumulate intelligence based on the customers’ feedbacks of why customers did not like the suggest clothes and decided to return. Thus, the firm can build a “Big data” for better understanding of customer’s needs and wants. In other words, the firm develops a new concept of “your fix.” I would label the whole process of Stitch Fix as Stitchfixization. In sum, any fashion industry and retailer that adopts the concept of Stitchfixization of efficiency, calculability, predictability, control, personalization, feedback, convenience, and intelligence building, would be well accepted by current tough customers throughout the world.

The phenomena of fashionable hijabi - headscarf-wearing women - who crowded social media has been seen in the past three years. Social media is progressively penetrating daily media using (Hinton & Hjort, 2013). Indonesian hijabis also use social media to show her creativity in styling their outfit and hijab and share it to others thus like-minded people are inspired to do the same thing too, to combine the fashion and faith. Indonesia, as the largest Muslim majority country has benefited this booming of hijab fashion in articulating the Muslim lifestyle. This trend is triggered by 30 young Muslim women who then formed Hijabers Community. One of them was Ria Miranda, who is known as one of hijab fashion movers in Indonesia, is then now a prominent Muslim fashion designer in Indonesia. Ria Miranda is actively using social media for her marketing strategy from the booming of blog, Facebook, Twitter then now Instagram and the newest one is YouTube. Her team is using many forms of social media to engange with customers. She has her own Instagram under the name @riamiranda which has more than 500.000 followers as for personal branding including her daily activities, her family story which is considered now as "family goals" and also her designer life. Her husband under the name @pandurosadi serves as her co-branding which sometimes tell a "behind-the-scene" of her designer wife's activities, his family and his romantic words to her wife. She also has an instagram as for the information about her brand named @inforiamiranda which has more than 80.000 followers. She builds a very good relationship with her customers who then claimed to be Ria Miranda Loyal Customer or RMLC. These customers are die-hard fans who always hunt her products and they also sometimes serve as word-of-mouth on their social media platform especially on Instagram. They always wear Ria Miranda’s products and post their photos under the hashtags that of Ria also uses, they also put their biodata as “Ria Miranda Loyal Customers” which becomes a pride for them. Ria Miranda uses a several hashtag to differentiate her timeline feeds and the most used ones are #riamirandastyle, #RMLC and #riamirandasale. These hashtags are also used by unofficial sellers of her products because her producst are not easy to get thus there are many people who sell their items to others. Apart from only selling her fashion products, Ria tells a story, she tells her lifestyles as her digital strategy engagement. That is what Indonesian people are looking for, a role model. Her product was once only women’s clothes but now it also ranges to accessories such as eyeglasses, necklaces, shoes and bags. It is not only designed for women but also kids and the newest one is for men. So it is a family-package brand. In 2016, she makes several activations including private preview collection show to several big cities around Indonesia that has its store branches and this program also included to invite her customers to travel together and it ended up with fashion show and bazaar. No need to explain, her products were all sold out in minutes. Other events are Ria Miranda Trend Show which is an annual event, this year is the forth time. It was held on December for two days, not only about fashion show but also talkshows about trend in fashion, beauty, e-commerce, lifestyle, music and family. Before this main event, it held several pre-events about Beauty and Make Up class and talkshows about Fashionpreneur that were also crowded by her customers. The most interesting was that it also made a challenge in Instagram called #30dailychallenges that has been used for more than 5.000 posts in Instagram. This program was about a challenge to post our photos on Instagram with several thematic topic such as about the style, hijab outfit of the day that mostly knonw as #HOTD and other daily activities related to Ria’s products and other products that are collaborated with her such as cosmetics and e-commerce. Ria can be said as a good designer in Indonesia. I have a high curiosity about how she can make her customers loyal to her and always want to buy more and more. Besides that she made a good and high quality product, her clothes are not cheap but her customers are always willing to buy and even compete to have her products. They have created many words that are only understood among them, we need a dictionary to know the meaning of them such as #PPCi, #RMLCii, #RMTSiii. I want to analyze them too. This research will employ a qualitative research method which will use more words than numbers (Stokes, 2003) with non-participants observation and visual semiotics analysis. Semiotics is the study of signs that is useful to interpreting the text (Berger, 2014; Howells, 2003; Jensen & Jankowski, 1991; Stoke, 2003). In here I will analyze the Instagram's photographs, captions and also the hashtags that contain meaning behind their usings. Globally, Instagram has reached 500 million users and Indonesia is ranked as the third countries with most users after Japan and Brazil. 89% of instagram users are between 18 – 34 years old and dominated by women with a portion of 63% (Edwin, 2016). Instagram helps designers to show their product freely and got global exposure as long as they can provide a good quality of photos. Fashion and technology are the most popular products among Indonesian Instagram users and they must have ever made a shopping experience from their Instagram’s brands they follow. Apart from that, Indonesians use instagram to find inspiration, share their travel experience and to find information about new trends. I also use in-depth interview to understand more about this brand. I have been able to interview her husband who serves as Business Development and who creates the strategy behind this brand. I want to know deeper about the digital strategy of Ria Miranda brand as it is actively using social media to engange with customers and how it creates consumer culture for fashionable hijabi. Consumer culture is simply the tendency of people who consume what is available on the market through different types of shopping platforms such as on the Internet, retail and shopping malls (Lury, 2011). This research’s goals are to examine the digital strategy of Ria Miranda and team that has been used on Instagram. I hope that this research will contribute to the way how we use social media to make a profit, share positive things and to know more about the new digital strategy. The future work will be possible to analyze about YouTube video that Ria Miranda has newly engaged with.

The aim of this exploratory research is to investigate whether luxury brands social media activities (Kim & Ko, 2012) – which are online activities that could potentially engage customers in digital environment (Sashi, 2012) – are capable of transmitting the sense of heritage of such brands to the customers. Moreover, the authors will observe whether the aforementioned activities are capable of transmitting the sense of exclusivity, which will be measured through the customers’ perceptions of the brand prestige (Hwang & Hyun, 2012), to the latter. In order to explore such a phenomenon, the authors have selected structural eqation modeling (SEM) as the main methodology of the research (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). The theoretical foundations of the present research are related with three streams of marketing literature, namely (1) luxury brands social media marketing activities (Kim & Ko, 2010; Kim & Ko, 2012), (2) luxury brands heritage (Ciappei, Zollo, Boccardi, & Rialti, 2016; Hudson, 2011; Rialti, Zollo, Boccardi, & Marzi, 2016) and, finally, (3) luxury brands customer-based prestige (Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, & Farrelly, 2014). In particular, building on the concept of social media marketing activities (Kim & Ko, 2010), we aimed at observing how the latter could influence customers’ perceptions of the brand by engaging them in online activities and conversations (Sashi, 2012; Zaglia, 2013). Specifically, we investigated if engagement in online activities or in online communities is related with a positive perception of luxury brands’ heritage and prestige. Hence, customers’ online engagement deriving from social media activities has been considered as an antecedent of customer perceived heritage and prestige (Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011; Hamzah, Alwi, & Othman, 2014; Riviezzo Garofano, & Napolitano, 2016). Luxury brands have been selected as the context of research since heritage and prestige have emerged as relevant strategic marketing levers for luxury brands’ brand strategist. As a proof of that, recently, luxury brands’ strategist and product managers are increasingly focusing brands’ strategies on the history of the brands in order to transmit customers a feeling of exclusivity and elitism (Hudson, 2010; Balmer, 2011). Thus, luxury brands heritage perceived by costumers emerged as a fundamental component of brand identity and, in addition, it may be considered as a form of competitive advantage increasing brand equity (Van Riel & Balmer, 1997). The main findings of the present research are related with the fact that social media marketing activities may engage customers online (Sashi, 2012). Moreover, it emerged how social media strategies are capable to engage customers and transmit them the sense of heritage and prestige. Hence, social media marketing strategies focused on developing a relationship with customers emerged as crucial in order to enhance customers’ perceptions of a brand heritage and prestige. Finally, the development of such a kind of social media marketing strategies is the principal implication for marketing managers. Due to the aforementioned results, this exploratory research contributes to online luxury brand management literature (Kim & Ko, 2010). In particular, due to our results it is possible to assess that social media activities, which are capable to engage customers online, are able to transmit the sense of heritage and of prestige. Future researches should explore better this phenomenon. In particular, on the one hand we suggest scholars to investigate through qualitative methodologies which kind of communications are capable to transmit sense of heritage and prestige. On the other hand, we suggest scholars to compare traditional form of communications with online form in order to understand which one is more capable to influence customers’ perceptions. The principal limitation of this research is related with its exploratory nature and with the traditional limitations of SEM methodology.

A growing number of authors state that in recent years the notion of luxury has become all too common. Many say that authenticity is the real rare good in today’s luxury marketplace. Overwhelmed by the omnipresence of luxury and its homogenization, consumers are said to start looking for the genuine and unique, favoring smaller, more intimate and independent luxury brands. This study looks beyond well-known global players in the luxury marketplace, exploring the identities of independent niche luxury companies, their differentiating characteristics and in particular the role of authenticity. Keywords: corporate identity; corporate image; authenticity; luxury brand management; niche luxury brands; independent luxury brands

Introduction “The success of a 21st century business will be defined as much by who it is as what it does.” (Keller and Richey 2016, p. 47) Traditionally, branding has been a staple interest among fashion marketing research, although this has been mostly looked from the perspective of business-to-consumer markets. However recently, in the general marketing literature, there has been a growing interest towards understanding also the business-to-business aspect of branding (see Seyedghorban, Matanda, and LaPlaca 2016 for bibliometric review). By and large, this perspective of branding is also significant in fashion business as industrial customers have a double role as consumers and fashion professionals, as their decision-making process leans on both rational judgement and intuition. Recently, increased product and service homogeneity and digitalisation have been factors that have led to the emergence of a growing body of literature in business-to-business branding (see Leek and Christodoulides 2011a for review). This shift can be observed during trade shows, which are losing their significance in terms of sales, and, in turn, becoming more important for building relationships with customers and partners (Sarmento, Farhangmehr, and Simoes 2015) as well as cultivating the brand image of exhibitors (Hansen 2004). In particular, in fashion, trade shows are an example of activities that are inarguably geared towards building brand value among buyers and other actors in the market. By and large, previous work in marketing during fashion trade shows has been limited to few studies on trade show experience (Rinallo, Borghini, and Golfetto 2010), knowledge processes (Cheng, Koivisto, and Mattila 2013), market making (Rinallo and Golfetto 2006), semiotics of communication (2003), and their influence on fashion consumers (Aiello et al. 2016). However, while the importance of branding in fashion industry has been widely recognised, there is no studies on branding in business-to-business context in fashion. This forms an interesting research gap to observe branding in the context of international fashion trade shows. In this vein, the purpose of this article is to provide a new perspective to trade shows. The key research questions we hope to respond are: How does corporate branding occur in fashion trade shows? and What are the characteristics of branding in trade shows? To answer these research questions, 18 fashion start-up companies that have attended trade shows have been interviewed. Previous studies have shown how B2B brands should communicate the value of their brands to a range of stakeholders if they are to leverage their full potential (e.g. Mudambi 2002, Baumgarth 2010, Ohnemus 2009). In this light, recognizing and understanding the significance of business-to-business branding in the fashion industry is important, as it enables brands to engender trust and develop both cognitive and affective ties with stakeholders (Lynch and de Chernatony, 2004). Business-to-business branding Brand is defined as “a name, sign, symbol or logo that identifies the goods and services of one seller and differentiates them from others” (Webster and Keller 2004: 389). Moreover, brand implies ”a cluster of functional and emotional benefits that extend a unique and welcomed promise (de Chernatony and McDonald, 2003)” of the offering. Traditionally, branding literature has overlooked the significance of branding in business to business markets (Saunders & Watt, 1979, Sinclair and Seward 1988) due to the belief that industrial buyers are unaffected by emotional values corresponding to brands (Leek and Christodoulides, 2011b). However, recently the influence of branding has also been acknowledged in the more formalised B2B decision making processes (Lynch & de Chernatony, 2004) where branding increases buyers’ confidence in and satisfaction with their purchase decision (Low and Blois, 2002) and reduces their level of perceived risk and uncertainty (Bengtsson and Servais, 2005). Webster and Keller (2004) suggest that in business-to-business, it is advisable to use corporate branding strategy. Corporate branding takes a holistic perspective to branding as its focus is on managing the reputation of the whole company over individual product lines in order to add value to its offering (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001). Moreover, house branding has been common practice in luxury fashion, where it has been used to build customer loyalty and boost corporate reputation (Chevalier and Mazzalovo 2008). As branding practice, corporate branding is applicable to business-to-business branding as it emphasises the role of employees in the branding process and maintaining the brand reputation over time (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001). In this view, brand management involves managing the gap between corporate identity and reputation (de Chernatony 1999) to provide firm with sustainable competitive advantage and increased customer loyalty (Hatch and Schultz 2003). First, corporate identity is “organization's presentation of itself to its various stakeholders and the means by which it distinguishes itself from all other organizations” (Markwick and Fill 1997: 397). In the business to business context, the dimensions of brand identity include employee and client focus, visual identity, brand personality, consistent communications and human resource initiatives (Coleman et al. 2011). Moreover, key areas of corporate branding include brand vision and culture, positioning, personality, relationships, and presentation (Harris and de Chernatony, 2001). Brand equity refers to “buyers’ willingness to pay a price premium for their favourite brand [and] to recommend that brand to peers and give special consideration to another product with the same name” (Bendixen, Bukasa and Abratt 2004). Moreover, this consists of brand awareness, brand performance, brand preference, and long-lasting relationships (Keller 1993). In particular, the importance of relationships is considered the cornerstone of the brand in the industrial marketing literature (Campbell et al. 2010) due to the interpersonal nature of the market (Bengtsson and Servais, 2005). Moreover, it has been shown that customer experience has a positive effect on the four dimensions of brand equity in business-to-business setting (Biedenbach and Marell 2010). Branding in trade shows Business to business branding is an important concept to understand the role of trade shows in marketing. Trade shows have been defined as “short-term events, typically less than a week in duration that take place on a regularly scheduled basis. Trade shows enable various members of a certain market or industry to meet face- to-face and share ideas, new product innovations, technical updates, industry information, connect with customers and prospects, as well as, in some cases, consummate sales.” (Bettis-Outland et al. 2012, p. 385). For many fashion start-ups these are excellent ways of developing relationships with customers and partners (Sarmento et al. 2015), as well as to enhance their brand image (Hansen 2004), and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders (Cheng et al. 2013). Traditionally, trade shows have been instrumental in consummating sales (Kerin and Cron, 1987), but recently the role has been mostly shifting towards building relationships as well as to build product awareness and image (Pitta, Weisgal, and Lynagh, 2006). This holds true as casual contact with current customers, manufacturers and buyers can easily be made at one location in a relatively short time (Han and Verma, 2014). Moreover, trade shows and meetings with sales representatives greatly affect the earlier parts decision making process of buyers (Blombäck and Axelsson, 2007). This suggests that trade shows could well fulfil the purpose of forming new relationships with the long-term goals of selling. What is more, another non-buying objective for attending trade shows is promoting corporate image (Kerin and Cron, 1987). The facet of corporate visual identity, as part of B2B brand identity, refers to symbolism, symbols or logo and even more to physical cues such as clothes employees wear and their premises (Coleman et al., 2011). Methodology and data As the study was explorative in nature, qualitative research method was chosen (Silverman, 2006). The data collection consisted of two phases; primary data were acquired through semi-structured interviews, complemented by observational data acquired by means of an ethnographic observation at major trade events (Geertz, 1973). 15 Finnish fashion trade show exhibitors and 3 professional buyers were interviewed for the study. All of the respondents from exhibiting companies were responsible for sales and marketing activities, and took part in the trade shows in person. Moreover, for observation, the team attended four major fashion trade shows during September 2012 and January 2013: Premier Classe Who’s Next and Capsule in Paris, Gallery int. Fashion Fair CPH in Copenhagen, and Capsule in New York. As the study is explorative by nature, data-driven approach of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1990) was applied in the analysis of the interview data. Here, the data collected thorough interviews and observations is analysed by utilizing a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon (ibid.). Findings – branding elements in fashion trade show The research investigates business-to-business branding occurring at fashion trade shows and its perceived benefits. To better understand this, findings will be presented in three sections: (1) Main elements of branding at trade shows; (2) characteristics of business-to-business branding in trade shows. (1) Main elements of branding at trade shows From the data, elements of trade show branding include people, brand presentation, and brand story. In the following, these are briefly illustrated. Brand story. Brand image is conveyed through the brand story that is the essence of the brand and it differentiates the brand from the competitors: “The clients are looking at what you do, listening to story, because the story is the key right now. If you don’t have a story, they will go for some other cheap stuff.” This story ties together all the elements of a brand. During the trade show, the story of the brand is conveyed to the attendees through a variety of tangible brand elements such as people, products, stand decorations, and marketing communications. People. The people have a crucial role as mannequins for the brand. The first impression of the stand, which is mostly about the people occupying it, determines if there will be any further interaction as well as sets the tone for it. For this reason, give out the right image: “We receive a lot of feedback that we look and feel like the brand. It’s very important that the sales people can channel the brand into this kind of environment” explains the head of a shoe brand. Moreover, their behaviour has a crucial role in communicating the brand essence and for this reason it is important to maintain the right type of energy at all times: “If you stay sitting and do like that (plants head into hands) in terms of branding is a killer. You won’t give the right image. If you are standing up especially on the heel, that will give out the right attitude.”. What is more, the presence of the designer is an important part in this communication, too, as is described by one buyer: “The presence of the designer matters. It brings depth and meaning into the presentation. And it also shows that they have their feet on the ground, that they are willing to work. hard. In fashion, there is all this hype and glamour, even though it's a trade among others. I give extra points if the designer is there.” Finally, it is important to have the right people on duty to enable the right type of interaction. For instance, to build relationships with all stakeholders including customers in the recurring events: “It’s a big reason that we meet the customers half yearly and it’s really fun seeing, really genuinely, it’s super nice seeing people because most of them are so nice people”. Indeed, this ludic element and experiencing things together enables deeper, and more trusting relation, which in turn facilitates further collaboration between parties. Brand presentation. At the stand, the buyers and other stakeholders get to experience the brand in its all splendour. It is very important to set up the stand in such manner that it lures in customers and provides an extraordinary experience. For instance, one of the exhibitors we interviewed went over the top with their display: “We’ve used a bus where we can make a showroom at the back. That’s been useful in Berlin alongside the trade shows, directing people from the trade show to the bus with bar and drinks as a kind of lounge and extra that we are remembered for.” Indeed, one interviewee even went as far as claiming that a generic product set up in a gorgeous stand would attract more customers than a perfect product on a dull stand. In this vein, a lot of attention is given to the stand as it needs to be aligned with the overall brand image: “Because our look it pretty rough and manly, we’ve used a lot of wood and metal on the racks when building the stand. Materials are chosen so that they ooze our brand and we never order basic stuff. Last time, we used wood on walls and built a bar with raw metal on the floor. The look has to match and communicate the brand.” Another important element are the products that are on display. From an exhibitor perspective, it is important to choose the right products that communicate the key attributes of a brand to the buyers. Moreover, even though the buyers are not buying for their own needs, it is important to have the possibility to feel the quality and fit at the spot. This is further explained by one of the interviewed buyers “It’s of course an advantage getting to try on the product and when you get to put the hat on, you get the wow effect of how well it fits. It’s easier to sell the product this way when someone gets to try it on compared to just buying it online.” (2) Characteristics of business-to-business branding in trade shows For new brands in particular, trade shows are important places to get noticed. As many of our interviewees note, trade shows are no longer places where orders are written. Instead, buyers go there to get inspired and to spot new brands: “As a new label, it is very recommended you go to trade shows because there is no way you can get, if no one knows about you, visibility or even the contacts.” In this vein, one of the key branding functions of trade shows is building awareness for the brand. Subsequently, to position the brand, showing up in the right company is important. The decision on which trade shows to attend is of paramount importance: “It is important for the brand that you consistently go to the same trade shows that position you correctly, that you are there with brands that are on the same level as you are or in the higher scale and you are not there with brands that should not be associated with your brand.” Finally, to convince the buyers and to build relationships with all stakeholders, continuity is important: “Big customers don’t ever order when they see you the first time, they want to see continuum at least 3 times so you’ve built your presence, then they look at you more seriously because you don’t seem like a one-season case who might just disappear.” This consistency means making long-term commitments to both the trade shows attended as well as the branding activities. Corporate branding in fashion tradeshows is parallel to Keller’s customer based brand equity model (1993), where branding follows a four step process. First, brand identity entails raising the salience of a brand among stakeholders and creating association with products. Being visible at trade shows attaches brand to a certain product category and creates awareness among stakeholders. Second, brand meaning involves linking a variety of tangible and intangible associations to the brand in the customer’s mind. This involves telling the story of a brand and providing the opportunity to touch and try the products. Third, brand response conveys brand judgments and brand feeling, of which the former is more relevant in an organizational context (Kuhn and Alpert 2004). Here, the interaction with people and products occurring during the trade show plays and important role as they enable the formation of emotional and rational judgements of a brand. Final step is about establishing an active and intense relationship between stakeholder and a brand. This particular aspect has the most significance in business-to-business context (Kuhn and Alpert 2004), which is also highly salient in the fashion world. Conclusions In fashion, branding is a prominent practice with regards to business to consumer markets. However, it is worth noting that branding is and has to be done also on business to business context as the buying decision is not purely rational but relies greatly on intuition and relationships. Here, a successful B2B brand is of great importance – and a great commitment as well as it involves a long-term planning and resilience to attend trade shows from season to season. This exploratory article has provided a first glimpse to the branding activities occurring at fashion trade shows. First and foremost, business to business branding in fashion involves the brand relationship between buyer and seller as well the brand story conveyed through the holistic brand experience at the trade show. Indeed, the resulting trust and loyalty between the brand and a stakeholder have implications for further buying behaviour as well as then the further marketing efforts towards the end-consumer. In this vein, trade shows provide a great opportunity to increase brand value through their positive influence on brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty that are part of the brand equity construct (Aaker 1991) and can lead to increased trust and loyalty, which, in turn, help to moderate risk and decrease transaction cost (Ford 1980). Limitations of the study and further directions for research Although the study has been able to illustrate the branding activities occurring at fashion trade shows, there is still significant opportunity for improvement. The study is limited to only a handful of fashion start-ups and within a certain market. From this perspective, it would be interesting to study if branding also has similar significance for more established firms. Moreover, it would be interesting to study the performance outcomes of branding, how these efforts support the internationalisation, as well as the implications of business-to-business branding to business-to-consumer markets. Moreover, it would be interesting to compare the brand images between buyers and consumers in a given market. What are the things the consumers look at, and are the buyers different?

By adopting transactional social commerce functions from mobile apps, individuals can sell products and services directly to friends on their contact list. This drives micro entrepreneurs with fewer than ten employees and less than a €2million annual balance (European Union Law, 2013) to become key drivers for economic growth (Paoloni & Dumay, 2011). In particular, individuals aged 18-34 become inspired by images on social networks for clothing and fashion products. Hence, fashion products are popular business items for micro-entrepreneurs. Despite potential benefits for social commerce, micro-fashion entrepreneurs in many countries are still unaware of apps’ use in social commerce to sell products, and to create and manage social capital for their business. This exploratory research aimed to investigate how micro-fashion entrepreneurs adopt transactional-focused social commerce and utilize social capital embedded in network ties for their marketing and sales, based on innovation diffusion and social capital theory. Research questions included: (1) How do micro-fashion entrepreneurs adopt social commerce? (2) How does social capital in network ties contribute to marketing and sales in social commerce? To answer these research questions, qualitative data from phone interviews with 16 micro-fashion entrepreneurs selling fashion products through WeChat in China were analyzed, adopting a thematic analysis. Data indicated micro-fashion entrepreneurs have positive attitudes, based on their experience and knowledge of WeChat. They adopt social commerce to (1) sell products in a new way, (2) connect with customers, and (3) reduce financial risk, while an innovative channel for entrepreneurship. Also, operating a business through WeChat required less time commitment compared with brick and mortar, and online stores, because accessing services like WeChat have payment systems, share images and messages. Free calls and messages are already available. The interview data demonstrated micro-entrepreneurs have an advantage when adopting social network ties in WeChat and implementing social capital embedded in marketing sales networks. Structural, relational, and cognitive capital contribute to micro-entrepreneurs’ marketing and sales interactively. An individual could access target customers, based on networks already established social media platforms and facilitate entrepreneurs’ adoption of social commerce. Also, since trust, shared goals, and languages exist on these network ties, there exists an increase for entrepreneurs’ accessibility to use social commerce to initiate their business, while decreasing business operating expenses, promoting products, and building relationships with customers. In addition, relational capital built by interactions with each customer brings cognitive capital to promote products and strong network ties.

The present research examines how a CEO exposed to the public through social media (e.g., Facebook) influences the trustworthiness of the CEO and his/her firm. In particular, we focus on and measure the consistency of a CEO’s fashion style across different occasions, and test the impact of the ‘fashion’ consistency on respondents’ perception on the CEO’s trustworthiness. Based on the previous literature on impression management, we define the consistency of a CEO’s fashion style as how similar (rather than different) the style of his/her clothes across multiple media exposures. We then manipulate the similarity of a CEO’s fashion style, which is the focal independent variable, and measure the subjects’ trust toward the CEO, which is the focal dependent variable. Study 1 is a scenario-based study in which participants read the description of either a fashion-consistent or -inconsistent CEO, and indicated the CEO’s perceived trustworthiness. We find that perceived trust is higher for the fashion-consistent CEO. Study 2 is an experiment in which participants read four news articles of a CEO featured on a social media (i.e., Facebook). Unbeknown to participants, fashion consistency was manipulated such that half of participants saw the news on a fashion-consistent CEO whereas the other half saw the news on a fashion-inconsistent CEO. Interestingly, the interaction between CEO gender and fashion consistency becomes significant, suggesting that for a male CEO, fashion consistency increased trust whereas for a female CEO, fashion inconsistency increased trust. The present research complements to the literature on the roles of fashion of employees including top managers on impression management. We also discuss other interesting and important implications of the results on the mechanism of the ‘fashion consistency’ effects.

Social media play a role in the value that sneakerheads, individuals who collect, wear, and trade sneakers with extraordinary effort and resources, place on specific brands and models of sneakers. In-depth interviews with 25 sneakerheads, recruited through sneakerhead online communities and snow-ball sampling, were conducted to explore how social media contribute to emotional and monetary value creation of sneakers, as well as how social media is used across the Inventory Ownership Cycle (IOC) which includes pre-acquisition, acquisition, physical possession, and disposal of sneakers (Boyd & Mcconocha, 1996). Finding shows that during the pre-acquisition stage, emotional and monetary value is constructed when brands post images of celebrities wearing new models on various social media sites. Hype initially created by the brand is perpetuated by posts and conversations among sneakersheads. Perceived higher levels of hype lead one to believe demand surpasses supply, and therefore, monetary values of specific models increase. Through social media, consumers research and gauge the value not only of soon to be released sneakers, but also previously released sneakers only available on the resale market. During the acquisition stage, the online environment has become increasingly important. To avoid issues associated with selling high-demand/low-supply sneakers in- store, such as violent incidents and dishonest employees, many retailers have shifted sales of such product to online formats (Dunne, 2014). Social media serves as a platform for sneakerheads to learn about dates and locations of new releases and to locate resellers from whom they can purchase previously released sneakers. During the physical possession stage, sneakerheads engage with community members via social media; they show off their sneaker collections, as well as to obtain and share information regarding sneaker customization and maintenance to preserve aesthetics and value. It is through the engagement with fellow sneakerheads and the sneakers within their personal collections that emotional value can be further constructed. During the disposal stage, social media is used by resellers to determine monetary value, identify and communicate with potential buyers across the nation, and complete resale transactions. In summary, this research demonstrates how sneakerheads use social media throughout the IOC, as well as the role social media plays in the construction and identification of sneaker value.

The market for luxury is changing with new competitors to the market, more modest growth, and new types of customers (Kim and Ko 2012, Ko, Phau and Aiello 2016) as well as the ubiquity of digital marketing channels (Okonkwo 2009). Moreover, social media has transformed the logic of fashion marketing by providing new ways of engaging, interacting, and connecting with customers (Dhaoui 2014) as well as enabling consumers to participate in branding process (Burman 2010). As a consequence, also luxury brands need to develop experience-based marketing strategies that emphasise interactivity, connectivity and creativity (Atwal and Williams 2009). What is more, despite of growing importance of social media marketing in luxury industry, extant research on the topic still remains quite limited (Ko and Megehee 2012). While the previous studies have well documented the benefits of luxury marketing on social media (Kim and Ko 2012, Kim and Ko 2010, Brogi et al. 2013, Kontu and Vecchi 2014, Godey et al. 2016), and their implications on luxury brand management (Dhaoui 2014, Larraufie and Kourdoughli 2014), and even co-creative marketing practices (Choi, Ko and Kim 2016, Tynan, McKehnie, and Chuon 2010), no studies to this date have looked at co-creation from consumer-perspective. This article provides a novel perspective on luxury branding, by following the resource-based theory of consumer (Arnould, Price and Malshe 2006) to study the brand identity as co-created in social media. To do this, visual frame analysis (Goffman 1974, Luhtakallio 2013) is applied on consumer generated images downloaded from Instagram feed of brand exhibition staged by luxury brand Louis Vuitton. Based on the analysis, a typology of co-created brand identities is proposed. The findings indicate that in the branded exhibitions, consumers co-create brand identity by utilising resources available in the experiential brandscape by taking and posting these objectifications of brand on social media (Presi et al. 2016) and in so doing create symbolic/expressive, and experiential/hedonic value (Tynan et al. 2010). Theoretically, this article provides a novel perspective on luxury brand as co-created and in so doing, demonstrates the dynamics of firm-consumer co-creation. What is more, to extend the emerging stream of visual analysis of luxury (Kim et al. 2016, Freire 2014, Megehee and Spake 2012), an application of novel is demonstrated in the article. Managerially, this explorative study provides new insights on luxury marketing in social media by suggesting that branded experiences should be designed in a manner that engages the consumer to actively use the resources available to them. The financial implications of this shift are also significant as according to McKinsey study, three out of four luxury purchases are influenced by social media (Hope 2016)

Much of the sustainability research has orientated around the production side of the business model, changing a consumer’s consumption pattern, such as extending the usage of a product and reducing the frequency of purchase and even promoting shared use, is now being recognised as a critical facet of working towards sustainability. The focus on the consumer perspective, their usage and response to alternative modes of garment use is under represented in the research to-date, which has predominantly focused on the point of design or disposal. Employing a multi-method qualitative study, this research engages with consumers to build the critical insights currently pertinent but neglected in shifting consumers towards more sustainable fashion consumption practices. Fashion management is important as evidenced by a global garment industry valued at around US $1.7 trillion and employing approximately 75 million people (Fashion United; International Labour Organisation). However, there are significant environmental costs from resource inputs, manufacture, use and disposal of clothing. This impact occurs while around only 30% of clothing, valued at around £4000, in our wardrobes was worn in the last year (Williams, 2016). Coupled with an increase in clothing purchases, this has led to the phenomena of disposing of garments that may only have been worn a few times. Disposal of clothing is a key tenet of sustainability, with high volumes of purchases propelled by discourses of “fast fashion” (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2010) resulting in approximately one million tonnes of clothes being disposed annually in the UK (Defra, 2009). Whilst a need for consumer behaviour change is clearly identified for systemic change within fashion management, little insight is provided as to how this can be facilitated. From a production and retail perspective, sustainable clothing discussions have been appropriated into mainstream retail practice (in brands such as People Tree, Patagonia, Everlane, H&M) however one of the presented barriers of a mainstream adoption of this approach, is the lack of trust and weak incentives for consumers. With the premise of extending understandings beyond interested niche fashion groups to mainstream society, we explore tensions and opportunities in extending clothing acquisition practices towards a circular approach. Focusing on fashion consumers (considered as purchasing one fashion item per week) we carried out a multi-method ethnographic study over six months to intervene and challenge consumer fashion consumption habits. We augment the conventional model of fashion consumer behaviour of ‘buy-own-dispose’ and contribute an emergent understanding of the challenges, barriers and opportunities of sustainable clothing consumption and the implications for fashion management.

This study focuses on exploring how to close attitude-behavior gap of consumers with regards to both recycled and upcycled fashion products. Specifically, this study is to explain the purchase gap between purchase intention and purchase experience of these sustainable products. Although many consumers had positive attitudes toward sustainable products, they often ended up not purchasing them. Factors including perceived values, risks, environmental concern, perceived consumer effectiveness, subjective norms, and demographic variables were examined to understand the discrepancy. The results indicate that antecedents of purchase intention were different from those of purchase experience and that influencing factors for recycled products were different from those for upcycled products. This study provides insights into understanding consumers and developing effective strategies to encourage desirable behaviors.

State of the Art: Sustainability Integration in the Luxury Fashion Industry Introduction to Luxury Fashion ‘Luxury’, which comes from the Latin word ‘luxus’, refers to exaggerated life, glamour, comfort and wealth (Dubois, Czellar & Laurent, 2005). In the ancient world, luxury was associated with wealth, exclusivity, and power. After the 17th century, European countries’ economic democratization contributed to the reduction of existing sumptuary laws. Trade increased and larger segments of the population began to afford luxury products. Consequently, luxury moved from being limited to serve the common good to being a satisfaction of private needs. At the end of the 19th century, following the second industrial revolution, luxury earned its modern meaning of being enjoyable beyond the necessities of life (Fionda and Moore, 2009). The democratization of luxury resulted in mass luxury in which luxury brands have extended themselves to affordable offerings (Cristini et al., 2017). Luxury was long associated with the premium quality (Brun and Castelli, 2013), whereas today the technical reproduction of luxury is indulged by mass-produced brands (Cristini et al, 2017). Thus, one could argue that commercial drivers have taken over the industry whereby executives are increasingly seeking ways to transform creativity into profitability. Accordingly, the luxury market has experienced noticeable growth. The global luxury goods market reached a value of € 1.081B, with a growth rate of 4%, in 2016 (Bain & Company, 2016). Nevertheless, despite growth and high profit margins, the global fashion market is affected by macroeconomic, socio-political and natural events. For example, the short-term doubling in cotton prices brought many problems in 2011. Furthermore, scarce natural resources and rising commodity prices greatly challenge the ability of luxury fashion companies to remain profitable. The new luxury paradigm of being more accessible challenges not only sustainability but also operational aspects. The reputation of the luxury industry suffers from consumer concerns over poor labour standards in production, blood diamonds, irresponsible gold-mining practices and animal cruelty in global production networks (Hennigs et al, 2013; Moore, 2011). We therefore question how and to what extent luxury could play a positive role in our mass-consuming generation to slow down the pace for materialism and to better implement sustainability in globally dispersed production networks. Whilst sociologists, marketing and branding experts, have shown interest in luxury management, researchers in the field of operations and supply chain management have paid little attention to the topic: the first paper in the field appeared less than a decade ago (Brun et al., 2008), and furthermore, as of January 2017, there appear to be only 87 papers published in Scopus-indexed journals with ‘‘supply chain OR oper*’’ AND ‘’luxury’’ in the keywords. Henceforth, the current financial, environmental, economic and cultural crises could be considered significant drivers for how luxury operations could be advanced in the move toward sustainability. The focus of this paper is luxury personal goods such as fashion and accessories. The Relevance of Sustainability for Luxury Fashion Following the supply chain revolution of the 1990’s (Mohanty and Prakash, 2013) and the removal of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in 2005, the fashion industry has become a global force in production and distribution. Globalisation has led to increasing outsourcing of production by fashion companies to a network of suppliers and subcontractors. The industry is characterized by shorter product life cycles and highly volatile market demand (Choi, 2013) alongside downward price pressure, international sourcing, high product variety and low predictability (Perry and Towers, 2013). To this end, fashion companies rely on sophisticated information and logistics systems to remain competitive in the market. Nonetheless, the fashion industry is somewhat inflexible toward major external changes outside the organizations’ direct control (Kozlowski et al., 2015). There is also a potential conflict between corporate responsibility and overarching commercial pressures in the fashion industry (Perry et al., 2015). According to the definition of sustainable development by The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987), current needs should be met without endangering future generations’ rights to satisfy theirs. Luxury fashion companies must therefore acknowledging resource scarcity and other sustainability issues, and take collective actions for an authentic shift to create unique and sustainable businesses. To be profitable and sustainable, “luxury companies must adjust their definition of excellence that is no longer associated with shallow glamour but with positive engagement and deeper values” (Hennigs et al, 2013, p.33). An Overview of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) Sustainability in SCM has captured academics’ interest since the early 1990s. Despite the growing interest, some fundamental issues still need to be addressed to provide novel models. The majority of the practices that make up green supply chain management (GSCM) models are modifications of existing practices (Pagell and Wu, 2009). However, earlier studies also stress that these programs might not be sufficient to become sustainable. Hence, it would be insightful to examine which components and which practices are required to make ‘sustainable’ chains. Social sustainability also requires deeper consideration. Wu and Pagell (2011) investigated how organizations deal with short-term pressures to remain economically viable during sustainability implementation, but did not consider social aspects of sustainability. Lee and Klassen (2008) identified the important drivers and enablers which promote environmental management capabilities in SME suppliers, but did not address social sustainability or specific measures for suppliers’ environmental management capabilities. Zhu and Cote (2004) and Vachon and Klassen (2006) demonstrated how to extend green practices, but again social aspects were not encompassed. Similarly, Caniato et al (2012) identified drivers that push companies to adopt green practices, various practices that could be used to advance environmental sustainability and environmental performance indicators measured by fashion companies. However, the social component was excluded. The recognition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a business activity is highlighted by the launch of ISO 26000; nonetheless, as illustrated earlier, extant SCM literature has mostly neglected the social aspects of sustainability. Despite a number of studies on aspects including social responsibility and consumer trust (Castaldo et al., 2008), sustainability reporting (Lozano and Huisingh, 2011), sustainable supply management (Ageron, Gunasekaran, & Spalanzani, 2012), and supplier selection problems (Jia et al., 2015), social issues demand more investigation (Perry and Towers, 2013). Sustaining an efficient global supply chain without compromising social responsibility (Perry et al., 2015). Embedding social and environmental management into SCM is needed yet challenging. Significant progress has been made in studies of the buyer-supplier relationship over the past decades, however despite some notable exceptions on green SCM (Zhu and Cote 2004; Zhu et al. 2008; Yu et al. 2014), the development of SSCM literature appears to focus on a single entity rather than the entire chain or network. Social and environmental performance of suppliers is an area of mounting concern, and collectively, sufficient coordination between supply chain partners is greatly needed. Many small and medium-sized suppliers encounter challenges in responding to environmental pressures due to limited capabilities and available resources (Lee and Klassen, 2008), and the most critical environmental and social issues in supply chains are generated by suppliers located in the second tier or further upstream (Tachizawa and Wong, 2014). Therefore, a holistic examination of the entire chain is required. In this vein, Pagell and Wu (2009) examined the chain as an entirety by explicitly addressing both environmental and social outcomes and by asking what unique behavioural patterns are needed for SSCM. However, the adoption of some of the practices is quite limited, which suggests the existence of additional contingencies. Their study called for future studies to explore the role of specific industries e.g. textiles. To this end, Ho and Choi (2012) investigated why fashion companies go green and evaluated sustainable supply chains. Nevertheless, the study was a single case study and did not consider potential differences in terms of antecedents affecting small and large companies. Curwen et al. (2013), interestingly, sought to document current challenges the fashion and apparel industry faces while developing sustainable apparel. Yet again, an imperative need arises to further explore the connections among product design, production processes and supply chain stages through a multidisciplinary approach. On the whole, the phenomena of sustainability has been interpreted in a variety of ways, ranging from a philosophical perspective to business management approaches (Ahi and Searcy, 2013), but more research is needed to show more than how to be ‘less unsustainable’. Traditional business research must go beyond studies focusing on profit with a rather short-term orientation and instead embrace components of how to create truly sustainable businesses. Considering the aforementioned gaps observed in the extant literature, the following research questions were formulated to investigate the phenomena of social and environmental sustainability at supply chain level within the luxury context, where ethical aspects are becoming increasingly critical for success (Brun and Castelli, 2013). RQ1: How do luxury fashion companies integrate sustainability into their supply networks? RQ2: How do contingent factors impact sustainability integration in luxury fashion supply networks? RQ3: Which behavioural patterns could be used to develop a sustainable supply chain configuration for the luxury fashion industry? Research Methodology Data was drawn from case studies of two Italian supply chains producing luxury silk and leather goods, encompassing 10 companies, with a focus on the individual supply chain as the level of analysis. These two supply chain were theoretically sampled to provide diversity in organizational characteristics and supply network relationships that could explain different approaches to the integration of sustainability into the entire chain. The research design followed Yin (1994) and previous studies in operations and SCM. Face to face interviews were conducted with senior managers of different functions in each supply chain during 2015-16. In most of the companies, responsibility for sustainability was divided and integrated into the jobs of multiple managers, meaning that there was no single individual assigned to sustainability. Additionally, the managers interviewed were often in charge of one or more functions, which helped reduce the number of interviews but increased interview content. The interview topic guide was developed from the literature review, and the theoretical constructs underpinning the interview protocol were then used to create an initial coding scheme for data. Data analysis was done inductively, by developing a framework from the cases while exploiting the theoretical concepts in the categorization of codes. The coding process was followed for all cases as an iterative process to assure consistency. Coding was not considered complete until a consensus was reached on each construct. Data analysis involved within and cross-case analysis. Results: Toward a Framework for Sustainable Luxury Supply Chains This study explored the luxury fashion industry from supply chain and operations management standpoint. Findings revealed seven key categories by which luxury fashion companies integrated environmental and social sustainability into their operations: Category 1: Sustainable product design, Category 2: Operations management, Category 3: Performance measurement, Category 4: Sourcing management, Category 5: Decent work and labour management, Category 6: Commitment to sustainability and organisational perceptions and Category 7: Longevity of suppliers. Firstly, natural resource scarcity was acknowledged by all 10 companies. To this end, some practices, including use of eco-friendly materials, hazardous chemical elimination, textile waste reuse, were applied to the fashion design stage with an attempt to mitigate the environmental impact of subsequent operations. Life cycle assessment (LCA was observed to be a significant tool among sample companies. Nonetheless, higher investment costs to employ more innovative solutions and to advance laboratory tests, higher prices for more ecological materials, and lack of knowledge in terms of fibre and textile components due to supply chain complexity prevented companies from advancing product stewardship. Regarding operations management, water emerged as a significant area where sample companies implemented incremental techniques, including natural tanning, on-site wastewater treatment, water purification and water reuse. Nevertheless, vertical integration, which was getting weaker in the luxury fashion industry, resulted in fashion companies having difficulties in the execution of their suppliers’ environmental performance. Practices implemented in this category were individual company attempts rather than collective action plans. It was not quite feasible to mitigate the environmental impact of independent networks where the buying firm outsourced its business functions to third party suppliers. In order to deal with lack of control and monitoring, sustainability must be understood as a concept to be integrated into the core business strategy with measurable indicators. Furthermore, traceability emerged as a pivotal topic. However, the complexity of global luxury fashion supply chains brought complications. Both supply chains showed that there was lack of knowledge about products’ production history. Due to globalization, countries with low operational costs appeared to leverage their competitive advantage. Changing market conditions resulted in the loss of, for example, silk production in Italy. Silkworm cultivation did not take place in Italy any longer, resulting in confusion regarding outsourced materials’ environmental and social records. High product variety and fragmentation of the production network made it difficult for companies to ensure full traceability. To this end, trust and knowledge transfer were weak, which could be improved to link non-economic goals with financial objectives. Another interesting result was that supplier audits were mostly made within first tier direct suppliers’ facilities. In some cases suppliers were provided with online self-assessment tools that were monitored by buying firms. Yet, buying firms and manufacturers required more efficient inspection methods and more realistic mitigation strategies. Ensuring social sustainability is hindered by complications such as lack of visibility and financial burdens. Consequently, technical and motivational dynamic capability development needed to be proactively initiated by focal companies. As stressed by earlier studies, sustainability must be a shared effort within all functions of a company and across its supply network. Sustainability could be disseminated across the chain only when all supply chain actors, including retailers, suppliers and sub-contractors, connect, understand and collaborate with each other. Correspondingly, it became clear that sustainability management required strong organizational commitment for which an alignment between financial and non-financial goals was greatly required. Hence, education and training activities received growing attention. In conclusion, the sample companies asked their supply chain partners to become sustainable for two main reasons, (i) to make the chain stronger, and (ii) to jointly learn and improve performance. Long-term relationships and supplier stability, as evidenced in the leather supply chains, could cultivate trust, which would result in advanced organizational and operational performance improvements. Supplier engagement and collaboration associated with knowledge dissemination could further enable companies to improve sustainability, and lastly innovation capabilities were imperative.

With the advances in digital and social media technologies, sportswear and athletic shoe brands have provided more technology-based services to their consumers (Do et al., 2015). Accordingly, the importance of direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales has been increased, especially DTC sales through social media and mobile technologies. In the case of Nike, the relative contribution of DTC sales has been increased over the last few years in comparison to the sales to wholesalers while sales to wholesalers are still the primary revenue source (Soni, 2014). Despite the increasing importance of DTC sales, Nike is lagging in the market in terms of the ratio of DTC revenue to total revenue as opposed to its competitors (Soni, 2014). In response, Nike has implemented various DTC initiatives using digital and social media to facilitate demand creation and maintain market dominance (Guard, 2013; Heitner, 2016; Soni, 2014). In an effort to increase the DTC revenues, Nike introduced the new Nike+ app in 2016; however, the new app has been not well received by the public due to some functionality and gamification issues (Welch, 2016). Given the importance of the mobile apps’ forefront role for any sports brand, it is critical to understand what influence the adoption and use of the brand apps in order to increase the user satisfaction level and adoption. Thus, the current study examined factors influencing consumers’ use of a sports brand app using the modified technology acceptance model (Davis et al., 1992; Ha et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2017). Data were collected from 261 Nike+ Run Club app users using convenience sampling method. Of 216 app users, 133 respondents (51%) were female 129 were male (49%). About 64.8% were between the ages of 20 and 39 years and 35.2% were aged over 40 years. All respondents had previous experience with the Nike+ app. The questionnaire included the scales that measure perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, intention to use, and actual usage frequency as well as personal information. Harman’s single factor test was conducted to examine a possibility of the common method variance (MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). Data were primarily analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA). PLS algorithm procedures were performed to examine the hypothesized relationships in the research model (Ringle et al., 2015). The level of enjoyment had a significant positive effect on perceived ease of use (beta = .58, t = 11.94) while perceived ease of use positively affected perceived usefulness (beta = .58, t = 9.81). Behavioral intention was significantly influenced by perceived enjoyment (beta = .45, t = 7.46), followed by perceived usefulness (beta = .32, t = 3.64), and perceived ease of use (beta = .16, t = 2.07). As expected, behavioral intention positively affected actual behavior (beta = .31, t = 5.90). PLS-MGA was conducted to explore the differences between three age groups; 20s (n = 78), 30s (n = 91) and over 40 (n = 92), in regard to the use of a sports brand app. The relationship between variables was stronger with younger age groups, except the relationship between perceived enjoyment and behavioral intention. The greater the age, the greater the influence of perceived enjoyment on behavioral intention. However, only the path from perceived ease of use to behavioral intention was significantly different between the 20s and above 40 groups. The present study provides evidence supporting the efficacy of the modified TAM for predicting behavioral intention and actual use in the context of a sports brand app. In general, results from the current study suggest that perceived enjoyment is a more powerful predictor than perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. In this regard, the concept of gamification should be tactically applied when developing and improving a sports brand app in order to create engaging experience with enjoyment (Hofacker et al., 2016; Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011). Also, given that perceived usefulness is greatly influenced by confirmation of expectations, the sports brand app provider should conduct a more thorough market research to understand what is expected by app users and ways to meet their expectations (Yoon & Rolland, 2015). In addition, the current study found some evidences of age-related differences in the adoption and use of a sports brand app (Ha et al., 2015). More detailed results and discussion will be presented at the conference.

Emotional sharing of brand has a power of connecting brand and consumer brand and consumer by transcending rational reason.