A RESOURCE-BASED APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS OF
FASHION COMPANIES - THE CASE OF FENDI
Mariachiara Colucci
PhD Student
Department of Management, Faculty of Economics, University of Bologna
P.zza Scaravilli, 2
Bologna, Italy, 40123
Tel: (0039) 051-2098073 e-mail: colucci@economia.unibo.it
Manuela Presutti, PhD
Researcher assistant
Department of Management, Faculty of Economics, University of Bologna
&
LUISS – Guido Carli, Rome
P.zza Scaravilli, 2
Bologna, Italy, 40123 e-mail: mpresutti@luiss.it

Abstract:
The aim of this paper, according to the Resource Based View of the firm, is to suggest that resources and competencies can play a critical role in developing valuable strategies, influencing the trajectories of growth but also limiting the choice of the markets firms may enter. Moreover we consider that differential firm performance can be attributable to heterogeneity among firms rather than industry structure, considering the firm as the primary unit of analysis. In order to verify how a firm develops, manages and deploys competencies, we chose as empirical context the Italian fashion system, showing that firms strategic choices strongly depend on their resource endowment and on the organizational forms to employ these resources inside the value chain and the business system. In this sector, the increase of competition and market instability involves firms flexibility and ability to adapt to consumer changes as the essential factors for the achievement of a sustainable competitive advantage. Actually fashion companies are characterised by assets that are symbol-intensive, more than capital and knowledge intensive: the culture of creativity, the history, the striving for continuous product and process innovation. In particular, in the fashion system two competencies can be considered really important to reach a strong and durable competitive advantage: the ability to answer the market changes in an effective way, and the managerial capability to integrate heterogeneous competencies. We have focused on firms specialized in the high-end segment of the fashion system, and in particular we have analysed the case of one of the most famous Italian griffe with an international reputation: Fendi. We decided to use an in-depth single case study, which is in our opinion representative of the entire fashion system, to show how theoretical predictions of the RBV approach, especially in a dynamic perspective, can find empirical confirmation. Two major findings emerged from face-to-face interviews and from the analysis of secondary data. First, Fendi’s resource endowment played a crucial role in shaping its strategic choices. Second, Fendi developed ad hoc organizational forms to optimise the allocation of resources within both the value chain and the business system. In this direction, we suggest that the growth process implemented by Fendi is based on the continuous exploitation of resources and competencies accumulated over time. This efficient management in a dynamic perspective has led
Fendi to enter different competitive businesses, enlarging the brand’s expertise to other sectors where in the past it has had a marginal presence.

Key words: resources, competencies, fashion company, creativity, integration
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