Mukti Khaire

Fashioning an Industry: Socio-cognitive Processes in the Construction of Worth of a New Industry

This study of the high-end fashion industry in India examines the process of construction of the worth of a new industry. Analyses of data from multiple sources revealed that framing by early entrepreneurs and the socio-cognitive processes that resulted from the transactions of field-constituents with the new industry constructed the worth of the industry. These socio-cognitive processes—curation and certification, commentary and critique, co-presentation, comparison and commensuration—enabled broader audiences to make sense of the industry and comprehend its worth. The findings form the basis of a general model of the social construction of worth through a process of distributed sanctification, contributing to the growing literature on social construction of value.

The Indian Fashion Industry and Traditional Indian Crafts

This study documents the emergence of the high-end fashion industry in India from the mid-1980s to 2005. Drawn from oral histories, magazine articles, and several databases, the study demonstrates that the Indian fashion industrys unique identity, based on heavily embellished traditional styles rather than innovative Western-style cuts and designs, was the result of the actions of early entrepreneurs.

Medium and Message: Globalization and innovation in the production field of Indian fashion

How do unconventional innovations become accepted in creative industries? To uncover the process by which conventions changed in the field of Indian fashion, we analysed the content of all 586 articles on fashion published in India’s leading fashion magazine during a 20-year period. The results of this exploratory analysis indicate that a regulatory change triggered economic liberalization in India, and the resultant globalizing forces facilitated interdiscursivity in the fashion media. As a result, the conventions of the global fashion paradigm permeated the Indian media discourse, gained acceptance, and came to co-exist with the previous “local” model of fashion and its conventions. This process increased the visibility of innovations that were previously peripheral in the field. The findings offer initial insights into the processes of change in creative industries, which are characterized as being relatively difficult to alter. The results have implications for organizational research in the areas of creative industries and innovation.