Clothing Company Research Articles

Discovering complex interdependencies in organizational settings

PurposeThe paper's aim is twofold: to display how the application of social network analysis techniques to observational data provides researchers with a unique set of data to make sense of the dynamics of organizational settings; to contribute to knowledge on group design, self‐managing teams, and processes of technology diffusion.Design/methodology/approachThe paper focuses on the findings of qualitative research, recently published, that were conducted in a major Italian clothing company producing garments for the top‐end market. Observation, ethnographic interviews and analysis of documents for data collection were employed. Coding procedures and social network analysis techniques were used to analyse data.FindingsThe long presence in the field allowed for the building of two grounded theories. One deals with the process of Computer Aided Design technology diffusion into a small group and it connects a number of variables usually studied separately in the literature. The second accounts for the enactment of spontaneous self‐managing practices in a group formally designed as a manager‐led team.Research limitation/implicationsThe grounded theories are formulated for specific social settings and future research could benefit from replications in different contexts to capture other phenomena leading to different categories to be integrated into the theories or to corroborate them.Originality/valueThe paper derived enacted network data from the direct and prolonged observation of actors as opposed to self‐reported network data. This allowed clarification of the actual content and the quality of the interactions among actors, and to move beyond their quantification, thus enhancing the comprehension of the impact of network relationships upon organizational behaviour.

Performing the Commodity-Sign: Dancing in the Gap

Between 1998 and 2000, the Gap clothing company produced three advertising campaigns whose visual images consisted of choreographed movement sequences based on vernacular dance forms, theatrical jazz dance, and the codes and conventions of the Hollywood musical: “khakis,” “that's holiday,” and “West Side Story.” Each campaign produced a series of commercials that employed dance and musical theater in an attempt to bridge the gap between entertainment and advertising, and between popular culture and art. By manipulating standard advertising conventions, the Gap framed these televisual texts as performances or artworks, rather than as advertisements, creating choreographic, performance-oriented commercials that became the sign of Gap clothing. As a result, the commercials have been identifiable, just as the clothes have been, by style alone.

The creative role of sources of inspiration in clothing design

PurposeTo assess the creative role of sources of inspiration in visual clothing design. It aims to analyse simple, general accounts of observed design behaviour and early stages of the clothing design process, what is the nature of design inspiration, how sources of inspiration are gathered and how they affect the creativity and originality in clothing design.Design/methodology/approachA progressive series of empirical studies looking at ready‐to‐wear clothing design has been undertaken; in situ observation, semi‐structured interviews and constrained and semi‐constrained design tasks. This empirical approach used ethnographic observational methods, which is effective in situations where conventional knowledge acquisition methods are insufficient, when broad understanding of an industry is needed, as in the fashion industry, not just a case study of a single individual or company.FindingsIdentifies the major types of idea sources in clothing design and provides information about each source. Recognises that these sources of inspiration help designers to create design elements and principles of individual designs. In order to foster originality, sources of inspiration play a powerful role throughout the creative stage of design process, and also in the early stages of fashion research and strategic collection planning.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the role of sources of inspiration and its effect in creativity and originality in the clothing design process. Offers practical help to clothing designers and design‐led clothing companies.

Industrial Districts, Magic Circles, and the Restructuring of the Italian Textiles and Clothing Chain

This article identifies the way in which a firm-centered, value-chain approach to studying the distinctive structure and evolution of the geography of the Italian textile and clothing industries (TCI) offers important insights that qualify the results of district-centered and commodity/value-chain research. Analyses of the functional profiles of textile and clothing companies and of the roles of design, distribution, and services help explain recent trends in industrial concentration and in the national and international fragmentation of value chains. These analyses also give rise to a view of districts as parts of an interdependent geographic division of labor that includes magic circles and delocalized zones of dependent manufacturing. An appreciation of these features of the system is vital for understanding recent trends in the performance of the TCI and the Made in Italy industries more generally.

Micro‐Practices of Strategic Sensemaking and Sensegiving: How Middle Managers Interpret and Sell Change Every Day*

abstract This paper looks at the workings of ongoing primary sensemaking and sensegiving micro‐practices by which middle managers interpret and sell strategic change at the organizational interface. Through middle managers’ routines and conversations related to the implementation of a strategic change in a top‐of‐the‐line clothing company, the article shows how they contribute to renewing links with stakeholders, in particular clientele, by drawing on their tacit knowledge. Interpretative analysis of these routines and conversations highlights four micro‐practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: translating the orientation, overcoding the strategy, disciplining the client, and justifying the change. The paper outlines a practice perspective of sensemaking and sensegiving. It ends by suggesting the necessity of looking at middle managers’ role as interpreters and sellers of strategic change at the micro level for a better understanding of their contribution in sustaining competitive advantage through their everyday activities.

The antecedents of successful buyer–supplier relationships in strategic networks of the Hong Kong clothing industry

There has long been a research interest in dyadic business relationships. However, the antecedents of strategic networks have not yet been fully understood, especially within contexts that are indiscernible and capricious with respect to competitive and cooperative interaction. Building on the previous strategic network studies, this paper focuses on the antecedents of collaborations between the Asian manufacturers and their suppliers within a strategic network. In-depth interviews were conducted, and qualitative data were collected from senior executives at five well-known Hong Kong clothing companies. Based on these interviews, we developed a conceptual framework that included eight antecedents that are applicable to successful networks for the Hong Kong clothing industry. Finally, implications for managerial practice emphasize how to develop a successful strategic network, along with its antecedents.

Structural change: The dominant feature in the economic development of the German textile and clothing industries

The textile and clothing industries are good examples to analyse emerging industrial trends in international co‐operation and to map the globalisation effects on outward processing, jobs and technology. The research focuses on the development of economic indicators and is based on the results from consulting and research projects, as well from enquiries in the German textile and clothing industries, which are exposed to intensive cost competition and trying to find a new position within the process of globalisation. A reduction of demand, a change in consumption patterns, the modification in the retailing system, the development of personal income and a global shift of production have triggered the decline of the domestic production of textiles and clothing. Emerging producers from eastern, developing and newly industrialising countries are now the main suppliers for the German textiles and clothing market. The German clothing companies defend a rest market and use intensively the outward processing in low‐wage countries. As a result of the tremendous differences in production costs, the demand for clothing textiles shifted globally towards low‐cost places of clothing production. The outward processing from industrialised countries established a very efficient, well‐organised global production network in low‐wage countries, enabling new potential for economic development. This research focuses on the view of producers in industrialised countries. The analysis shows that the future of textiles and clothing companies is not in producing but in the management of markets, organising a global supply chain of subcontractors and in retailing. The experiences within the global outward processing network shows very high innovation and learning rates in low‐wage countries, enabling a serious potential towards a self‐contained economic development. The economic and social liberalisation within the EU region and the out‐phasing of the WTO in 2005 will give new power to the globalisation process and will influence the structural change of industry. This paper is written as a rational position sensing of the German textile and clothing industries prior to the out phasing of the WTO regulations and the 2005 liberalisation of the EU textile and clothing sector.

Towards Virtual Prototyping of Complex-shaped Multi-layered Apparel

Cloth virtual prototyping has recently become a topic of increasing interest both in computer graphics and computer aided design for industrial fabric or apparel production. Aiming at an accurate garment shape simulation, this paper presents a physics-based system for virtual cloth design and simulation specifically conceived for design purpose and targeted to clothing industry. This environment should allow the designer/modelist to validate her/his style and design options through the analysis of garment virtual prototypes and simulation results in order to reduce the number and role of physical prototypes. To this end, it has been defined a complete physics-based model for complex apparel incorporating aspects related to garment shape and structure (e.g., 2D profiles of basic patterns and multi-layered parts), mechanical/physical properties of fabric and multi-layered parts, and design and manufacturing processes (e.g., ironing, starching). The garment physic-based model has been developed upon the particle-based model embedded in constrained Newtonian dynamics and collision management. The system has been validated within European and national projects simulating several female and male garments with different levels of design complexities and directly provided from involved clothing companies.

Farming with the wild: enhancing biodiversity on farms and ranches

Those on the lookout for some evidence that the growing of food is not wholly controlled by Monsanto/Pioneer’s genetic engineers may find comfort with Daniel Imhoff’s Farming with the Wild. Here is a book that reports on the author’s search for what farmers and communities are doing throughout America to create viable agriculture while protecting wild lands, natural systems, and the environment as a whole: it’s all about biological diversity and agricultural sustainability. Imhoff’s book is the result of back-roads trips to some of the very best farms and ranches to be found, all of which are intent on protecting the ecosystems within which they exist. It is only recently that science-based management of ecosystems has been understood as critical to sustaining the health of our planet. The wanton draining of wetlands, suppressing of wildlife, and destroying of indigenous grasslands were part of the American pioneer tradition, a necessary route to conquering wilderness. European farmers settling in the new world believed that economic capital could be found by replacing wilderness with nice neat rows of corn. Today, it is understood that these “improvements” diminished water supplies, contaminated soils, and caused erosion and continued loss of species. The farmers and ecologists Imhoff visits believe that their land and soil are ecological capital that must be carefully managed for long-term sustainability. An important course correction is occurring in American agriculture, and this book seeks to provide a record of that change. Imhoff focuses on a group of general trends and observations that help define the difference between this new ecologically based agriculture and the economy-based agriculture that dominates the global market. These trends are as diverse as the farms he visits—from Ted Turner’s fivehundred-thousand-acre ranch landholdings in southwest New Mexico to Frank Morton’s fifty-five-acre lettuce farm in the eastern foothills of Oregon—with the result that it is extremely hard to define or standardize what is ecologically responsible agriculture. However, Farming with the Wild does show how important biodiversity is to the future of farming. Imhoff visits the Sky Islands, a region that encompasses over 10.2 million acres spanning the New Mexico–Arizona–Mexico border and terminating in the foothills of the Sierra Madre. This vast bioregion hosts over four thousand plant species and a huge diversity of reptiles and mammals; it is also the flyway for more than half of all the breeding bird species in North America. Thus, it is an area of great ecological significance. Today, this region is subject to a plan prepared by the Sky Island Wildlife Network predicated on the protection of large reserves of untrammeled wilderness areas to secure foraging for predators such as bears, wolves, jaguars, and mountain lions and to protect grasslands for the prairie dog and black-footed ferret. Imhoff introduces us to Jho Austin, a Sky Island rancher in southeast Arizona whose lands receive only fifteen or twenty inches of rain each year. Over the past twenty years the Austins have installed over twenty thousand dry-stacked stone gabions to create small check dams to retain pooled water in what were once dry creeks. This certainly is not a new idea in the arid West, but here it is being done not only to provide higher profitability but to protect the rare Sonoran mud turtle that now lives in the successive vegetation growing along these water courses. It’s a wonderful example of how a rancher not only respects biodiversity but is proud of the endangered species that live upon his land, even as he enhances economic profitability. Imhoff steps away from North American projects to visit Doug Tompkins and his eighteen-thousand-acre reserve on the Ayacara Peninsula in the southern Palena region of Chile. Tompkins, as many will remember, was founder of the Esprit clothing company. He has recently protected well over seven hundred thousand acres throughout Chile and Argentina and is one of the organizers of the Foundation for Deep Ecology. On my visit to Ayacara, I was surprised at how little agriculture was permitted. In fact, most of the activity within these huge holdings appeared to be directed toward reclaiming lands that had been, for many generations, exploited by poor farmers trying to make a living on a soggy peninsula whose harsh climate provides two hundred inches of rain per year. My visit made clear that although it is important to protect large blocks of forestlands, it is also critical to encourage the inhabitants of these third-world 118

Microcomputer simulation of a cloathing distribution centre

A computerised simulation model of the Distribution Centre of a sizeable clothing company is developed. This article reviews the model constructed, and the estimation of its parameters, introducing the simulation language SLAM II as a modelling framework. The flexibility of the computer model and its usefulness as a decision support tool, are highlighted.

Executive Insights: United Colors of Benetton—From Sweaters to Success: An Examination of the Triumphs and Controversies of a Multinational Clothing Company

Often regarded as a leader in the multinational marketing industry, United Colors of Benetton continues to face the challenge of effectively marketing clothes across racial, cultural, and religious borders. Changes in market trends and consumer demands have required the Italian company to redevelop its manufacturer and retail processes in order to remain competitive in the growing market. Renowned for using social issue–themed pictures to promote its brand, Benetton's campaigns have resulted in increasing legal and ethical concerns, and world courts have now been asked to define further the line between artistic expression and exploitation. The author discusses the legal action taken against Benetton by its own retailers that claim that the explicit advertisements have resulted in fewer sales. The author reviews different consumer responses to Benetton's unique campaigns with respect to changes in global politics and more frequent acts of terrorism. The author offers suggestions as to how Benetton's unique advertising strategies can better reach the modern market.

Consumer Culture, Islam and the Politics of Lifestyle

This article traces the growth of the `fashion for veiling' which has grown in Turkey since the early 1990s, and discusses the representation of Muslim women in both the cultural and public spheres in the late 1980s. The practice of veiling has been chosen to explore how religious iconography is changing to reflect new patterns of consumption and pleasure, and the ways in which these changes are occurring. The authors focus on the shifting meanings of the practice of veiling due to the articulation of Islamic faith into consumption culture, as evidenced in advertising images and commentaries taken from Islamic women's magazines, and fashion catalogues of major Islamic clothing companies. The authors examine the problematic relationship of the fashion for veiling to two other established meanings of veiling: as a sign of adherence to the Islamic principle of covering the female body to conceal it from the male gaze, and as a sign of `political Islam'.

Health is wealth ‐ Organisational Utopia or myopia?

Although the healthy organisation has attracted the attention of researchers over the last decade and beyond, the concept remains poorly defined. Nonetheless, there would appear to be an underlying acceptance that health is a desirable state, and is one which is likely to enable the organisation to cope effectively with the challenges presented by its environment. Using financial measures as one index of the economically healthy organisation, this paper explores organisational health within two financially healthy and two financially unhealthy clothing companies in Northern Ireland. Statistical analyses reveal that each of the organisations was unhealthy for different reasons and in different ways. Furthermore, the findings suggest that “wealth” does not necessarily mean “health”, and it may in fact be indicative of organisational myopia rather than Utopia.

A Visible Ideology: A Document Series in a Women's Clothing Company

Studying corporate documents provides clues to the larger philosophy of the organization. This article explores a sales document redesign that indicates a subtle shift in ideology for a women's clothing company. The corporation uses direct sales to market clothes to a variety of women. In one season, the documents change from relatively outdated designs to more updated, professional layouts. However, the content of the documents changes very little. The author contends that the document redesign indicates a move to a more feminist outlook for the company and uses the concept of ethos to describe how the document design represents a slowly changing ethos for the corporation. A specific content shift towards feminism is, however, less apparent.

An evaluation of two qualitative methods (focus group interviews and cognitive maps) for conducting research into entrepreneurial decision making

Reports on a qualitative approach to conducting research in small firms. Two cases are reported that fall within the EU definition of small firms (with fewer than 99 employees). One case is drawn from the clothing industry and one other from the publishing industry. The clothing company had fewer than 50 employees and the publishing company had fewer than ten employees, the latter being regarded as a micro‐firm. The purpose of the research was to investigate decisions taken by owner‐managers in relation to their future strategies. Consideration is given to alternative methodological approaches before justifying the selection of a combination of focus group interviews and cognitive mapping in each of the cases. Comparisons are drawn that demonstrate the utility of the research methods chosen. The work then identifies issues and considers implications for the conduct of future research into SMEs using these methods. The purpose of the paper is to explain and to evaluate the usefulness of the methods rather than to explain the particular cases in detail.

Restructuring, Teams, and Learning: the case of a clothing company

abstract In the course of the past 15 years many expectations and claims have been made about the benefits of restructuring for workers, companies and national economies. Significant national reports published by governments, trade unions, business associations and universities set out these aims and articulated a case for why it was in the mutual interests of employers, workers and the nation that these changes take place. As claim and counter claim is made about the benefits of workplace change and the role of education and training in that process, it is important that case study research sheds light on workplace experience. This article argues that far from being an outmoded philosophy, Taylorism is being reinvented and reapplied in workplaces and highlights the example of an Australian clothing factory to investigate how the introduction of teams, training and new industrial relations systems have combined to produce greater work intensity, lower wages and higher productivity. The apparent discrepancy between what the management literature claims as the benefits of restructuring and the experience of a group of women manufacturing workers raises important questions for adult educators.

Towards a flexible future? The nature of organisational response in the clothing industry

Quick response behaviour is a necessity in the clothing industry. It was expected that the requirements for this would show a number of dysfunctions in the Taylorist production concept. However, it is concluded that the way in which clothing companies are attempting to reorganise their processes can be termed ‘intensification’: changes designed to increase productivity without substantial reorganisation of the Taylorist production concept.

Toward a Grounded Theory of Apparel Product Quality

The purpose of this paper is to explore definitional ambiguity of apparel product quality from the perspectives of apparel producers. Constructs for a grounded theory of apparel product quality were synthesized from in-depth interviews of 47 apparel production managers and operators in a large U.S. tailored clothing company. Quality represented value that was portrayed through three major constructs: structural integrity, aesthetic presence, and the power of appeal. European tailoring techniques emerged as strong determinants of the informants' cultural identity with apparel quality.

Marker making in small clothing companies ‐ Part 2

Describes the history of CAD systems as well as their benefits and costs for a clothing company. Presents and analyses results of a survey concerning the use of CAD systems for marker making in the clothing industry of the USA. Describes environmental and cost aspects of CAD marker making and makes recommendations for small clothing manufacturers.

Marker making in small clothing companies ‐ Part 1

Describes the history of CAD systems as well as their benefits and costs for a clothing company. Presents and analyses results of a survey concerning the use of CAD systems for marker making in the clothing industry of the United States. Describes and evaluates the functions of CAD marker making with the help of a case study.