Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide a new perspective by conceptualising country of origin (COO) from a management perspective, identifying the impact different COO constructs have in the context of fashion retailer and manufacturer businesses.Design/methodology/approach -This qualitative study comprises a series of in-depth interviews with key informants from large-scale fashion retailers and manufacturers in the UK.
Findings -The major findings of this research demonstrate that COO is considered a strategic business imperative but manifests in a variety of ways depending on brand positioning, long-term strategic plans, expertise, and brand values etc. Originality/value -This research presents a new perspective on the COO construct, addressing it from a management rather than consumer perspective. It argues that COO can be considered as a strategic dimension, which is manifested in a variety of ways. COO has been extensively researched from a consumer point of view but this research takes a new approach by presenting findings from a managerial point of view, with fashion manufacturing and retail branding as the context.
Research implications -
The purpose of this paper is to consider country of origin in terms of its association with brand heritage and its implications in fashion branding, thus providing a new perspective within the context of retail and wholesale brands. This qualitative study demonstrates how country of origin is widely used as a communicative tool by retail and wholesale brands, associated with brand heritage. However, the way country of origin is manifested and/or associated (e.g. brand name, colour etc.) varies depending on a brand's history, positioning, brand value, and the type of market sector that the retail and wholesale brands are targeting.
Purpose -This exploratory study challenges the fashion retailer/wholesale brand debate considering established definitions, structures and propositions of these brand typologies, developing new perspectives with particular emphasis on the blurring of the product range, retail fascia concepts and supply chain management. The paper argues that the fashion industry has evolved significantly since the theoretical definitions were established in the early 2000s. The paper presents the results of a series of in-depth interviews conducted with key informants from largescale fashion retailers, manufacturers, textile researchers and funding organisations in the UK. The paper highlights the blurring of retail and wholesale brands occurring to gain direct access to the market or enter new markets and subsequently, from a manufacturing perspective, attain competitive advantage and operate vertical integration to satisfy customer demand.
The media 'effect' on consumer behaviour has long been of interest to many researchers. In part, this has been related to how movies, magazines and television programmes portrayed thinness in the nineteenth and twentieth century, a concept which has been consistently emphasised and promoted to women, thus resulting in increased body dissatisfaction. Prior to the existence of media, a curvaceous body was considered as a sign of wealth and an ideal body image. More recently, with the emergence of the Internet, there has been increasing debate over portraying a healthier body image. However, no research to date has addressed the implications of manifesting a maintainable body image in the context of the global fashion industry. Thus, to fill this gap, qualitative ethnographic approach (netnography) of studying online behaviour and consumer perception was undertaken. The chapter briefly outlines the relevance of clothing and the evolution of the ideal body image over the last decade, indicating how the ideal body image has changed, but also shows how different media channels have had an effect using television and social media examples.
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