中國特色成就本土品牌：從制度視角探究體育用品品牌的成功原因

Abstract

The emergence of Chinese sportswear brands dates back to the 1920s and 1930s, whereas branding, on an international basis, gained particular momentum in the 1990s.The first decade of the 21th century witnessed explosive growth of the industry which attracted attention from all societal sectors, including the capital market. In the last 25 years, Chinese sportswear brands have experienced broad acceptance and have openly competed with major international brands. Why do Chinese sportswear brands enjoy such vitality despite fierce competition from international brands? How have domestic sportswear brands recovered from the 2008 economic crash in merely two to three years, whereas most industries have suffered for far longer? This research consists of three major parts: the first part presents a literature review of extant research, the theoretical background and the selected research methodology. In particular, this research offers a detailed 25-year industry review started with the founding of the LiNing brand in 1990. The second part illustrates the critical events and strategies of LiNing, Anta and Xtep, and offers respective analysis for each case brand. The third part synthetically analyzes and discusses all three brands of interest employing a comparative and contrastive approach. More specifically, this research identifies three major enablers in domestic sportswear brand development: (1) through categorization and brand identity legitimacy strategies, pointing out how new entrants or marginal brands could create new market segmentation and thus improve brand survival and evolution; (2) through presenting a hybrid analysis of institutional logic in both sports and entertainment marketing, thus highlighting how a single player’s marketing initiation could diffuse and gradually extend the scope and boundary of the industry; (3) through demonstrating how companies should make strategic choices (including branding, distribution, retailing, R&D, etc.) based on their institutional environment and institutional capital. Particularly when faced with competition from international brands, local brands could leverage their institutional capital (e.g., political influence, industry clustering and entrepreneurship) to deal with the threats and opportunities embedded in the institutional environment. Drawing on institutional theory, inclusive of legitimacy strategy, institutional capital theory and institutional logic perspective, this research considers the Chinese sportswear industry to constitute an organizational field and analyzes its evolution during the 1990-2015 period based on three detailed case brands. The interaction of brands and field is discussed. The findings and propositions contribute to institutional theory and offer managerial implications in three ways: (1) by illustrating the interaction among categorization, brand identify and institutional logic in the field, the research demonstrates how interaction could create new market segments and accelerate the evolution of the industry; (2) through categorization of brand identity, and legitimacy strategies, this research highlights the need to balance the individual brand identity and collective identity at the field level; (3) through recognition that the transitional process which the Chinese market is undergoing indicates that institutional voids could be constraints as well as enablers. Companies should make strategic choices based on their institutional environment and institutional capital. This research offers insightful implications for local and international second- and third- tier enterprises in the Chinese sports goods industry, especially in the areas of brand building, new product development and marketing promotion. It also holds implications for other fields in sports and entertainment marketing.

Date of Award	11 Mar 2016
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Zhilin YANG (Supervisor)