The Danish fashion industry is doing well internationally

PhD dissertation scrutinises Danish fashion companies

Fashion trends and consumer demand change rapidly making the market unpredictable. Yet Danish fashion companies need to innovate the right products a year before the demand is visible. Moreover, due to the narrow local market, Danish fashion companies are forced to move into a competitive international market.

Despite the tremendous disadvantages, Danish fashion companies are doing well internationally. This is one of the conclusions in a PhD dissertation by Yen Tran from the Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics. Her research has recently won an award at the Academy of Management Conference in 2009. Her dissertation puts focus on how Danish fashion companies can organise for their stylistic innovation to survive in a competitive international environment. Theoretically, the thesis shows how firms manage this particular type of innovation in a turbulent context where timing is crucial.

- Considering their size, the Danish companies, which I have dealt with in my dissertation, have been able to manage well on the international market, competing with fashion giants such as ZARA and H&M, explains Yen Tran.

The right organisation makes the difference

According to Yen Tran, companies must develop their strategic innovation capabilities to be able to survive on this turbulent market.

- Companies must develop strategic capabilities to organise for continuous and rapid product innovation. Balancing different development practices of stylistic innovation, choosing the right organisational design, and managing timely knowledge flows and supplier networks are the keys to making them stay competitive, says Yen Tran.

Yen Tran

Yen Tran’s paper ‘Ambidextrous Organizational Design: A Process Perspective’, based on her PhD dissertation titled Organizing for stylistic innovation in turbulent market, is the winner of the 2009 Academy of Management Best Doctoral Student Paper based on Dissertation at the Academy of Management conference. The paper has also been nominated for the William H. Newman Award and chosen for Best Paper Proceedings of the Conference.

In 2007, Yen was awarded the Tuborg Economic prize to do her last year of PhD research at Stanford University. In 2008, she published the book ’Fashion in the Danish Experience Economy: Challenges for growth’ based on research within the Danish fashion industry.