Engineering Legitimacy

Through the lens of the fashion industry, Iva Petkova explores not only how institutionalized organizations react and adapt to the rise of start-up outsiders, but also how these outside disruptors seek to cultivate legitimacy and win influence. In so doing, she reflects upon a longstanding question in the sociology of organizations and neo-institutional theory: How do institutionalized organizations in creative industries resolve the inherent conflict between art and commerce, particularly in a changing institutional environment? Engineering Legitimacy outlines the processes through which e-commerce and social commerce companies in fashion disturb and reconstruct the industry, crosscutting their technical field of expertise and looking to legitimize their innovative practice in the institutionally elaborated field of fashion. Through an analysis of the emerging culture of innovation collectively created by start-up outsider disruptors, this book contemplates how fashion-technology companies transform their moral narratives into acceptable commercial practice, legitimating a model of profound institutional change over the digital operations of fashion companies.

Contains substantial empirical research drawing from several years of interviews and study into luxury fashion brands and their e-commerce disruptors/partners Presents a current study of the trending, exciting topic of industry disruption by outsider technology companies/entrepreneurs Will hold value for sociologists, economists and scholars of fashion, business, branding and company culture

Autorentext
Iva Petkova teaches Sociology at Ringling College of Art and Design, USA and is curriculum advisor for Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Liberal Arts Program. Her research areas include cultural sociology, the sociology of organizations, and emergent technologies.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Field Transformations and Institutional Entrepreneurship in Cultural Industries.- 2. New Institutional Entrepreneurs in the Fashion Industry.- 3. Fashion Companies: Organizational Responses to Managing Innovation in E-Commerce Practice.- 4. The Evolution of Digital Moda as an Institutional Entrepreneur.- 5. Digital Moda: Institutionalizing Legitimacy in the Fashion Industry.- 6. The Fruits of Creative Disruption: Influence Legitimacy and Tech Culture Transfer to Fashion Industry Gatekeepers.- 7. Ethnography at the Threshold: A Confessional on Theory and Method.