Institutional entrepreneurship in the creative industry in an emerging market : a study of the fashion sector in Bandung, Indonesia

By spotlighting the creative fashion industry in an Indonesian city, Bandung, this study explores the underdeveloped institutional environment faced by the fashion industry actors, strategies taken by the fashion industry actors to deal with the underdeveloped institutional environment, the actors who play the roles of institutional entrepreneurs, and the nature of institutional work carried out by these institutional entrepreneurs. This exploratory research relies on a multiple case study approach by conducting in-depth interviews and documentary analysis. It is demonstrated in this study that Bandung’s fashion industry originated from communities’ creativity in showing their own identities through fashion. Fashion products based on the spirit of independence became a trend over time, along with the process of fashion brand creation by micro and small-scale enterprises, which acted as an inspiration for many youth communities to undergo a similar process. Some of these fashion brand creators also established an informal association that helped the fashion industry actors to deal with problematic institutional conditions. Furthermore, to make a greater impact on the city level, a forum that consisted of 50 communities initiated a creative economy development. It is argued in this study that this initiative spanned an institutional void related to creative economy development in Bandung. This study offers a contextualized understanding of how the fashion industry actors in Bandung, Indonesia, coped with the underdeveloped institutional environment. They were conducting practices that spanned institutional voids and resulted in new arrangements. This study develops an explanatory framework of institutional entrepreneurship in the fashion industry in an emerging market economy, hence it advances the study of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work in the context of emerging markets