A decision model development for crowdsourcing in the fashion industry

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is emerging as a tactic for the fashion industry to better integrate customers' needs and quickly react to the industry's rapidly changing environment. This is a visible shift from the past focus on a designer's know-how based on individual experience and creativity.

Yet there is a lack of academic research on the use of crowdsourcing in the fashion industry. How can crowdsourcing go through a methodological evaluation process? What specific criteria are important for fashion companies to evaluate designs based on objective parameters? The purposes of this study are: (1) to generate an evaluation standard for a crowdsourced fashion design, and (2) to build an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) decision model for making final design selections. Two methods are used to produce the robustness of a decision model: taxonomic analysis and AHP. This study reveals that the most important evaluation factors are brand suitability, design excellence, production efficiency, marketing effect, and additional management considerations. Another important feature is the paper's attempt to evaluate a design, a strategic asset of any fashion brand, by approaching the subject with a systematic, scientific method.

时尚产业渐渐地开始采用众包作为对不断变化的产业环境的快速对应方式，以便于更好地迎合顾客需求。对于过去只重视设计者个人经验和创造力的模式来说，这是一个重大的转变(Von Krogh, Ichijo, &Nonaka, 2000)。从学术角度来看，关于时尚产业众包的实用性和效果的研究还有很大缺失。站在第三方的角度通过众包评估一个时尚设计，重要的是运用系统科学的方法找到清晰的目标以及评估标准，以帮助企业实现预期目标。本研究旨在找寻客观的，决策性的模式为时尚行业对众包设计进行评估。研究方法包括范畴理论(Spradley, 1979)并运用层次分析法（AHP）生成评估值(Saaty, 1990b)。

范畴理论(Spradley, 1979)通过八位时尚业界顶级专家进行研究。产生五个评估标准：“品牌适应性”，“设计优点”，“生产效率”，“市场效果”与“额外管理考虑因素”。这五个论题又进一步被拆分为32个判断条件。AHP(Saaty, 1990b)的分析通过26位时尚行业专家和消费者进行，为每个人的优先顺序生成了评估值。研究结果显示，评估众包设计的因素按照重要程度排序依次是“市场效果”，“品牌适应性”，“额外管理考虑因素”，“生产效率”以及“设计优点”。下设的32个判断条件中，“获利性”重要程度最高，接下来依次是”品牌适应性“，“适销性”，“品牌设计提升”以及“目标消费者接受能力”。

本文对评估时尚行业众包的影响因素研究提供了重要参考价值。此外，在通过系统并科学的方式创建众包设计评估标准方面也作出了贡献，比如通过范畴分析与AHP判断设计的重要性，这对于任何一个时尚行业中的企业来讲都是核心战略资产。

Keywords::

• AHP
• crowdsourcing
• fashion industry
• open innovation
• decision-making

Keywords::

• AHP
• 众包
• 时尚行业
• 开放创新
• 决策性

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012R1A1A3018629).