Disruption to Destruction: Exploring the Effects of Digital Disruption on the Value Creation Processes within the Field of Fashion through the lens of Service Dominant Logic

Digital platforms have democratised the fashion industry; once notoriously shielded by gatekeepers. Today, fashion’s end consumers rely less on such gatekeepers who hold industry specific knowledge, but instead, “follow” social media influencers who have shifted control from the sender (e.g. fashion brand) to the receiver (e.g. consumer). Together with a growing dependence on other boundary breaking technologies, the relevance of traditional gatekeepers is questioned, as is the holistic process of value creation within this ecosystem. Building upon contemporary service dominant logic (SDL) literature on service ecosystems, as well as the composition of value codestruction, this thesis zooms into the empirical context of the global fashion industry. To capture the complexity of individual and group behaviours within micro, meso and macro network contexts, an ethnographic research strategy was conducted, spanning over 18 months and including participant observations and self-reflexivity, a focus group, and 17 semi-structured interviews with influential fashion intermediaries.

Through thematic analysis, results were presented in a series of narrative stories, which ultimately, help shine a new light on how we view SDL in regard to operant resources, the complexities of diverse ecosystem actors, and value extraction. Our theoretical contribution is to add to SDL literature with what we call the coabduction of value and the democratisation of primary value creation. The importance of this finding is to highlight how the micro and macro level processes of a field can lead industry actors to manipulate value creation in what was previously a highly territorial industry. Our contribution highlights the mechanisms through which value creation can be appropriated, destroyed and reconfigured.