Introduction This paper investigates the implementation possibilities of the Industry 4.0 systems within the production of fashion luxury goods by collecting the opinion of the managers and the perception of the potential customers. The results indicate that technologies 4.0 can be implemented within luxury fashion production without affecting the quality of the finished product. However customers are negatively prevented against them. Therefore, giving the present situation of the fashion industry, now more demanding than ever, it would be appropriate to implement such systems without disclosing it to customers. Theoretical development With this research we aim to demonstrate that in the world of luxury fashion production there is room, if not the need, to implement the technologies of the Industry 4.0 without affecting the quality of the final product. We believe it is crucial that the luxury environment starts to seriously consider the Industry 4.0 as the former, in recent years, has become ever more challenging. Since luxury has become more accessible to masses, customers are no longer content just by getting the product, they often want it before the general public has it or fully customized to distinguish themselves. This implies a reduction of production times together with multiple rearrangements of the entire production process. Which is why we need to start thinking about Luxury and Industry 4.0. The concept of Industry 4.0 started developing with the exponential involvement of technological means during production processes of any kind. The term describes the model of the “smart” factory of the future where computer-driven systems “monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions” based on self-organization mechanisms (Smith, 2016). The goal of the industry 4.0 is to reach a deeper interconnection and cooperation between the available resources and the final customer; it’s a multiple layer engagement composed by complex machines, people, products, information within the production sight and all along the value chain (Tolio, 2016). The implementation of such systems allows achieving better levels of efficiency and contributes to increase the competitive advantage; it is a revolution that involves a company at all levels from the production centers to human resources. Although luxury fashion is a quite peculiar industry, all its processes are still very much cyclical and could benefit from the help of such implementations. The main technologies that are often quoted as being at the core of the Industry 4.0 are IoT (Internet of Things), big data, additive manufacturing, 3D printing, augmented reality and new generation robots. All this may seem too futuristic for an industry such as luxury that has always been associated with craftsmanship. When defining luxury in fact, one of the qualities attributed to this kind of products is the “strong connection with the past proven by the tradition handed down over time” (Dubois, 2001); a description that can be taken quite literally as the heritage of the brand is built upon the traditions passed on by the different artisans who crafted the product. But if we fraction the production process and analyze it in depth, we will see that it is cyclical, and that some of its parts may benefit from such technologies that would make it leaner without affecting the quality of the end product. An example of this can be seen in the laser cutting machines for leather. A robot can cut the elements required to compose a bag in a few minutes, while it would take up to half an hour to do it by hand. Even if mechanically cut though, the bag will still need to be assembled by a highly skilled artisan to become the exceptional quality product that customers expect to see in stores. Many are afraid that technological implementations will lead to the disappearance of the artisanal component failing to understand that the Industry 4.0 is not about complete automation but rather about human-machine interaction. Talking about production we will refer to the process in its integrity, from the sketches to the products in the stores. Research design The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews to questiont professionals who work in different stages of luxury fashion production for different companies. All the interviewees were chosen among the industry biggest players: LVMH, Kering, Richemont, Hermès, Chanel and others. To establish the sample of interviewees we divided the production process into four main phases and then identified at least one professional to question for each one of them. The subdivision we applied was the following: ⦁ Phase 1 - Creation & Design ⦁ Phase 2 - Production & Merchandising ⦁ Phase 3 - Retail & Marketing ⦁ Phase 4 - Supply Chain & Distribution Each interviewee was asked a set of specific questions related to the complexities of their job and the problems encountered while doing it (Appendix 1). Among the sample there were two professionals that did not belong to the production process but that we deemed necessary to involve to have a more complete outcome. One is a Professor of Fashion design at the Politecnico of Milan, the other is a Strategic Planning Analyst who works for Lectra, one of the biggest companies producing technologies for fashion. In order to investigate the perception of the customers we distributed a multiple choice survey to a heterogeneous sample of 200 people. Among the questions asked one was strictly related to the use of technology while the others regarded arguments, related to its utilization, that emerged while interviewing the professionals. Despite not being directly on the use of technology, we deemed the other queries important to evaluate if the problems emerged from the interviews were relevant also from a customer point of view. The questions submitted via survey were the followings: 1) On a scale of 1 to 4, (1= low interest, 4=high interest) how interested are you in luxury goods? 2) How much worth is being able to buy a luxury good before it is on sale in stores? (1= not worth, 4= very worth) 3) Would you think of higher quality a bag completely handcrafted rather than the very same bag produced also by using industrial processes? 4) Would you attribute a higher value to a luxury product conceived to be respectful for the environment? The survey ended up highlighting that customers have a negative bias towards the exploitation of such systems within the production of luxury goods. In fact they attribute a higher value to completely handcrafted products, without considering the possibility that the latters may have more defects. The methodology used was successful in helping us understanding the opinion of the management along with the perceptions of the customers. Moreover, through the interviews we were able to highlight practical daily problems encountered by people directly involved in the production process. Results and conclusion We used the problems that arose as bases to begin thinking what could be concretely implemented, in which phase and with what goal. We started by focusing our attention on five points that currently challenge production and could be exploited as opportunities for the implementation of specific technology. Nevertheless, we also highlighted three main limits that might prevent the application of said technology. The opportunities of implementation were the following: Production times - Representing one of the biggest problems in the industry, we believe that technology could come to the rescue especially in the first two stages of the process. For example, the use of 3D printing to produce some prototypes or certain components that could be useful for reducing time and costs. Another example is Modaris 3D, a new generation software that allows you to digitize the pattern allowing you to see it in 3D. Exploiting this software would allow to predict the potential problems of the prototype before even crafting it and would help save a lot of time and resources. Not to mention that digitized patterns can be archived and easily reused later. Moreover, the exploitation of the new generation robots to pre-cut certain components would once again allow a shorter production time and reduce costs. Couterfeiting - Another implementation opportunity is represented by counterfeiting. Now that online commerce is booming, the fake industry is at its peak and people find it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not. IoT technologies could help immensely with this problem. One of the interviewees working in the distribution phase told us that today when the products are shipped, in order to track them down and recognize them from counterfeits, companies install into their pockets RFID chips, small chips similar to those of credit cards. Their limitation though is that they can be traced or recognized only if scanned. The use of IoT technologies on this type of device (for example, providing the same type of support with a GPS) would allow them to be interactive and serve their purpose even better when the products are shipped all over the world. Sustainability - In recent years the problem of sustainability has become increasingly relevant, to the point that some luxury empires have been built on it, as in the case of Stella McCartney. To pay more attention to the environmental cause, fashion houses could start by wasting less resources. One way to do this could be to use software to optimize pattern placements on fabrics or on leather. Human supervision would still be required, as some pieces need to be cut from specific parts of the leather but it would certainly help in making some useful proposals. Internal communication – Internal communication is a problem at all levels of the production process. It can be an issue especially when it comes to communicating the intentions of the design team to the production and controlling the stock level in real time. In the first case, to solve the problem, we could consider the implementation of a software like PLM (Product Life Management). This type of program helps to follow the transformation from sketches to prototypes to products, providing detailed information on everything that is present on the garment, specifying consumption and costs of materials. With regard to the inventory control problem, we could again use the help of the IoT. Inventory control is a problem both in terms of raw materials (for all those houses that produce prototypes internally) and finished products. In the first case a potential solution could be to label the raw materials with magnetic labels that would allow to see immediately when the components leave the stock. In the second case, as previously mentioned, supplying the finished products with IoT chips would help to locate them and know how many are in stock. Demand forecast – Another major help that industry 4.0 could bring to fashion production is the exploitation of big data to forecast the demand. Nowadays in fact, the constant and hardly predictable changes in fashion heavily affect a demand that already has few reference standards. When it comes to forecast, several factors have an impact on it: trends, social medias, consumption habits etc. The most unpredictable of these factors is probably represented by the social media as clients may cause a peek in demand after seeing a celebrity or an influencer wearing a specific product. Giving all this, it's evident how the more variables we are able to consider when doing forecasts, the better the chances of predicting a scenario close to reality and Big Data would allow to do so. As previously mentioned we also highlighted some limits that could prevent implementation: Costs - The more significant limit when talking about this kind of technology is related to costs. It is important to consider both the ones needed to purchase the technology as well as the ones to train the employees in order to make the implementation possible. As we all know technology is extremely expensive, and in a certain way a form of luxury itself, often being just for few. The size of the brand would modulate of course the amount of the investment in it. Client perception & adverse attitude – The survey pointed out that clients are negatively biased towards technology and, if informed that the product has been realized with the help of technological means, may attribute to it a lower value. What it's necessary to keep in mind though, is that, when taking a survey, you are in front of a screen and not in front of the products. I believe in fact that if a "blind" test was conducted presenting two products of which one completely handcrafted and the other realized by artisans who exploited technological means as well, no one would be able to tell the difference. Training of employees - Another big challenge in the implementation of such systems is the training of the employees. Implementing these technologies for some employees may mean learning again how to do their job with the help of a computer. Being an environment where youngsters are outscored due to the lack of experience, this may represent a problem. In conclusion our research proved that there is indeed room to implement the 4.0 systems as the issues emerged can be partially, if not completely, solved by introducing these technologies making the process leaner and more efficient. Nevertheless, giving the fact that customers are negatively biased towards their use, it would be appropriate avoiding to disclose the information with them.

Social media have altered the communication landscape and significantly impacted brand communications in the luxury fashion industry. Research suggests that with the rise of social media, brand communication has been democratised, and the power has shifted from those in marketing to the individuals and communities that create and consume content, redistributing it across a variety of channels (Kozinets, Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010; Kumar & Sundaram, 2012). Yet the implications of social media are still largely unknown among practitioners and managers. Moreover, there is a lack of effective frameworks for developing, analysing and comparing social-media strategies (Effing & Spil, 2016). Scholars have just started giving their attention to the subject of ‘social-media strategy’ as such, highlighting a gap in our knowledge, which this study seeks to address. The aim of this research is to understand the role of social media as a strategic brand-communications tool in the luxury fashion industry. Firstly, the main theoretical contribution is the development of a conceptual framework that enables an understanding, explanation and description of the process of building a social-media strategy. There has been a call for this type of research from a managerial perspective, across multiple platforms and objectives, and this work provides much-needed insights. Secondly, the findings provide valuable managerial insights. The conceptual framework emerging from this research is a managerial tool that can be used to tackle the process of building a social-media strategy and to identify its key elements. In particular, the framework can be deployed to guide and evaluate the process of creating a social-media strategy. With the help of the framework, managers can harness their resources successfully and identify the factors that need to be considered. Moreover, the framework aims to guide managerial action towards a sustainable social-media approach that helps to build competitive advantage for global luxury fashion brands in the longer term.

Crowdsourcing models in which organizaions obtain needed product ideas and services from a crowd in a network-based society are rising as a global industry trend. The purpose of this study was to figure out the types and characteristics of crowdsourcing design shown in the domestic fashion brands, and to provide implications for design strategies using crowdsourcing. This study was based on qualitative research which was brand case studies on crowdsourcing design in the fashion industry from January 2006 to July 2017. Also, quantitative analysis using frequency and percentage was applied. The results were as follows: First, crowdsourcing design was used in almost all types of fashion brands, such as sports and outdoor wear, men’s wear, women’s wear, men’s and women’s casual wear, shoes, bags, school uniforms, jeans, accessories, etc. Crowdsourcing design in the fashion industry was classified into three types: crowdsourcing graphics and artwork; crowdsourcing customized designs; and crowdsourcing product designs. Of the three types, crowdsourcing graphics and artwork was used most. There were four methods to choose the best crowsourced design: review only by experts, voting by crowd and review by experts, crowdvoting, and crowdfunding. Second, the characteristics of crowdsourcing design were openness, participation, reward and acknowledgement, sharing and interaction, and individualized collective intelligence. Crowdsourcing design could be used as an open innovation strategy in the fashion industry, which could collect new and creative design ideas for product development, resulting in the satisfaction of consumers and benefitting the company.

One specific manifestation of CSR is the solicitation of donations in collaboration with an NGO. Especially in an online environment, companies can easily control if they present donation options to consumers either before or after the actual purchase moment of their products. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the sequence of purchase and donation requests in the customer journey influences the willingness to donate to a charitable cause and the potential revenues for the seller. As theoretical frame, we use two related concepts of moral self-regulation, namely moral licensing and moral cleansing. We assume that consumers spend a higher sum on a luxury product after donating to an NGO (moral licensing) and vice versa donate a higher sum to charity after purchasing a self-indulgent product (moral cleansing). While we do not consider luxury products as morally questionable per se, prior research has shown that consumers repeatedly feel bad after purchasing a luxury item. Our results indicate that the moral cleansing effect is present in our experiment. On average, participants who first indicate their WTP for a luxury product are subsequently more prone to donating money to an NGO. We could not observe a moral licensing effect at large. Both conditions lead to comparable mean WTP measures, hence to similar total potential revenues. In general, our results indicate that both parties profit the most, if donation options are available after purchase decisions.

The fashion products are believed that reinforce the inequities, exploit workers, spur resource use, increase environmental impact, and generate waste. Sustainability has been recognized as a major concern worldwide, and this also increases considerations regarding the challenges to business need to be faced in the fashion industry. When the fashion industry aims to promote sustainability, the main change factors have been linked to environmental and ethical issues in production. This paper aims to exploring an index for measuring sustainable performance of fashion company based on customer’s perception. The index measurement system is built from the basic dimensions of sustainability: economic, environment and social and the key influencing items in fashion industry: culture. Culture acts an important role in fashion consumption since it gives effects to customer’s behaviou and customer self-identity. Based on these four dimensions the this study designs a model related with customer’s perception and expectation to measure the evaluation of fashion company’s sustainable performance. Based on the result of index this paper studies how the customer’s evaluation upon sustainable performance works on customer’s loyalty. This index is designed for evaluating the sustainable performance of fashion company and give a direction to the managers in fashion industry that what the advantage is and weakness is in the sustainability strategy. It is efficiency for the managers to improve the sustainability strategy to match customer’s needs for engaging long-term benefit from fashion customers.

The main objective of this study is to compare the difference of consumers’ perception on brand context. The focal factors are brand equity, brand personality and perceived customer value. This would enhance the knowledge of cross-cultural brand equity and brand personality, especially in Fast-Fashion industry. In addition, the findings of this study show that, for a brand in different marketing context, how customers perceive the brand and contribute it to their value. The sample size of 800 consumers is applied (400 Japanese consumers and 400 Thai consumers. The focal brand is randomly selected by the researcher. The Structural Equation Modelling with multiple group analysis would be conducted for examining the differences of consumer perception on a Fast-Fashion brand. All major model fits indicator would be evaluated. Finally, the results of the study would be discussed.

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.

Luxury goods are characterised by a series of traits such as exclusivity, rarity, premium price, high quality and aesthetic value, but also to specific methods of production that focus on notions of excellent workmanship carried out by expert craftspeople. This paper focuses on the problematic relationship between craftsmanship and the luxury fashion industry by examining how representations of craftsmanship are employed by luxury fashion labels in their communication strategies. In particular, the strategies employed by Dolce&Gabbana will be examined. It will be argued that the label has emphasised in its online communication the craftsmanship involved in the creation of its products, but it will be observed how that element is presented only in association to limited categories of goods, and not to the totality of products that are associated to the name of the fashion brand. The case study of Dolce&Gabbana will be explored with regards to the role that the label's online communication strategies attributes to notions of Italian handmade craftsmanship, and in this sense those practices will be examined in terms of national identity. This phenomenon will also be contextualised in terms of the contemporary marketing strategies employed by luxury fashion labels and the relationship they hold with regards to traditional conceptualisations of luxury.

Purpose: While many consumers claim to include ethical considerations in their consumption behavior, only a small fraction adheres to these self-made standards. For example, although two thirds of consumers polled by Nielsen in 2015 in thirteen countries stated to be willing to pay more for sustainable brands only ten percent actually purchased this type of product. Even if responsibly produced products still only account for a small share of the market they represent a pervasive marketing phenomenon that merits further scientific research. The so-called attitude-behavior-gap has received a considerable amount of attention not only in the business context, but also in scientific marketing research. Nevertheless, previous studies commonly discussed responsible consumption from an information-processing perspective concentrating on the rational and goal-directed side of responsible consumption. What is still largely missing, though, is the consideration of emotions as drivers or influencing factors for consumer responsibility, even though the few existing studies suggest a positive influence. This holds especially true for the self-conscious emotions of guilt and pride. Furthermore, the few studies at hand generally focus on non-durable goods like tea, coffee or juice and leave a research gap with regard to durable products like fashion items. Thus, the aim of this study is to further investigate the influence of self-conscious emotions on responsible consumption in the context of the fashion industry. Specifically, the influence of the two emotions guilt and pride as well as the influence of social visibility on the consumer’s decision-making and purchasing process shall be investigated. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method approach containing qualitative and quantitative methods is applied. While in-depth interviews and focus groups with fashion consumers shed light on potential influencing factors and outcomes of self-conscious emotions, a scenario-based experiment further validates these results on influence of guilt and pride in the context of responsible consumption. The experiment follows a 2 (negative vs. positive responsibility outcome) x 2 (social vs. no social visibility) design and is conducted via online questionnaires. Findings: Experiences of self-conscious emotions provide feedback on past behavior that ultimately leads to a revised behavior linked to consumer responsibility in the future. Specifically, pride (guilt) can potentially lead to increased (diminished) word-of-mouth and purchase intentions. Research limitations/implications: Limitations lie in the type of research design as a scenario-based experiment was chosen for the quantitative study. Future research should investigate the topic at hand with a field study, ideally with a suitable partner from the industry. Another limitation lies in the examination of only one industry that strongly differs from other industries. Further investigations should compare the self-conscious emotions’ impacts on different types of industries. Practical implications: The current research provides suggestions on the adequate use of communications to promote sustainable fashion brands and to develop according campaigns that elicit emotional reactions from consumers. Furthermore, although guilt and pride refer to past behavior, they can nevertheless be used by management to influence future consumer actions, e.g. choice of responsibly produced garments as opposed to conventional ones. Incentives for successful word-of-mouth of sustainable fashion brands could strengthen this effect. Additionally, the final results deliver insights on whether social visibility should be increased (e.g. through offerings in offline channels) or rather reduced (e.g. through promotions in online channels). Originality/value: This study closes a research gap by investigating consumer responsibility not from an information-processing, but an emotion-based perspective. It furthermore complements research on emotions in the context of responsible consumption by investigating durable products, namely fashion items, that differ strongly from previously examined product groups like tea or coffee.

Sustainability was first presented in 1972. It was how biological systems remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. Now, people do not only focus on economy but also focus on social, environment and culture. In this paper we try to find out how to build sustainability index based on customers’ perception of companies’ sustainable performance in fashion industry. The index was explored based on American Customer Satisfaction Index. Through testing the sustainability performance of fashion industry using sustainability index this study tries to find out how customers were affected by fashion companies sustainability performance and how to improve customer repurchase intention through sustainability performance.

Due to the highly competitive nature of the apparel industry, fashion brands attempt to constantly engage consumers through various marketing strategies. Social media was found to drive female consumer purchases for apparel items. In shopping for fashion, consumers have used their personal connections on social media as an information source about different brands and products and to seek approval of their peers before making a purchase decision (Park & Cho, 2012). Cha (2009) found that female consumers look to their social media network connections for emotional connections, opinions, and approval on clothing, perfume, and accessories they are considering purchasing online. Ruane and Wilson (2013) found that female consumers use social media sites for information on where to shop and what merchandise to purchase. In studying the effect of blogs on corporate outcome, the role Millennials play is found to be significant. They are heavily reliant on word of mouth when up to 93% of Millennials has purchased a product after hearing about it from a family member or friend (Hoffmann, 2014). They not only usually read reviews prior to purchase, but also pass their recommendations via social media post-purchase (Hoffman, 2014). This age group constitutes 27% of the US population and in spite of their lower incomes, they spend more money on e-commerce than any other age group ($2,000 annually) (Smith, 2015). Therefore, this study aims to suggest strategies to fashion brands on effective blog campaign, which may eventually provide insights on how marketers can encourage engagement with female Millennial apparel consumers. The study’s objectives are 1) to examine the effect of brand awareness building customer’s brand credibility, brand similarity and blog engagement 2) to investigate the impact of brand responses on customer’s brand credibility, brand similarity and blog engagement, and 3) interaction effect between brand awareness and brand responses on customer engagement through cognitive evaluation in fashion blog context. A 3 (brand response: automated response, personalized response, no response) x2 (Brand awareness: well know, unknown) experimental design was developed through a pre-test of 139 participants. For main-test, experiment conditions and the following survey were completed by the convenience sample of 537 students in a large Southern university. Research findings revealed the significant impact of brand awareness on customer perceived brand credibility and brand similarity which were significant predictors of engagement intention. In contrast, the study indicated the insignificant relationship between brand responses and blog engagement intention. Study’s result not only suggested implications for marketers but also expanded further studies contributing on the body of knowledge.

Since the arrival of omni-channel retailing, which promotes seamless experience for consumers and zero effort commerce, channel integration has been a big issue in both the domestic and the international retail industry. Some researchers have identified problems that can occur in the process of channel integration, such as cannibalization and channel conflict (Coelho & Easingwood, 2003). However, many studies on channel integration report its positive impact on a firm’s revenue growth through improved trust (Schramm-Klein & Morschett, 2006), higher consumer conversion rates (Neslin et al., 2006), and greater cross-selling opportunities (Berry et al., 2010). Regarding the issue of effectively establishing channel integration in order to bring positive synergy to a company, the present study intends to identify a solution within a company’s internal factors. This study aims to provide a strategic perspective on channel integration formation of domestic fashion retailers by identifying some of the key organizational components that drive a firm’s channel integration in this omni-channel era, when the boundaries between online and offline markets are disappearing. This study predicts that organizational structure and strategic orientation are the key components of a fashion retailer’s channel integration implementation in an omni-channel environment. As shown in previous studies, channel integration has a positive impact on a firm’s performance through active and innovative transformation of the organization’s hardware and software (Cao & Li, 2015; Yan, Wang, & Zhou, 2010). In particular, this study introduces channel (extension) strategies (number of different types of channels in both online and offline markets) into channel integration as one of the crucial variables, in addition to the two existing variables. The data were collected through a survey targeting mid-level executives or above, within a business unit of Korea’s fashion companies with over $10 million revenue. Through this selection, a total of 120 samples were used in the final analysis. Hierarchical regression modeling was used to prove the study’s hypothesis. The revenue size of a parent company and SBU was used as a control variable in the level 1 model; channel strategies in the level 2 model; organizational structure in the level 3 model, and organization strategic orientation in the level 4 model, which was used as an independent variable. Integrated back-end system and integrated human resource management, which are the highest levels of channel integration (Cao & Li, 2015; Oh, Teo, & Sambamurthy, 2012), have been used as dependent variables. The main findings of this study are as follows: In a back-end system integration model, organization strategic orientation was identified as the highest level when the organizational structure becomes more centralized, whereas the system integration level is the highest when the model is competitor-oriented and innovation-oriented. In the human resource management integration model, the human resource management integration level is at its highest when the organizational structure becomes formalized and specialized, and organization strategic behavior becomes more competitor-oriented and innovation-oriented.

With increasing challenges like climate change, companies are confronted with rising expectations from stakeholders, especially consumers. The paper investigates consumers’ reactions towards CSR strategies using a case-study and focus-groups. Results imply that digitally-based strategies at the core of newly found fashion companies are perceived generally positive, although with mixed impressions.

Logistics had only been perceived as a supporting means or auxiliary of corporate activity, but is now surfacing as a priority sector for competitiveness in the infinite competition of the global market. This study looks into the current status of logistics and sets forth the improvement tasks by analyzing the problems of the returned goods logistics. In order to improve the manual process of returned goods, the POS system (point-of-sales system) was implemented and DAS (Digital Assorting System) and SORTER System were synchronized for utilization, which cut the prime cost of the once expensive returned goods logistics, and analyzed the efficiency of establishing automated logistics system for efficiency of returned goods logistics in the aspects of one-stop BPR (Business Process Re-engineering).

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the emotional leadership of the CEO of a fashion company has a significant influence on corporate performance. In this study, a survey was conducten on employees of fashion companies from August 1 to 30, 2015, and 350 copies of questionnaires were collected and used for analysis. Factor analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis were employed to analyze the data using SPSS software (ver. 21.0). According to the study results, if a fashion company CEO has higher emotional leadership, it leads to an increase in the job satisfaction and performance of the staff members, and an improvement in new product performance thanks to more investment and development and an expanded R&D staff. Additionally, the higher emotional leadership of the CEO contributes to an increase in operating profits, sales, and market share. Therefore, the importance of organizational culture was confirmed by its regulation effect on the emotional leadership and management performance of a fashion company. According to the results of this study, the emotional leadership of a CEO plays an important role in improving the performance of a fashion company, and future studies are needed to identify how to enhance the corporate performance of a fashion company from various perspectives.

This paper utilizes a categorical approach, proposing and validating a comprehensive model that facilitates the understanding of the structure of the luxury fashion industry through the lens of the consumer. It explores the value dimensions of luxury fashion products and clarifies the confusion that is evident in the earlier luxury literature.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine factors affecting customers’ intention to buy apparels through mobile apps. The proposed model was evaluated using survey data collected from 304 mobile app users and assessed by structural equation modeling. Our study contributes to a theoretical understanding of mobile apps usage.

In the international literature, there is an increasing attention on the analysis of the fashion city (Breward & Gilbert, 2006) and its implication on city branding and competitiveness (Jensen, 2005; Power & Hauge, 2008; Pasquinelli, 2010) and local identity (Bovone, 2006). Some examples are the study of Weller (2013) who examines the success of New Zealand’s designer fashion industry in the first years of the twenty-first century. Hauge, Malmberg & Power (2009) analyse the Swedish fashion cluster underlining that it is benefit from localisation economies, but it also follow rules of globalised industries. Rantisi (2004) examines how New York City was able to reinvent itself as a fashion capital. By tracing the origins of women's ready-to-wear in New York in the late nineteenth century and its consolidation in the Garment District by the early twentieth century. Jansson & Power (2010) approaches the ways in which fashion and design-based industrial actors contribute to creating images and myths that support global-city status. The Italian city of Milan is used as a case study to show how the city is an arena where different brand channels are negotiated and formed to service fashion and design branding. Fashion capitals usually have a broad mix of business, financial, entertainment, cultural and leisure activities and are internationally recognised for having a unique and strong identity (Gemperli, 2010) In this chart of fashion capital city, Italy ranked in a good position with Milan as capital fashion city. Milan emerged as a fashion capital city in 1970s, while Florence and Rome stayed in the following positions (Merlo & Polese, 2006). Florence is usually ranked in the third position in Italy thanks to the luxury pole around the metropolitan area with global brand as Gucci, Ferragamo and Prada. The Global Fashion Monitor (2012) scored Florence at the thirteen position at global level in the ‘World's Leading Cities for Fashion’, with a gain of three position from previous chart and indicating as motivation “Florence: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli — A proud heritage to a thriving fashion industry”. This situation anyways is not guaranteed in the future. In fact some authors also underlined that this chart of global city will not be maintained in the future as city from developing countries are increasingly enter in the competition (McKinsey, 2013; Gilbert, 2006). In particular, McKinsey (2013) ranks Paris, London, Milan and Seoul in the mature growing fashion industry in the Luxury segment, while Moscow, Singapore, San Peterbrurg, Beijing, Shangai, San Paolo etc as emerging city in the global fashion industry. FASHION AND CITY BRANDING Crewe & Beaverstock (1998) underlined the contemporary fashion industry and the role it plays in identity formation has created a situation where fashion can be taken seriously as a cultural industry supplying symbolic content in sold goods. In this context fashion is identified as a powerful stylistic marker, not a simply part of a trivial consumer culture. Jansson & Power (2010) underlined that the value of global fashion city-based brands lies partly in their ability to persuade consumers of products’excellence, quality, and innovation. Also, the brand infuses products (and firms) with the ‘feel’ of the city: cool clothes come from cool cities. Labels of origin such as ‘Made in Italy’ or Rive Gauche are used as strategic tools in the fashion industry (Hauge et al., 2009). Positive connections between product images and place may create a kind of monopoly rent and therein can create barriers to entry for products from competing places; and give firms an incentive for being in the ‘right’ place. Jansson & Power (2010) underline also that clustering in few fashion city produce also some other benefits as agglomerations of firms and consumers play a central role in the gathering, creation, and transfer of industry-relevant knowledge and cluster of creative industries (Lazzeretti & Capone, 2015). There is in fact an increasing effort in the research on the city branding with the help of local industry and local cultural production (Jensen, 2005). Breward & Gilber (2006) have underlined that city branding is more a focus from city authorities in order to appear in the global hierarchy of fashion capital. Niedamysl (2004) besides points out that city branding has the main aim of attracting visitors, investors or inhabitants. Power & Hauge (2008) discuss the role of the branding for territories, places and cities, underlining that has been a topic deeply undervalued for territorial competitiveness and they analyse the fashion industry as an example. City branding is a recent strand of research with a growing trend (Merrilees, Miller & Herington, 2009) and it results a complex research theme, due to its multidisciplinary approach (Pike, 2011). Born at the beginning for the analysis of the image of the city, it deals increasingly with analysis of marketing strategies and policy for urban context (Merrilees, Miller & Herington, 2012). At the moment, it is a theme that rise interest from different subjects as marketing, management, but also urban studies, economic geography and urban and regional development. If an analysis on ISI Web of Science is developed on ‘city branding’, over 100 articles are collected on these themes with article from the following Journal as Cities, International Journal of Tourism Science, Journal of Business Research, Urban Studies, Applied Geography, Current Issues in Tourism, European Journal of Marketing, etc. These Journals confirm the multidisciplinary approach and the interest on city branding from several stakeholders: policy-makers, urban planners, marketing strategist, urban developer, etc. Within the theme, several studies have focused on how city branding is particularly attached to some local industries and activities, that denote the area and the city. In this context, one of the most interesting aspect is interactions between branding and fashion (Jansson & Power, 2010; Hauge et al .. 2009; Martinez, 2007). The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of fashion and fashion design for the city of Florence, in the formation of a new image of the city, also in a perspective of new branding strategies for the future. The analysis is based on a multi-level approach. First, an initial analysis is developed on publications on ‘city branding’ on ISI Web of Science to identify the relevance of the theme and the most used methodologies in these studies. The second part of the work is instead based on analysis of reviews of online communities (TripAdvisor, Twitter, etc.) of the attractions of the city and a questionnaire is administrated to visitors of the main fashion outlets in Florence (The Mall, Barberino Desegner Outlet, etc.), in order to emphasize the perception of visitors and consumers of fashion in the city and how it contributes to the fashion city branding of the city of Florence. From the point of view of marketing, several authors have tried to analyse the brand association in fashion (Ranfagni, Guercini & Crawford, 2014), but mainly from the point of view of products. In this work, we try to contribute to this debate through the analysis of online communities and city branding of Florence. Merrilees et al. (2009) investigate what are the city attributes influencing city brand attitudes with a quantitative survey of a sample of 878 residents of the Gold Coast City. Hankinson's (2001) study of twelve English cities shows the diversity of approaches in how city organizations market and brand themselves. Vanolo (2008) analysed the city of Turin and its transition from post-industrial to a cultural and creative city. This work develop a single stake-holder perspective as most studies avoid to considers multiple stakeholders perception on city branding (Merrilees et al., 2012). Results confirm the importance of the fashion industry in the perceived image of Florence from the visitors and for the future city branding policies are even more strategic to continue to exploit the competitive advantage that Florence has in the fashion industry globally.

The aim of this paper is to understand which are the most effective social media strategies for gaining customer engagement for fashion companies. The study has been conducted using the empirical research methodology and the information has been collected with the use of an online survey distributed among companies belonging to the fashion industry. 42 questionnaires have been collected and therefore discussed. The analysis led to the definition of a list of strategies used by fashion companies on the adoption of social media tools. Subsequently, activities and the social tools able to improve customer engagement have been analysed. Finally, according to the size of the companies and to their positioning on the market, a descriptive analysis of the results have been carried out, comparing companies with similar characteristics. The research shows that companies of the same segment adopt the same approach to social media as well as a similar set of social media marketing strategies. The findings of this paper confirm the growing interest both from academics and practitioners for Social Media Marketing tools and they will suggest implications to fashion brands to manage their customer engagement and their social media activity.