Frederic Godart | INSEAD - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Frederic Godart

Strategic Management Journal, 2024

Competitive dynamics between firms and buyers are shaped by mutually understood conceptual system... more Competitive dynamics between firms and buyers are shaped by mutually understood conceptual systems that enable market interactions. Third-party audiences, such as the media, play a crucial role in shaping market structure and evolution by facilitating the development of these conceptual systems. Although they do not directly engage in contractual bargaining, third-party audiences stabilize perceptions and facilitate market interactions by cognitively embedding competitive dynamics. Our study examines the coreness of firms within the semantic network of firm names as relayed by the media. We find that higher coreness positively impacts auction prices. This effect is moderated by firm visibility and the tone of media coverage. Our model is tested using a unique dataset from the luxury watchmaking industry.

Journal of Business Research, 2024

Although strategic management scholars have long been interested in disruption as a phenomenon, t... more Although strategic management scholars have long been interested in disruption as a phenomenon, the latter has not been systematically categorized yet. Building on the existing literature, we develop a typology that encompasses four types of disruption: technological, business model, regulatory, and social movements. Our semisystematic review of the literature sheds light on the characteristics of disruptions and proposes a classification along two dimensions rooted in existing research: whether a disruption is "constraining" vs. "unconstraining", and whether it has an insider-driven vs. outsider-driven origin. We then consider three key phases of strategic action-predictability, ambiguity in response, and imitability-to explore how industry players are affected by the four types of disruption. Our proposed framework is empirically validated in a series of six mini case studies. Our article helps innovation scholars disentangle the nature of different types of disruption depending on their primary cause and shows how non-technological disruptions can challenge incumbents' status.

Organization Theory, 2024

We build a comprehensive and coherent understanding of organizational purity as an organization's... more We build a comprehensive and coherent understanding of organizational purity as an organization's steadfast adherence to a single institutional logic. This logic becomes the core tenet of its identity, an end in itself rather than a means toward survival. Instead of responding to institutional pressures, pure organizations may self-categorize vis-à-vis a potentially threatening 'other' through their own identity work. They mark and pursue their distinction from others, structure themselves to preserve their purity, and favor strategies that express the logic they embody. In so doing they may fail more often than organizations that are more responsive to institutional pressures. When pure organizations enter new institutional fields they can act as change agents, but where their logic dominates, they may block change. Different audiences, in turn, affect the success and survival of pure organizations by conferring authenticity, legitimacy or contempt, depending on their alignment with the pure organization's logic. Further examining purity will enable organizational theorists to better account for non-rational action and extend work on institutional logics.

Management Science, 2024

This paper explores whether and how consumers respond to global social movements challenging syst... more This paper explores whether and how consumers respond to global social movements challenging systemic discrimination and stereotypes. We examine the impact of the #MeToo movement on the market for products with stereotypical markers of femininity. Our analysis of high-frequency stockout and price data from a leading global fashion retailer spans from January 2017 to December 2018 and covers 32 countries, or 89% of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) population. Using a triple-difference approach across time, countries, and products, we identify changes in product-level stockouts, corresponding to a drop in the purchase of stereotypically “feminine” items. Our findings suggest a sudden shift in demand, with no immediate adjustments in product assortments or pricing. We discuss potential driving mechanisms, as well as implications for product management and marketing in marketplaces where segmentation is gender based.

Social Networks, 2022

Project-based and short-term employment is widespread in the contemporary labor market, yet exist... more Project-based and short-term employment is widespread in the contemporary labor market, yet existing theories of social capital often rely on an organizationally bound model of work and careers. In this paper, we expand this perspective by examining the case of precarious employment in a creative industry to ask, what kinds of social ties promote or constrain workers' opportunities? We examine networks among fashion models, a case of projectbased freelance labor. Using ethnographic accounts of fashion shows and castings, as well as a unique longitudinal dataset of careers and networks in fashion modeling, we develop the notion of "transitory ties" to account for the short-term, fleeting, and highly valuable social relations that models form recurrently on jobs. We adopt a network ecology perspective on transitory ties by showing how contextual factors drive their formation, and ultimately broader network structures that have tremendous consequences for models' careers.

Organization Science, 2023

In creative industries, a producer’s choice to use specific cultural practices is often driven by... more In creative industries, a producer’s choice to use specific cultural practices is
often driven by considerations of industry-specific notions of creativity and artistic vision. Creative producers claim autonomy over which practices are deemed desirable or legitimate, creating resistance to influences from outside the industry, such as from social movements. This study proposes that in such contexts, externally-driven change depends on the role of prominent gatekeepers. We consider how shifts in their discourse translate and amplify external social movement pressures for producers. We further argue that higher status producers respond more to the changing discourse of these gatekeepers, to whom they are more tightly connected. This leads to a dynamic that is counterintuitive in the context of creative industries in which higher-status producers, who can benefit most from preserving the status quo, show greater responsiveness to external pressures when translated through gatekeeper discourse. Our empirical analysis uses a unique data set related to a prototypical contested practice: fur use in high-end fashion. These findings highlight the complex role of gatekeepers in creative industries and indirect pathways through which external social movements drive change.

Annual Review of Sociology, 2020

This review integrates diverse characterizations of creativity from a sociological perspective wi... more This review integrates diverse characterizations of creativity from a sociological perspective with the goal of reinvigorating discussion of the sociology of creativity. We start by exploring relevant works of classical social theory to uncover key assumptions and principles, which are used as a theoretical basis for our proposed definition of creativity: an intentional configuration of cultural and material elements that is unexpected for a given audience. Our argument is enriched by locating creativity vis-à-vis related concepts-such as originality, knowledge, innovation, atypicality, and consecration-and across neighboring disciplines. Underlying the discussion are antecedents (struc-ture, institutions, and context) and consequences (audiences, perception, and evaluation), which are treated separately. We end our review by speculating on ways in which sociologists can take the discussion of creativity forward.

Poetics, 2019

What can scholars learn from looking at how objects are interrelated in concrete social settings?... more What can scholars learn from looking at how objects are interrelated in concrete social settings? We argue that even in the absence of directly observable materially-mediated relations between individuals, objects offer “traces” of institutional dynamics. More specifically, meaning-laden objects offer a window on the dynamics and intermingling of institutional logics. Accordingly, we explore a research setting where objects occupy an eminent position—élite art museums such as the MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Pompidou in Paris. We first explain how the staging of permanent exhibitions offers an understanding of the institutional logics at play in this type of organizations. Then, using a social network analysis perspective, we show how the state, market, and aesthetic logics influence the selection of the artists who have produced the artworks under consideration and how they are staged.

Strategic Management Journal, 2018

Research Summary: We develop a framework for understanding how and when membership in a conglomer... more Research Summary: We develop a framework for understanding how and when membership in a conglomerate affects a subsidiary's creativity. Focusing on " sectoral " conglomerates with several subsidiaries in the same industry , we explain that the effect has two components: an imprinting effect at the time of affiliation, and a concurrent effect from ongoing interactions with other subsidiaries. In the context of the high-end fashion industry, we find that a subsidiary's creativity increases when it joins a conglomerate with either very low or high creativity. We interpret this as an imprinting effect of the environment inside a conglomerate on how effectively a subsidiary is integrated. Furthermore, over time, the creativity of a subsidiary increases with the creativity of other subsidiaries. The results provide evidence of creativity " spillovers " within conglomerates.

Managerial Summary: We examine the role that fashion conglomerates like LVMH or Kering play in the creativity of their subsidiaries. These conglomerates create value through internal transfers of operational and creative practices. Some conglomerates are better at integrating subsidiaries after acquisition than the others: it seems that the better integrators are conglomerates that either have other creative subsidiaries or subsidiaries that lack creativity. Furthermore, conglomerates with other creative subsidiaries continuously improve the creativity of their member firms, probably due to their ability to transfer high-quality internal practices.

Poetics, 2018

This paper explores how culture and social structure are intertwined in markets. Starting with th... more This paper explores how culture and social structure are intertwined in markets. Starting with the notion that markets are composed of both producers and cultural elements, a two-mode and dynamic social network approach is used to define social structure as a set of relations among producers through cultural elements, and culture as a set of relations among cultural elements through producers. The example of global high-end fashion in London, Milan, New York, and Paris between 2008 and 2013 is used. Data were gathered from a prestigious and influential design forecasting bureau which synthesized data about the stylistic elements selected twice-a-year by fashion houses for their collections. While at a granular level of analysis (looking at specific seasons), both stylistic elements and houses are less clustered than expected, they form in the long run a highly clustered structure, both culturally and socially. Intermediate-level analysis reveals that while elements are still less clustered than would be expected by chance, houses appear to some extent to be randomly clustered. This sheds light on a long-standing conundrum in fashion: why does it appear to be completely random, and yet highly legible?

Academy of Management Journal, 2018

Diversification can be risky, as it extends a firm’s identity across multiple categories. This st... more Diversification can be risky, as it extends a firm’s identity across multiple categories. This study examines cultural and symbolic strategies used to mitigate such risks by managing the emergence of multiple identities. A key strategic choice is “naming;” the parent’s name may be included in the new subsidiary’s name (“semantic seeding”) or not (“semantic autonomy”). A stock of parent–subsidiary names serves as a lens through which gatekeepers evaluate the parent’s underlying creativity at the time of spanning categories. There is expected to be interfirm variance in creativity evaluations due to the differences in the number of autonomous or seeded names a parent sustains, the degree of visibility of different names, and the timing of introducing a new name. Using a panel dataset of global high-end fashion houses between 1998 and 2010, we found that each new autonomous subsidiary name enhanced the parent’s creativity appeal up to a certain point (an inverted U-shaped relationship). However, the predicted negative linear effect of seeded subsidiary names was not supported. Furthermore, gatekeepers’ ongoing memory of the focal firm was found to influence the parent’s perceived creativity. Our findings point to the possibility of using unfocused market presence for influencing the influencers.

Organization Science, 2019

When organizations strategically adopt cultural elements—such as a name, a color, or a style—to c... more When organizations strategically adopt cultural elements—such as a name, a color, or a style—to create their products, they make crucial choices that position them in markets vis-à-vis competitors, audiences, and other stakeholders. However, while it is well understood how one specific cultural element gets adopted by actors and diffuses, it is not yet clear how elements fare when considered within an industry choice-set of elements. Their popularity depends on idiosyncratic features (such as the category they belong to), or on structural factors such as their embeddedness (through connections to producers, audiences, or even other cultural elements). We develop an integrated perspective on the popularity of cultural elements in markets. We use a network perspective to show that the popularity of elements is fostered by being structurally embedded among many unconnected elements, in addition to not being affiliated to actors widely exposed in the media. We develop our study by using a unique dataset of fashion stylistic elements in the global high-end fashion industry from 1998 to 2010.

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2018

Because we lack a usable definition of the concept of style to inform research on the creative in... more Because we lack a usable definition of the concept of style to inform research on the creative industries, this chapter takes a first step toward developing a style-based perspective on them. The use of style in disciplines where the study of creative industries occupies a notable position (sociology, anthropology , cultural studies, and management) is compared and contrasted with a series of related concepts (status, fashion, trend, genre, movement, and category). Style is defined as a durable, recognizable pattern of aesthetic choices. Propositions that relate style to an organization's creative performance are formulated for two types of audience: insiders and outsiders.

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2017

The conception of markets as interfaces connecting semi-autonomous systems of producers and custo... more The conception of markets as interfaces connecting semi-autonomous systems of producers and customers has led to an extensive use of social network analysis. So far, the network focus has been on connections among people, paying less attention to the crucial role played by connections between cultural elements (e.g., concepts, representations, ideas) in the way markets are formed and sustained. Such connections constitute “semantic networks” and are the focus of the present article. We attend to them by developing a network view of the cultural dimension of markets and apply it in an empirical setting where culture plays a crucial role - luxury watchmaking - to illustrate the impact of market semantic networks on a major outcome: price.

Strategic Management Journal, 2017

Losing key employees to competitors allows an organization to engage in external boundary-spannin... more Losing key employees to competitors allows an organization to engage in external boundary-spanning activities. It may benefit the organization through access to external knowledge, but may also increase the risks of leaking knowledge to competitors. We propose that the destination of departed employees is a crucial contingency: benefits or risks only materialize when employees leave for competitors that differ from the focal organization along significant dimensions, such as country or status group. In the context of the global fashion industry, we find that key employees' moves to foreign competitors may increase (albeit at a diminishing rate) their former employers' creative performance. Furthermore, firms may suffer from losing key employees to higher- or same-status competitors, but may benefit from losing them to lower-status competitors.

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2016

Although it is often in the interest of individuals to implement networking strategies that erode... more Although it is often in the interest of individuals to implement networking strategies that erode their team's social capital, it is unclear under what conditions such a social dilemma is more or less likely to occur. We focus on brokerage and closure as two dimensions of social structure where tension 15 arises between individual networking strategies and team performance. Adopting a multilevel perspective , and focusing on closed teams with the presence of a clear leader, we analyze two complementary moderators of this social dilemma that are fundamental to the existence of teams: the task complexity facing the team under consideration, and the individualist versus collectivist shared value orientation of its members. We find that an increase in either of these makes the social dilemma more 20 likely to occur. Counterintuitive conclusions pertaining to these moderators are discussed.

Academy of Management Journal, Feb 1, 2015

The current research explores whether the foreign professional experiences of influential executi... more The current research explores whether the foreign professional experiences of influential executives predict firm-level creative output. We introduce a new theoretical model, the Foreign Experience Model of Creative Innovations, to explain how three dimensions of executives’ foreign work experiences—breadth, depth, and cultural distance—predict an organization’s creative innovations, which we define as the extent to which final, implemented products or services are novel and useful from the standpoint of external audiences. We examined 11 years (21 seasons) of fashion collections of the world’s top fashion houses and found that the foreign professional experiences of creative directors predicted the creativity ratings of their collections. The results revealed individual curvilinear effects for all three dimensions: moderate levels of breadth and cultural distance were associated with the highest levels of creative innovations, whereas depth showed a decreasing positive effect that never turned negative. A significant three-way interaction shows that depth is the most critical dimension for achieving creative innovations, with breadth and cultural distance important at low but not high levels of depth. Our results show how and why leaders’ foreign professional experiences can be a critical catalyst for creativity and innovation in their organizations.

Organization Science, Mar 2014

We examine the impact of key personnel’s loss to competition on their former employers’ creative ... more We examine the impact of key personnel’s loss to competition on their former employers’ creative performance. Using archival data on the career histories of designers and the creative performance of their fashion houses between 2000 and 2010, we find that a house’s outward centrality in the network of personnel mobility—resulting from personnel departures—has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the house’s creative performance. This relationship is moderated by the house’s inward centrality in a network of personnel mobility stemming from hiring competitors’ employees, the tenure of its creative directors, the accomplishments of these directors, and the house’s status. Our results suggest that organizations can enhance their creativity by relying on ideas obtained through relationships with their former employees long after these employees left to work for the competition. However, this effect is contingent upon characteristics of the organization that may be associated with its capacity to absorb these ideas and its ability to signal legitimacy of the resulting output to the external audiences.

International Journal of Fashion Studies, Apr 2014

Geography plays a crucial role in the fashion industry. For example, clothing brands are readily ... more Geography plays a crucial role in the fashion industry. For example, clothing brands are readily associated with specific countries and cities, and the apparel value chain is globalized in ways that have generated a lot of attention from social scientists, for example regarding outsourcing. In this article, the geographical perspective on fashion is extended and analysed through a power angle. In other words, the origins of the current ‘oligarchic’ structure of fashion - around New York, London, Milan and Paris - are explored in order to (1) better understand how power is shared in fashion; and (2) determine whether this structure actually has a future. More specifically, can the current fashion oligarchy make room for a fully democratized industry or a polyarchical structure that would include additional players, in Brazil, Russia, India or China among others?

Strategic Management Journal, 2024

Journal of Business Research, 2024

Organization Theory, 2024

Management Science, 2024

Social Networks, 2022

Organization Science, 2023

Annual Review of Sociology, 2020

Poetics, 2019

Strategic Management Journal, 2018

Poetics, 2018

Academy of Management Journal, 2018

Organization Science, 2019

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2018

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2017

Strategic Management Journal, 2017

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2016

Academy of Management Journal, Feb 1, 2015

Organization Science, Mar 2014

International Journal of Fashion Studies, Apr 2014

Contemporary Sociology, 2016

Organization Studies, Oct 2014

Allison's (1971) classic multi-perspective analysis of the Cuban missile crisis, as Palmer shows ... more Allison's (1971) classic multi-perspective analysis of the Cuban missile crisis, as Palmer shows how several of the case examples of wrongdoing he examines can be alternatively explained by a multitude of the different explanatory perspectives he develops.

Acta Sociologica, Dec 2012

The worldwide economic crisis which started in 2008, and its seemingly unending repercussions, ha... more The worldwide economic crisis which started in 2008, and its seemingly unending repercussions, has sparked renewed interest among the public and academics in alternative insights to our understanding of the economy. Economic sociology offers such novel insights. This subfield of sociology, which was arguably revolutionized in the early 1980s by American sociologists Harrison Mark Granovetter (1985), has now grown to the point where it can attempt to achieve two long-range and intertwined goals: (a) to propose a general theory of markets (that was, until recently, the preserve of economists) and (b) to integrate under its aegis other subfields of sociology, notably the sociology of culture.

Sustainable Luxury: Managing Social and Environmental Performance in Iconic Brands, Oct 1, 2014

Can eco-sustainable fashion (i.e. fashion that is friendly to the environment during and after th... more Can eco-sustainable fashion (i.e. fashion that is friendly to the environment during and after the production process) be also fashionable? While fashion is generally conceived as a process of recurrent change, eco-sustainable fashion implies fashion that lasts. This apparent contradiction in the definitions of fashion and eco-sustainability is most salient in the fashion industry’s luxury segments, where change itself is considered an element of luxury and thus upheld by consumers. This chapter unfolds the challenges and opportunities specifically faced by luxury fashion brands in pursuing the eco-sustainability agenda by taking a theory-informed, action-oriented approach towards the six core principles of fashion. In light of the principle-based investigation of how both consumers and producers can take advantage of each principle in favour of practising eco-sustainable fashion at the individual and brand levels, we suggest that the institutionalisation of eco-sustainability paradigms in luxury fashion can be realised without negating the core principles of fashion.

Luxury Brands in Emerging Markets, Mar 2014

Applying Relational Sociology : Relations, Networks, and Society, Dec 2013

Relationale Soziologie, 2010

How are you exhibiting that you are acting in a market, or that instead you are caught up in inte... more How are you exhibiting that you are acting in a market, or that instead you are caught up in internal affairs of a big hierarchical firm? And what would be the tangible evidences of your being in a different sort of context altogether, a Silicon Alley of network mobilizations among aficionados in some novel technical line of business or design? These questions do not address issues of business operation, of management strategy and expediency, nor do they take on issues of control and identity that arise over time and have engendered this variety in business contexts. They address issues of language as a relational social formation in business contexts.

Bifurcations: Les sciences sociales face aux ruptures et à l’événement , 2009

Märkte als soziale Strukturen, 2007

Desde hace al menos medio siglo, la moda ocupa un lugar central en nuestras vidas. Define identid... more Desde hace al menos medio siglo, la moda ocupa un lugar central en nuestras vidas. Define identidades sociales y crea o modifica patrones de comportamiento y consumo. Sin embargo, y pese a ser un fenómeno familiar, que nos afecta cada día, se nos presenta como inasible y misterioso. La industria de la moda permanece aún en sombras, y los habituales cambios de tendencia parecen ser el efecto de causas que no logramos dilucidar.
Este libro se propone descorrer ese velo, y develar los patrones que rigen una industria clave del modo de vida contemporáneo. Debido a la alta complejidad que presenta, es indispensable un abordaje multidisciplinario, que se basa en el enfoque sociológico, pero sin ignorar los aportes de la economía, de la geografía y de la historia. Así, Fréderic Godart analiza los mecanismos de influencia social que generan las tendencias propias de la moda, su creciente autonomía estética y creativa (que en ciertos aspectos la emparenta al arte), el culto a los modistos, entendidos como genios creadores, las pautas que establecen las grandes marcas, tanto por sus diseños como por la puesta en escena de los desfiles. Es decir, reconstruye el universo simbólico de la moda. Un universo que crea nuevos sentidos y que establece modelos de comportamiento y consumo, un “imperio” de creatividad e influencias que no cesa de agrandarse.

A moda afirma, une, distingue, separa. Identifica, conglomera e rechaça. Muitos fatores a ela se ... more A moda afirma, une, distingue, separa. Identifica, conglomera e rechaça. Muitos fatores a ela se entrelaçam, e sendo um fato social complexo, estabelece vínculos nas áreas da economia, da política, das artes, do lazer e do consumo, numa dinâmica que muitas vezes dificulta sua análise. Esse livro adota um ponto de vista sociológico, mas não ignora as contribuições da economia, da geografia ou da história. Afirmação, convergência, autonomia, personalização, simbolização imperialização essas são as questões básicas relacionadas à moda que o sociólogo Godart discute.

For most people, fashion can daze and confuse. It is, however, a fascinating phenomenon that is k... more For most people, fashion can daze and confuse. It is, however, a fascinating phenomenon that is key to how we define our identities, and it plays a central role in our lives. Proposing a comprehensive and accessible account of the global fashion industry, this book aims to present fashion in all its diversity and richness, to 'unveil' its mysterious mechanisms. Drawing on six core principles from the industry, Frédéric Godart guides the reader through the economic, cultural and social arena of the world's most glamorous industry. First, in the everyday-life game of identity-building, where fashion is deployed, between the individual and society. Secondly, the convergence of trends reveals how social influence is played out; likewise, fashion as an art, and how this is characterized by a creative and aesthetic autonomy. Finally, to all these dimensions, contemporary fashion adds the figure of the 'creative genius,' and gives a prominent importance to brands. Fashion is a rich symbolic world, and its 'empire' is spreading.

L’objectif de cet ouvrage, sans précédent en France, est de fournir un corpus pluridisciplinaire ... more L’objectif de cet ouvrage, sans précédent en France, est de fournir un corpus pluridisciplinaire de textes sur la mode depuis l’Antiquité grecque jusqu’au XXIe siècle. Alors même que la mode est un objet auquel résiste traditionnellement la pensée occidentale, cette sélection d’extraits vise à mettre en lumière une réflexion sur la mode, voire sur des concepts limitrophes, pour faire ressortir ce qu’elle présente de plus singulier. Chacun des textes choisis, que ce soit notamment ceux de Platon, Rousseau, Veblen, Tarde, Barthes, Bourdieu, Baudrillard et plus récemment de penseurs anglo-saxons comme Fred Davis ou Diana Crane, est systématiquement présenté et accompagné d’un commentaire qui s’attache à resituer l’auteur et le problème soulevé tant dans son contexte culturel que conceptuel, tout en prenant la mesure du cheminement de la question de la mode.

La principal aportación del CVS consiste no solo en entender la creatividad como pieza esencial, ... more La principal aportación del CVS consiste no solo en entender la creatividad como pieza esencial, sino en entenderla de forma proactiva. Es decir, se trata de una propuesta creativa propia de la empresa, y no de una identificación de las necesidades del mercado o del cliente "Creatividad en el lujo, ¿cadena o sistema de valor?" . © Planeta DeAgostini Formación, S.L.