Leadership Practices in the Fashion Industry: Aligning the creative and commercial aspects within a fashion company context

Abstract

This thesis explores leadership practices, which align the creative ability of the fashion designer with the commercial goal of the fashion company, without the risk of suppressing the artistic motivation. In addressing this agenda, this study draws on both creativity and leadership literature to outline the emergent creative leadership concept and does answer to the call of De Fillippi, et al. (2007) which asked for more empirical studies in different cultural industries about the leadership of creativity. The importance of the study is given to the rising need for creativity for all industries to support the impertinent need for constant innovation.

The Thesis is divided into two main parts, a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part consists of an extensive literature review about the definition of creativity, the fashion business, leading creativity in cultural industries and the leadership-as-practice view. The empirical part examines the leadership practices of three successful Finnish fashion companies, by interviewing the leadership team of the companies and evaluating the interviews in a cross-case analysis. Both parts have been used to determine three leadership practices in fashion companies that allow the alignment of creative and commercial aspects within a company: “structured milestone meetings and informal communication”; “counterbalance and mutual decision making”; “a structured freedom space for the designer”. In addition, further practical implications and guidelines are elaborated in the discussion part which could not be identified as leadership practices.