Innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry: Entrepreneurial drivers, opportunities, and challenges

Bruna Villa Todeschini, Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, Daniela Callegaro-de-Menezes and Antonio Ghezzi

Business Horizons, 2017, vol. 60, issue 6, 759-770

Abstract: New and existing companies are looking for ways to thrive in a competitive environment with innovative business models while respecting society and avoiding actions that harm the planet. Trends such as circular economy, fair trade, lowsumerism, and sharing economy are some of the many emerging entrepreneurial approaches that address this issue, but there is still a gap between what theory argues and the levels of environmental and social sustainability realized when theory is put into practice. In fact, most research on the topic of sustainable business models is still exploratory and does not fully acknowledge these emerging approaches, whose definitions, boundaries, and defining characteristics are still somewhat vague. This study seeks to contribute to the understanding of the inner entrepreneurial dynamics of innovative sustainable business models. In particular, we focus on the fashion business, a resource-intensive industry in which opportunities to reduce environmental impacts and to innovate business models abound. The aim of our research is to investigate innovative business models in the fashion industry that have sustainability as their defining characteristic, especially in terms of value proposition. In order to do that, we combine a systematic review of the literature with empirical research comprised of six interviews with specialists in sustainability, business model innovation, and the fashion industry, along with eight case studies on innovative fashion startups we define as ‘born sustainable.’ As a result, we propose a synthesizing framework that discloses trends and drivers of innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry. We also highlight opportunities and challenges for researchers and entrepreneurs interested in this topic.

Keywords: Business model innovation; Sustainable fashion; Born-sustainable startups; Social value creation; Slow fashion; Upcycling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (71)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681317301015
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:60:y:2017:i:6:p:759-770

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2017.07.003

Access Statistics for this article

Business Horizons is currently edited by C. M. Dalton

More articles in Business Horizons from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().