Sustainability and Profit in Fashion: Insights from Born-Sustainable SMEs in Brazil and Scandinavia
(2025) MGTN59 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- This thesis explores how born-sustainable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fashion industry can balance and improve the implementation of sustainability and profitability. It develops a cross-cultural analysis, comparing Brazil and Scandinavia (namely Sweden and Denmark). A constructionist framework is adopted in order to analyse culture, sustainability, and profitability with a subjective perspective, as a dynamic process that is shaped by human interactions, interpreting and emphasising the participants’ approaches to those concepts and how they shape the company strategies and decisions. A qualitative analysis was applied, based on nine semi-structured interviews with managers of born-sustainable fashion SMEs and... (More)
- This thesis explores how born-sustainable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fashion industry can balance and improve the implementation of sustainability and profitability. It develops a cross-cultural analysis, comparing Brazil and Scandinavia (namely Sweden and Denmark). A constructionist framework is adopted in order to analyse culture, sustainability, and profitability with a subjective perspective, as a dynamic process that is shaped by human interactions, interpreting and emphasising the participants’ approaches to those concepts and how they shape the company strategies and decisions. A qualitative analysis was applied, based on nine semi-structured interviews with managers of born-sustainable fashion SMEs and sustainability experts, and thematic analysis was used to code and identify patterns and divergences, to be able to draw conclusions on the primary data generated about strategic reasoning and decision-making.
The findings show that sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive, but simultaneous elements of value creation. Hence, efficient strategies should integrate both, ensuring financial stability while remaining true to ethical and sustainability values. These strategies must be emergent and adaptive to cultural context, market demands, and stakeholders’ expectations, incorporating mixed approaches and being able to shift between priorities.
This thesis contributes to the academic community by using a constructionist perspective to show the importance of external pressures and cultural context in managerial decisions. Practically, it offers a new vision and tools for SMEs to focus on adapting strategies to the cultural characteristics of their markets instead of acting against it, supporting ethical responsibilities while remaining financially stable. It highlights opportunities for future research to explore concrete ways to integrate subjective interpretations with objective metrics and implementing emergent, adaptive strategies. This study then highlights that it is possible to balance sustainability and profitability through a more flexible and adaptive approach, in order to reach the most effective and adaptive strategy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9206690
- author
- Bergamo de Carvalho, Júlia LU and Zhumagaliyeva, Aliya LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MGTN59 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9206690
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-30 10:21:14
- date last changed
- 2025-06-30 10:21:14
@misc{9206690,
abstract = {{This thesis explores how born-sustainable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fashion industry can balance and improve the implementation of sustainability and profitability. It develops a cross-cultural analysis, comparing Brazil and Scandinavia (namely Sweden and Denmark). A constructionist framework is adopted in order to analyse culture, sustainability, and profitability with a subjective perspective, as a dynamic process that is shaped by human interactions, interpreting and emphasising the participants’ approaches to those concepts and how they shape the company strategies and decisions. A qualitative analysis was applied, based on nine semi-structured interviews with managers of born-sustainable fashion SMEs and sustainability experts, and thematic analysis was used to code and identify patterns and divergences, to be able to draw conclusions on the primary data generated about strategic reasoning and decision-making.
The findings show that sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive, but simultaneous elements of value creation. Hence, efficient strategies should integrate both, ensuring financial stability while remaining true to ethical and sustainability values. These strategies must be emergent and adaptive to cultural context, market demands, and stakeholders’ expectations, incorporating mixed approaches and being able to shift between priorities.
This thesis contributes to the academic community by using a constructionist perspective to show the importance of external pressures and cultural context in managerial decisions. Practically, it offers a new vision and tools for SMEs to focus on adapting strategies to the cultural characteristics of their markets instead of acting against it, supporting ethical responsibilities while remaining financially stable. It highlights opportunities for future research to explore concrete ways to integrate subjective interpretations with objective metrics and implementing emergent, adaptive strategies. This study then highlights that it is possible to balance sustainability and profitability through a more flexible and adaptive approach, in order to reach the most effective and adaptive strategy.}},
author = {{Bergamo de Carvalho, Júlia and Zhumagaliyeva, Aliya}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Sustainability and Profit in Fashion: Insights from Born-Sustainable SMEs in Brazil and Scandinavia}},
year = {{2025}},
}