2020

Watanabe, Chihiro; Akhtar, Waleed; Tou, Yuji; Neittaanmäki, Pekka Neittaanmäki

Fashion reflects changes in socio-economic and cultural life which, in turn, changes fashion, and apparel boosts such change. Thus, in response to a shift in people’s preferences from economic functionality to supra-functionality beyond an economic value, the fashion industry has been gaining momentum worldwide. In the digital economy, the fashion industry is in the midst of global dynamic change stimulating volatility, velocity, variety and dynamism, which necessitate a digital solution. Digital business leader Amazon has succeeded in constructing an R&D-driven disruptive businesss model. This can be attributed to a virtuous cycle among user-driven innovation, advancement of the Internet, co-emergence of soft innovation resources, and activation of a self-propagating function leading to supra-functionality satisfying user preferences. Given a timely digital solution, the fashion industry reinforces this cycle which, in turn, advances the solution. Thus, broad stakeholder involvement betting on a higher level of R&D expecting the future prospects of the industry can be expected. Based on a co-evolution analysis of the development trajectories of Amazon and the fashion industry, an insightful suggestion paving the way to stakeholder capitalism, essential for global business leaders, is thus provided.