Ecosystem Orchestration and Value Creation in Circular Fashion

Ecosystem Orchestration and Value Creation in Circular Fashion

Background

The transition to a circular fashion industry cannot be driven by individual companies alone. It requires the collaboration of diverse stakeholders: producers, consumers, neighborhood associations, cultural institutions, government agencies, educational institutions, and many more. This presents a dual challenge for a circular fashion company: it must establish itself as economically viable while simultaneously helping to shape a broader systemic transformation that extends beyond its own corporate boundaries.

The fair fashion factory (fff) in Basel is an association operating precisely within this tension. The fff has an existing map of the local ecosystem—it knows the relevant actors in the region. However, this ecosystem has not yet been systematically activated and orchestrated. The question arises as to how the fff can move from knowledge of the ecosystem to the strategic development of a functioning network of actors—and how this generates both social and economic value.

Objectives and Research Questions

This master’s thesis explores how a circular fashion company can orchestrate a local network of stakeholders and through which pathways this leads to economic viability. The thesis is exploratory in nature: it does not start from an already functioning network, but rather examines the prerequisites, mechanisms, and possible strategies for building such a network. The fff’s existing ecosystem mapping serves as an empirical starting point.

Overarching research question: How can a circular fashion company orchestrate a local ecosystem, and through which mechanisms does this generate economic and social value?

From this, the following sub-questions can be derived, for example:

• What types of actors can be identified in the local ecosystem, and what potential roles could they assume in an orchestrated network (e.g., multiplier, legitimator, resource provider, gatekeeper)?
• What motivates different types of actors to participate in such a network—and what barriers stand in the way of participation?
• Which orchestration strategies and engagement formats are suitable for building and coordinating a heterogeneous network of actors?
• Through which pathways does ecosystem orchestration translate into economic value for the focal company (e.g., demand, visibility, access to resources, legitimation, willingness to pay)?

Theoretical Framework

This work combines three theoretical perspectives that collectively shed light on the tension between entrepreneurial action and collective change:

• Ecosystem Orchestration

The ecosystem perspective (Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018) examines how a focal actor creates structures that bring complementary actors together and coordinate them. Unlike hierarchical control, orchestration is based on the design of interdependencies: The orchestrator creates incentives, defines interfaces, and enables value creation that no single actor could achieve alone. For fff, the question arises of how it can move from passive knowledge of the ecosystem (mapping) to an active orchestration role.

• Collective Action

The transition to circular fashion exhibits characteristics of a public good: everyone benefits from it, but each actor’s individual contribution entails costs. Collective action theory (Olson, 1965; Ostrom, 1990; Ostrom, 2015) provides tools for understanding which institutional arrangements, incentives, and social mechanisms enable such mobilization—and why it often fails. This perspective raises awareness of the challenges associated with building a network of actors.

Hertel et al. (2026), with their integrative framework on collective action and sustainability challenges, offer an analytical basis for identifying the specific dilemmas of action within the local ecosystem—particularly “give-some” dilemmas, in which all actors would benefit from circular fashion, but no one wants to bear the costs of the first step alone. In this sense, Ecosystem Orchestration can be understood as the practical strategy through which a focal company attempts to overcome such collective action dilemmas.

• Public Value

The public value approach (Meynhardt, 2009) bridges the two perspectives. It enables us to ask what social value is created by the network—and how this value simultaneously acts as a mobilization mechanism: actors participate because they perceive contributing to the common good as meaningful. At the same time, the social value creation enhances the company’s legitimacy and thereby creates the conditions for economic viability.

Methodological Approach

The study employs an exploratory, qualitative research design as a case study (fff in the Basel ecosystem). The choice of a case study is methodologically grounded: this is a context-bound phenomenon that has been little researched and requires a theory-building approach (Yin, 2018). The design comprises three phases that build upon one another.

• Phase 1: Mapping Analysis and Stakeholder Typology

The starting point is the existing ecosystem mapping of the fff. This is systematically reviewed, and the identified actors are categorized along theoretically grounded dimensions: potential role in the network (multiplier, legitimator, resource provider, gatekeeper), proximity to the fff (core actors, periphery, actors not yet connected), and presumed motivation. Targeted additions are made to address identified gaps through desk research. The result is a structured stakeholder map that serves as the sampling basis for Phase 2 and simultaneously constitutes an independent analytical contribution.

• Phase 2: Semi-structured interviews (12–18 interviews)

Track A — Potential ecosystem actors in Basel (8–12 interviews): Interviews with actors from various segments of the local ecosystem — deliberately sampled across the types identified in Phase 1. In addition to obvious partners (sustainable labels, textile initiatives), this includes neighborhood associations, the restaurant industry, cultural institutions, political bodies, and educational institutions. Focus: motivations and barriers to participation, perceived interdependencies, expected value of collaboration, and ideas about potential roles within the network.

Track B — Reference Cases (4–6 interviews): Interviews with founders or managing directors of comparable companies that have already established stakeholder networks—not necessarily from the fashion industry, but also from adjacent fields (food, craft, circular economy). Focus: experiential knowledge regarding orchestration strategies, value creation pathways, and obstacles in network building. These interviews can also be conducted remotely.

• Phase 3: Analysis and Synthesis

The evaluation is conducted via qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz, 2018), using deductive-inductive coding: The theoretical concepts (orchestration mechanisms, collective action problems, value creation pathways) provide the deductive categories, while inductive codes supplement emerging themes. The goal is to develop a conceptual framework that connects three elements: types of actors and their motivations, orchestration strategies and engagement formats, as well as pathways through which ecosystem activity is translated into economic and social value. From this, a concrete orchestration strategy for the fff will be derived.

Expected Contribution

Scientific

This work makes an exploratory contribution at the intersection of ecosystem orchestration, collective action, and social innovation. To date, the ecosystem literature has focused heavily on technology-driven contexts; this work extends the concept to sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship in a local context. Furthermore, it combines the orchestration and collective action perspectives—which have largely been discussed separately—and demonstrates how they productively complement each other. The developed framework offers entry points for further research.

Practical

The fff receives a well-founded, evidence-based orchestration strategy: Which actors should be prioritized, through which formats, and via which pathways does this generate economic value? The results include a prioritization of actors, concrete engagement formats, and an implementation roadmap. They are also relevant for other circular enterprises facing similar challenges in ecosystem development.

Qualifications

• Master’s student at the University of St. Gallen
• Interest in social innovation, sustainable entrepreneurship, and/or the circular economy
• Experience with or willingness to conduct qualitative research (interviews)
• Good German language skills (interviews with local stakeholders)
• Independent, reliable work ethic
• Ideally, a connection to or interest in sustainable fashion / the textile industry

What we offer

• Close supervision by CLIS-HSG with ties to an active research team
• Direct access to the practice partner fff and their existing ecosystem mapping as a data source
• Insight into an innovative, circular business model
• Opportunity to make a concrete practical contribution through your own research
• Connection to ongoing research on social innovation, cross-sector collaboration, and public value

Interested? Please contact Dino Darmonski (dino.darmonski@unisg.ch) with a short letter of motivation, your resume, and a sample of your work (e.g., bachelor’s thesis).