Kim Poldner, Olga Ivanova and Oana Branzei
Sustainable fashion.
Abstract
Subject area
Sustainable fashion.
Study level/applicability
Bachelor Degree/Master Degree, Master of Business Administration (MBA), PhD.
Case overview
The case focuses on Osklen, one of the world’s first eco-fashion brands, founded in 1989 by Oskar Metsavaht. For the past 26 years, Osklen had become Brazil’s foremost sustainable luxury venture, and since 2012, under first minority and then majority corporate ownership, pursued an aggressive global expansion strategy. The dilemma of the case juxtaposes Osklen’s creative aesthetics, which leverage unique Brazilian beauty in nature and heritage, with the financial pressures of global expansion. The tension is exacerbated by the 2015 corruption scandal, which decelerated the Brazilian economy and reduced consumer spending on sustainable luxuries in Osklen’s home market; it also risked compromising the appeal of Brazilian brands elsewhere. The case explores the complex interconnections between local and global aspects of sustainability and brings forward the environmental, social and cultural aspects of brands and business to the foreground. The case also illustrates how economic crises impact brands from the initial creative inspiration to the prospects of global expansion.
Expected learning outcomes
Students will master tools for strategic analysis (VRIN framework and scenario planning) to a company evolving in an emerging economy. They will learn about the ways to consider and communicate sustainability. Students will be exposed to the importance of aesthetics and multi-sensoriality in business activities.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Subject code
CSS 11: Strategy
Details
Keywords
Richard Hull, Jane Gibbon, Oana Branzei and Helen Haugh
Purpose – This chapter introduces the contents of the volume and provides an editorial overview of the origins of the concept of the Third Sector, methodologies employed by…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter introduces the contents of the volume and provides an editorial overview of the origins of the concept of the Third Sector, methodologies employed by contributors, how contributions address different organizational forms, issues of critique within the volume, and the benefits of the contributions for researchers and practitioners within the Third Sector, and within Critical Management Studies.
Methodology/approach – Editorial overview and synthesis.
Research implications – The contents of the volume significantly advance critical perspectives upon the Third Sector.
Social implications – The contents of the volume enable improved critical reflection for those working within the Third Sector.
Originality/value of chapter – This editorial introduction presents the first broad-ranging synthesis of (a) contemporary issues within the Third Sector, Social Economy and Civil Society and (b) Critical Management Studies.
Oana Branzei and Marlene J. Le Ber
Organizations, whether for-profit, nonprofit or governmental, value – and sometimes devalue – social benefit. Values, defined as “that which people hold dear, esteem or cherish,” …
Abstract
Organizations, whether for-profit, nonprofit or governmental, value – and sometimes devalue – social benefit. Values, defined as “that which people hold dear, esteem or cherish,” (Harvie & Milburn, 2010, p. 632), also organize. Organizational practices (actions and relationships) are (re)framed and (re)structured around values. The ethical frameworks that emerge around our values (De Angelis, 2007, pp. 24–28) (re)create social memories that structure how we interact with one another. For example, we habituate to treating one another with (or without) compassion, with (or without) respect or with (or without) dignity (Harvie & Milburn, 2010, p. 633).
Helen Haugh and Ana Maria Peredo
Third-sector organizations have been described as intermediate organizations (Evers, 1995) in mixed economies (Ben-Ner & van Hoomissen, 1991) that are situated in the interstices…
Abstract
Third-sector organizations have been described as intermediate organizations (Evers, 1995) in mixed economies (Ben-Ner & van Hoomissen, 1991) that are situated in the interstices between the private and the public sector. This curious mode of defining a group of organizations in terms of something they are not has created a rich field of opportunities to explore the interfaces between them and other organizations in the private, public or third sectors. Research has emerged from this juxtaposition that explores the maintenance of organizational differences and the processes of organizational convergence. Interest in hybridization as a process to explain the management of the conflicting pressures to maintain difference and foster convergence has led to advances in institutional theory (Battilana & Dorado, 2010), institutional entrepreneurship (Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011) and our understanding of bricolage (DiDomenico, Haugh, & Tracey, 2010). In their chapter, Le Ber and Branzei add to this area of critical analysis by adopting feminist theory to extend our understanding of hybridization practices in the third sector.
Marlene J. Le Ber and Oana Branzei
Purpose – This chapter introduces, problematizes, and extends research on business model innovation in the third sector from a feminist perspective. We examine how the issues of…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter introduces, problematizes, and extends research on business model innovation in the third sector from a feminist perspective. We examine how the issues of marginalization, subordination, and cooptation are revealed in dominant business models. These issues form a “dark triangle” that third-sector organizations strive to overcome.
Design/methodology/approach – We draw on a historical case study of Goodwill Industries International, Inc. (GII) to illustrate how business model innovations can counterbalance this dark triangle through three types of hybridization practices that can (re)engage the marginalized, the subordinated, and the coopted in more socially positive and economically viable opportunities.
Findings – This chapter uses a methodology of problematization to rebalance the overproblematization of critical management studies and the underproblematization of the mainstream literature on business models.
Originality/value – By recasting business model innovations as devices for reflection-in-action, this study extends the discussion on business models from the mainstream business literature to critical management studies; we underscore the versatility of business model in the third sector by first unpacking the social issues they are trying to solve and then decomposing them into specific sets of hybrid practices that explain how the desired social change can be effectively implemented.
Details
Keywords
This section offers a critical exploration of how third-sector institutions progressively fill the ‘missing middle’ between the state and the market. Each of the two chapters…
Abstract
This section offers a critical exploration of how third-sector institutions progressively fill the ‘missing middle’ between the state and the market. Each of the two chapters provides a rich, multi-level and longitudinal account of the practices by which third-sector institutions find their footing in a complex landscape of multiple and often contradictory stakeholder interests – while seeking an often tenuous and at best temporary balance between self-interest and the common good. This core tension, foundational to research and practice in the third sector, features centrally in both chapters but leads to radically different endings and complementary insights.
The fourth section adopts a critical perspective to explore the notion of hybridity in third-sector management systems and processes. Although the theme of hybridity runs through…
Abstract
The fourth section adopts a critical perspective to explore the notion of hybridity in third-sector management systems and processes. Although the theme of hybridity runs through most of the previous chapters, it is in this section that empirical data is gathered on how it is enacted by organizations. Both chapters provide accounts of the tensions and conflicts that emerge between actors that endeavour to generate social change.