Fashion and Textile companies are currently producing face-masks because of the national sanitary emergency. To do that, in March 2020 they reconverted to produce a different product from those belonging to the core business. This study aims to explain how companies of a specific sector, the fashion and textile one, answered to an exogenous crisis, dividing this process in rationale, opportunities and challenges, key factors of the reconversion, and future changes in the reference industry caused by Covid-19.
Though the implementation of a qualitative study, eight companies were interviewed for this work and the information analysed through a two-cycle coding process (i.e. 1st order codes and 2nd order themes) to produce similarities and dissimilarities in reference to the reconversion process. Comparing themes between firms produced important answers to the research question in the form of four theoretical categories, that were constantly related with the literature reviewed and the secondary data analysis. This has provided further corroboration to the empirical evidence suggested in this dissertation.
This work provides explanations of this reconversion process, starting from its rationale to the analysis of the opportunities and challenges that matched the companies’ resources and competences endowment. The dissertation finally offers findings that can be tested and implemented in future research.
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW
1.2 RESEARCH PURPOSE
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY
2 METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN
2.1 OVERVIEW
2.2 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY AND APPROACH
2.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY
2.3.1 Strategy
2.3.2 Choice
2.3.3 Time Horizon
2.4 DATA COLLECTION
2.4.1 Interview protocol
2.4.2 Primary data-set
2.4.3 Secondary Data
2.4.4 Sources
2.4.5 Access and Ethical Issues
2.5 CONCLUSION
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 OVERVIEW
3.2 EVOLUTION THEORY
3.3 APPROACH TO EXOGENOUS CRISIS
3.4 EXPLORATION VS. EXPLOITATION STRATEGIES
3.5 KEY CAPABILITIES
3.6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
3.7 CONCLUSION
4 ANALYSIS
4.1 OVERVIEW
4.2 CANONS AND PROCEDURE
4.3 CODING PROCESS
4.3.1 First Order Coding
4.3.2 Second Order Coding
4.3.3 Theoretical categories and data structure
4.4 CONCLUSION
5 PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
5.1 OVERVIEW
5.2 GROUNDED MODEL
5.3 FINDINGS
5.3.1 Rationale of the reconversion process
5.3.2 Opportunities and organizational changes for the reconversion process
5.3.3 Key Factors of the reconversion process
5.3.4 Adaptive capacity of the industry
5.3.5 Circular Economy implementation
5.4 DISCUSSION
5.5 CONCLUSION
6 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF THIS RESEARCH, ITS LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
6.1 OVERVIEW
6.2 IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS FOR THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
6.3 CONTRIBUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE REASEARCH
6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
6.5 FINAL CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
Appendix A - Interview Example
Abstract
Fashion and Textile companies are currently producing face-masks because of the national sanitary emergency. To do that, in March 2020 they reconverted to produce a different product from those belonging to the core business. This study aims to explain how companies of a specific sector, the fashion and textile one, answered to an exogenous crisis, dividing this process in rationale, opportunities and challenges, key factors of the reconversion, and future changes in the reference industry caused by Covid-19.
Though the implementation of a qualitative study, eight companies were interviewed for this work and the information analysed through a two-cycle coding process (i.e. 1st order codes and 2nd order themes) to produce similarities and dissimilarities in reference to the reconversion process. Comparing themes between firms produced important answers to the research question in the form of four theoretical categories, that were constantly related with the literature reviewed and the secondary data analysis. This has provided further corroboration to the empirical evidence suggested in this dissertation.
In particular, the results show that in moment of crisis, companies are pushed to modify their strategies to adapt to an external event, the Covid-19. To do so, they reconverted their production process and entered a new market in which they learned new dynamics and new logics. This work provides explanations of this reconversion process, starting from its rationale to the analysis of the opportunities and challenges that matched the companies' resources and competences endowment. The dissertation finally offers findings that can be tested and implemented in future research.
List of Figures
Figure 1. Research question and research objectives
Figure 2. Structure of the dissertation
Figure 3. The Research ‘onion'
Figure 4. The Interview Protocol
Figure 5. Theoretical frameworks that informed the research
Figure 6. From raw data to theoretical categories
Figure 7. Klopman interview - example first order Coding
Figure 8. Zero&Co. interview - example first order coding
Figure 9. Modaimpresa interview - example first order Coding
Figure 10. Klopman interview - example second order Coding
Figure 11. Zero&Co. interview - example second order Coding
Figure 12. Modaimpresa interview - example second order Coding
Figure 13. Klopman interview - example summary coding process
Figure 14. Connection between Theoretical Categories and literature review
Figure 15. The Grounded Model
Figure 16. Structure of the findings
List of Tables
Table 1. Description of the companies, interviewees, date and length of interviews
Table 2. Secondary sources
Table 3. Data structure
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview
In 2020, we learned that despite a widespread feeling of safety life-changing events can occur, forcing us to adjust and adapt to their consequences. These changes can be determinate by social or technological innovation, but also from exogenous events. Predicting these second types of events is rather impossible and only those firms which have the ability to anticipate strategic plan or organizational actions can receive an advantageous position in the competitive scenario. As a matter of fact, those actions allow us to survive in an economic system in which being bounded by certain contextual dynamics lead to progressive failure.
All the crises have boosted many changes in the past and obviously also COVID-19 is doing it in the current era. These changes vary in extent and could be intentional or unintentional, but in every situation, only solid core-values, organizational flexibility, and skilled management can assure a positive outcome and a future in the business world. As a matter of fact, after a market has been hit by a crisis there are some variables and dynamics in it that change, generating new opportunities for small players to grow. Also, there could be some changes in consumer needs that lead to new markets where only those that are able to take advantages in it will have a profitable future. Taking as reference Blue Oceans Strategy introduced by Chan Kim and Mauborgne (2005), we can call these markets “blue oceans”. A blue ocean is a new market in which all its opportunities still have to be discovered and the competition is quite irrelevant. The advantages that a firm can generate after a crisis usually reside in the resources and expertise that the firm already has, plus the know-how and good timing in taking the right actions. All these factors lead to new revenues, increasing the firm's experience and brand power.
Taking as base the COVID-19 crisis, this dissertation tries to answer at one simply question:
“How do companies within an industry react to an exogenous crisis?”
From January 2020 to early July 2020, COVID19 has caused 11 550 542 infected, with more than 538 558 deaths worldwide. This pandemic has generated a global lock-down that involved people and industries, which has produced crushing effects throughout all the world and the respective economies. These effects have affected people's life, the firm's strategy, and society in general. The resulting changes brought the society to new challenges: firms have reorganized their strategies, exploiting new organizational structures, and new product concepts to satisfy different customer needs. COVID-19 has generated a huge demand for healthcare devices such as face-mask and white coats, putting a strain on the ability to meet the demand and produce these devices.
The outbreak of this virus was identified in Whuan, China, but it rapidly spread all over Europe and progressively the rest of the world. In March 2020, governments have seen themselves forced to close their countries acting restriction policies to prevent the spread of the virus, blocking progressively all the economies for at least two months. In Italy this started on March 13th, when the first premier G. Conte notified restrictions to the mobility on internal movements and public gatherings, implementing that with an effective lock-down. In this period only a few sectors were allowed to work and the textile sector has been one of these. Fashion and textile companies have redirect their production to create face-mask and white coats, essential at a time when the population's needs for these types of products increased dramatically from a day to another. In fact, due to a wider and globally supply chain before the pandemic, healthcare device manufactures moved their production in countries in which labour costs were lower, leaving western countries in emergency. When the demand increased due to a growing need for face-mask and white coats, the entire Italian population found herself unable to satisfy it. At this point, some textile and fashion actors have reconverted their production to provide them these products.
From this event my entire research takes place. The Italian fashion and textile firms are globally recognized, representing the very best in terms of quality and design of the products. Moreover, the fashion and textile sector has process and strategies settled during the years in global markets, in which only big actors takes the main role of the competitive scenario.
Starting from the daily news, the dissertation tries to find similarities and dissimilarities between firms that have reconverted their production to a specific industry, creating a different product from the standard one in a market where new needs were experienced from the core business. Indeed, the Healthcare industry has different productive and distributive logics, based on different customers' needs compared to the fashion ones.
The entire process has started with an in-depth research phase, discovering the firms that have effectively re-oriented their production. From this step, I have tried to keep in touch with all the actors through a variety of means, such as Linkedin, firm emails, daily news, TV report, and my personal network.
The effective number of actors that have participated actively in the research as primary data is eight, meanwhile through a secondary data-base have been inserted other twelve interviews founded through the web. As it will explain in the paragraph 6.3, I couldn't connect with all the actors in the Italian scenario. However, the database implemented in the dissertation gave the opportunity to reach a representative sample of a diverse range of cases that was useful to get the respective conclusion, verified with a secondary data analysis.
From this point, it was important to organize the analysis through guidelines that would allow me to keep up the focus on the main topic. Regarding the core part of the analysis, which was the interview carried out with the respective firm's CEO, it was developed as a qualitative semi-structured interview to find the answer needed in the analysis that was coded through a first and a second cycle coding order granting the research a solid database useful to justify the relative conclusion. In the research design it was chosen to conduct a semi-structured interview moved by the wish to understand better new topics. This gave the dissertation the possibility to explore topics around the principal guidelines, in order to provide the chance to the speaker to deepen certain arguments if needed, as it couldn't be possible with a structured interview. Moreover, analysing a qualitative database through the various coding method has been an important challenge because it required different methodologies than those belonging to a quantitative analysis.
Through this dissertation, it was possible to manage and to get in touch with actors, knowing new dynamics in an unknown world to me. By talking to the many firms included in this work, it was developed important information around how they implemented the process to produce face-mask and white coats. This gave the dissertation insights about the firm's re-organizational process during an exogenous event in which those who had implemented it in the right way will benefit from the respective revenues.
Therefore, dealing with strategies, policies, and activities of the firms involved has given the research the chance to handle current issues and circumstances in connection to many themes already presents in the existing literature. This research will contribute to various literature topics: starting from how a company, or an individual, changes his needs during an emergency or an evolutionary event, the focus will be put on how firms navigate into various types of possible scenarios with different possible strategic choices. At this point, we would be also able to confirm background theory based on adaptabilities concept such as dynamic capabilities, core values, and key actions that give to a firm a secure growth in its life. Starting from the evolutionary theory and how to turn a crisis into an opportunity, will be possible to implement these themes with the effective analysis part, which will make possible to create two guidelines for future researches. The first guideline refers to how the fashion and textile industry has implemented this process, which changes they have generated and which will be their future perspective. The second one instead, refers to the firms itself, dealing with the fundamental factors at the bases of the process.
Through this first chapter, we will be able to understand which were the research aim, implemented with the respective research question(s) and objectives understanding the structure of this study and its significance.
1.2 Research Purpose
Based on the principal question (“How do companies within an industry react to an exogenous crisis?”), the aim of the research is to understand how this process was developed in the fashion and textile industry, which were the key factors, and which consequences it has generated. In fact, by this analysis it was possible to highlight how firms have implemented the process to produce face-mask and coats from an organizational and a sectorial perspective to survive at COVID-19 crisis.
Starting from the methodology behind the analysis, literature will be developed in chapter 3. Every topic implemented there will be subsequently developed and implemented through the analysis trying to extrapolate important findings from sectorial and corporate point of view. To do that the database has been divided into two groups of data. Primary data will give the dissertation the results, meanwhile the secondary data will give the research solidity and validity.
To answer the research's aim, the analysis will be implemented through a qualitative analysis to understand better certain topic with the representatives of the companies inserted in the research project.
At the end of the research project will be easier to understand better why firms have reconverted their production to produce a different device in a different market and the opportunities discovered in it.
Moreover, it will be possible to highlights the resources and capabilities essential in this process and which will be the changes and future perspective for the fashion and textile industries.
1.3 Significance of the Study
From early March 2020 to April 2020 a lot of firms in the fashion and textile industry have reconverted their production to produce face-mask and coats. A lot of news about this phenomenon have been published on the medias, newspapers and websites. That generated the possibility to understand better this event through a research project. In fact, as explained in the research purpose, this work tries to give explanation to this phenomenon from an organizational and a managerial point of view. Through this research project it would be possible to highlight the rationale behind the reconversion, which were the key factors and the opportunities discovered into a pandemic situation. These elements represent a new topic to analyse, and the significance of the study is to highlight new evidences helpful to understand better dynamics behind it applicable in the future.
Carry out an analysis of how firms have faced a crisis, taking COVID19 as event and temporal base, gives new element to the existent literature allowing us to discover new ways how they adapted during an emergency process. Interviewing every firms participant to the research and finding similarities and dissimilarities between them, gives common action that certainly have not been founded in the past, because every crisis has different effects, from the economic to the socially and politically side. Moreover, this research definitively contributes to verifying hypothesis presented in the past years. In fact, through this analysis I have been able to deal with arguments such as disruptive creation and the importance of dynamic capabilities.
Through this research it will be possible to demonstrate how a company can survive during an exogenous crisis through the use of internal resources and skills. This will produce evidence on the COVID-19 crisis not yet present in the existing literature. In fact, during the research process it will be implemented the theoretical part of the possible strategies that a company could implement during a crisis and will be highlighted the salient steps for an effective reorganization and the opportunities that in the contemporary world this can give to a company to survive throughout its life. This dissertation, will also improve the part of the literature relating to dynamics capabilities, going to identify which were the fundamental ones for this crisis.
Also, to focus on the fashion and textile industry gave me the opportunity to set up new common traits about the future development of their market. Especially, this type of business has been surrounded during the years by deep-rooted logics and strategies, in which only a few competitors takes the main role. An example of these logics could be the timing of collections production. But, after this crisis it seems that there will be new important and innovative changes that could modify the future competitive scenario, giving the opportunity to the smaller actor to grow in an international market.
Finally, this elaborate provides important social information because it is extremely related to the contemporary COVID19 emergency: the analysis developed in the research gives us not only new point of views, but also useful information in terms of organizational changes during a crisis and possible forecast in relation to the reference industry. These two topics could be useful for future researches.
1.4 Research Objective
Starting from the aim of the research presented in paragraph 1.2 (“How do companies within an industry react to an exogenous crisis?”) the principle question has been expanded into four research objectives to make the work easier. These objectives represent a guideline for the research and were called during the research process “4U”:
- To understand whether the reconverting process of fashion and textile firms has been generated by necessity, social responsibility or an obligation.
- To understand how the development of the process has been managed from an organizational and strategic point of view, focusing on the related opportunity and the challenges.
- To understand which are the fundamental factors at the base of a successful reconversion, highlighted through similarities and dissimilarities of the company that participated to this analysis.
- To understand how this event will eventually change the shape of a specific industry.
To be able to adapt the main question to the relative objectives, I explored four further research questions that for convenience I will call the “4W”:
- Why fashion and textile firms have reconverted their production?
- What firms have changed within their organization to turn a global crisis into an opportunity for growth?
- Which were the fundamental factors during this process?
- What will change into the fashion and textile industry in the future?
These 4W have guided the entire research process, from the early stages to the coding and the following conclusion part. They have been the central focus during the analysis, and they were constantly related to their respective objectives explained above (4U).
Find the answer to these questions was the end of this research process. They represent the second guideline through which continue the research process. Every research question is related to the respective research objective. It was important in this phase to not forget anything, creating these guidelines in a way that allowed me to explain effectively the evidences founded without neglecting highlight issues or noteworthy topics.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 1. Research question and research objectives
1.5 Structure of the Study
For a better comprehension of the study, through this paragraph it is explained to the reader how the dissertation is structured in order to become a point of reference for the next chapters, giving the reader a clear picture of how the research process was designed and how I got to the conclusions presented in the last chapter. To make the lecture easier, this process has been presented in figure 2.
In chapter 1 it is possible to understand the guidelines of the research. It represents an effective first image of the analysis in order to provide the reader clarify through the reading of the dissertation. Research goals and research questions, the motivation behind the start of this research, and the focal point of the dissertation can here be found. Therefore, you can find the relevance of this analysis and which arguments will be taken into account throughout the study. Moreover, insights will be given on how the problem was structured and the modality through it was handled.
In chapter 2 will be explained how the research purpose has been implemented from a methodology perspective. Here, the best philosophy and approach to answer at the research question(s) will be introduced to understand how the literature review has been produced. Subsequently will be explained how the analysis has been developed. In fact, qualitative methods can be systematically evaluated only if their canons and procedures are made explicit (Corbin and Strauss, 1990, p.4).
In chapter 3 will be reconnected the effective implementation of the study to a temporal continuum that connects it to topics already covered in the existing literature subsequently expanded through the analysis. This chapter is structured in a way in which could be possible to validate research findings with theory developed in the past and in the recent years. Here, you can find arguments developed in the past, such as Evolutionary theory and the Schumpeter's disruptive creation, in order to get then to recent topics of interest such as adaptability and dynamic capability. This part of the dissertation will provide the reader a good starting point to understand the literature background of the research process, connecting the analysis presented in chapters 4 and the results presented in chapter 5 to the respective literature topics.
Through chapter 4 the focus will be put on how the qualitative database was analysed to get the respective research's findings. Here, will be explained the methodology behind the analysis in a way in which it will be easier to understand how the coding process has been implemented. In this part, we will see the initial and the focused coding process, used as first and second cycle method for both primary and secondary data.
Through this chapter, you can find how the analysis was developed and the criteria behind it. This chapter is a core part in order to link the main dissertation's question and objectives to the themes founded and explained in the conclusive chapter.
Finally, the research project will be implemented with the relative research findings. Using the solid theoretic background discussed previously, I will be able to discuss and sustain the results of the research. Here you will find a constant connection with the research questions and objectives (4W- 4U), and satisfying the research's aim will be the final part of the effective analysis. Also, through this chapter will be easier to describe limitations and the suggestions for future research.
In the last pages of the dissertation, I considered useful to explain and highlight some themes that came into being during all the research process. In fact, here will be explained the implication for the research questions of my findings and the contribution and the limitation of the research giving the reader a full picture of the review. Furthermore, this chapter will give recommendations for practice and for future research.
Structure of the Dissertation
To make the review process easier to understand I think it is convenient to represent it through an organizational chart. It is useful to specify that all the research process has been developed in a simultaneous way as recommended by qualitative analysis literature. But, thanks the chart, you will understand the process behind the main findings in an easier way. In figure 2 it is explained how every part is connected to the previous or following topics, from the introduction chapter to arrive at the limitations and suggestions for further research.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 2. Structure of the dissertation
2 Methodology and Research Design
2.1 Overview
To satisfy the purpose of the research, the main question was analyzed to implement the right research methodology. Everything explained in this part is constantly compared and connected with the aim of the research and the respective research question(s) and objectives. Following the introduction chapter, here how the research was structured following qualitative research theory will be explained. This work used an inductive method that allows to verify results and findings highlighted in the main analysis developed in this research with the relative theoretical framework and the secondary data analysis.
Taking as reference the research onion (Figure. 3), in the next paragraph will be explained every layer filled in it. This ‘onion' represents a guideline for researchers that are studying and creating a business research project because it analyzes and explains every step behind the effective primary and secondary data-analysis and the subsequent discussion of the findings obtained during this process.
Starting from the philosophy chosen for the implementation of the research, every layer of the research onion will be covered. Once explained the approach chosen to study and understand in the best way possible problems and opportunities derived from changes in companies' strategy, the following step will be explaining the research design. Here, the strategy used in the dissertation, the chosen method for the analysis, and the time horizon covered by the research will be analyzed.
Finally, this chapter will introduce the reader to the literature and analysis chapter explaining how the interview protocol has been developed and how the primary and secondary dataset were composed. Having a clear image of the research process, design and composition of the two data sets could give important evidence about how the ‘aim' of the research was implemented to find dissimilarities and similarities between firms taken into analysis.
2.2 Research Philosophy and Approach
Taking as reference the research ‘onion', here it is useful to specify which research philosophy was the best solution for the analysis and the relative approach used in it. Once identified these two features, the next logical step was to decide the research design introduced in paragraph 2.3 in which the main choices refer to the strategy used, the data collection method implemented and the time horizon taken as base. As you will read in this chapter, there is a logical connection between all the choices made during this part of the research to start the data collection and data analysis in the right way.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 3. The Research ‘onion’
Sources: Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill 2008.
Firstly, it is useful to specify the research assumption to distinguish the different possible philosophies and select the one which is the best fit for the research process. These assumptions will support the research strategy and the methods chosen as part of that strategy. The research philosophy represents the system of beliefs and assumptions behind the development of the dissertation and which is ‘better' depends on the question(s) the researcher is seeking to answer. In the beginning, four research philosophies were possible: positivism, realism, interpretivsm and pragmatism.
Based on the aim of the research and the respective research questions and objectives, for this work it is useful to use interpretivism as research philosophy. Interpretivism involves researchers to interpret elements of the study and integrates human interest into a study. Development of this philosophy is based on the critique of positivism in social sciences, emphasizing qualitative analysis over quantitative analysis.
Interpretive researchers assume that access to reality is only possible through social constructions such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, and instruments. Taking as reference the aim of the research, that is to understand how a sector answers to an exogenous crisis, the best way to address this question was through qualitative research. That because it was the best way to understand, implement, and develop certain literature topics that was introduced and explained in the literature chapter. That allows the researcher to implement interpretivism as research philosophy.
In fact, interpretivism advocates that it is necessary for the researcher to understand differences between humans in their role as social actors (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2008). Here, conducting research among people is fundamental, and therefore the researcher has to adopt an empathetic stance. The key action in applying interpretivism as research philosophy is to understand the dynamics of the world from the point of view of each research subject and compare those to produce research findings. This perspective is highly appropriate to business and management research, especially in some fields such as the strategic and the organizational ones. Moreover, it's important to manage in the right way and minimize the bias that could arise during the data collecting, interview, and analysis processes.
In this dissertation, getting in touch with the representatives of the different companies inserted in the analysis was fundamental. Through the right approach and a qualitative method, it was possible to deepen the topics highlighted into the interview, appropriately semi-structured. This process allows this project to focus on a small number of companies, but in a way that allows the researcher to better extrapolate and examine in depth many important topics.
Another important question that came to light during the initial phase of the project was which one could be the best approach to use during the analysis. Here, we had two possible solutions: the first one was to use a deductive approach, in which you develop a hypothesis and design a research strategy to test the hypothesis; instead, the second one implies the use of an inductive approach, in which you collect data and develop a theory as a result of the data analysis.
Inductive approach is appropriate for the context in which such events were taking place. In these studies, a small sample of subjects is more appropriate. Through these approaches, researchers are more likely to work with qualitative data using a variety of methods and coding procedures to collect these data, establishing different views of the phenomena (Easterby-Smith et al. 2008). With this approach, the difference is that it is recommended to use a more flexible structure. That allows the researcher to focus on the critical points of the research aim. Obviously, the need to generalize the data it is less important compared to the importance of choosing the right method of qualitative data analysis to produce useful findings.
As introduced in the research philosophy, the aim of the dissertation was to answer one simple question, subsequently developed into the respective research questions and objectives. That implied the use of a specific strategy that has involved characteristics belonging to the interpretivism philosophy. The same characteristics led to the choice of the inductive approach to research.
It is important to specify that it is perfectively possible to combine deduction and induction in the same piece of the research. In fact, these approaches could cohabit together to develop broader and more detailed results. Obviously, combining different types of approaches requires more resources, time, and different knowledge. That means that to decide the right approach and philosophy is essential in order to develop the research project in the best way possible.
2.3 Research Strategy
The second part of the research onion will be in this paragraph analysed and specified. These next three-layer represent the operational part of the project. Explaining the strategy used in the research, the chosen data-analysis method, and time horizon will give the reader a vivid image of how the entire research was theoretically and practically structured.
2.3.1 Strategy
After introduced the research philosophy and approach, the next step is to explain the research strategy.
The research design will be the plan for answering the research question. It will cover the objectives resulting from the research question(s), specifying the sources through which the data came from and considering the constraints that inevitably came into being.
Here, the important issue is to carefully think about the employ of a particular research design. In fact, it is important to have a valid reason for all the decisions made and presented in this part of the research. Comparing the research design to the research question(s) and the research philosophy and approach were here imperative. What is developed is an exploratory study in order to understand the reaction of a sector during an exogenous event with a focus on the fashion and textile industry.
An exploratory study is a valuable means of finding out what is happening, to seek new insights, to ask questions, and to assess phenomena in a new light (Robson, 2002, p.59). This type of study is particularly useful in order to clarify the understanding of a problem. That can be done through a search of the inherent literature topics and the following interview to produce and discuss the findings.
Once clarified the purpose of the research is important to explain is the strategy used during the process. Here the possible choice was between seven different research strategies (experiment, survey, case study, action research, grounded theory, ethnography, and archival research). Considering the aim of the research, the following research question(s), and the research philosophy and approach, the dissertation was developed as a case study.
A case study is a strategy useful for doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, using multiple sources of evidence (Robson, 2002, p.178). This strategy is important when the aim of the research is to gain a rich understanding of the context and the processes being enacted (Morris & Wood, 1991). The data collection techniques employed in this study are likely to be qualitative.
Moreover, it is possible to use multiple resources of data through triangulation as it was done, and as it will explain later in this chapter.
Once taken as reference the case study strategy it is important to distinguish it upon two-dimension presented by Yin (2003). The first one is to decide if the situation we analyse is a single case or it's a multiple case one. In this project, to develop it in the right way the dissertation follows a multiple cases dimension, useful to establish whether the findings of the first case occurred in other cases, producing theoretical evidence. The second dimension refers to the unit of the analysis that can be holistic or embedded. Here, the research is concerned only with the organizations as a whole, giving the evidence of a holistic case study.
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- Arbeit zitieren
- Paolo Selicato (Autor:in), 2020, Fashion in Times of Crisis. Drivers of the Reconversion Process Implemented by the Italian Companies of the Textile and Fashion Industry, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1066494
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