What really matters for startups in luxury: entrepreneurial luxury excellence

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify luxury-specific entrepreneurial success factors that, in addition to the well-established general success factors of startups, drive the performance of startups in the luxury industry. The study proposes a contingency perspective on the success factors of startups by examining entrepreneurial excellence in one specific context, the luxury context. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative research design, with 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews with senior executives of Swiss luxury startups as key informants. The data is analyzed using the grounded theory approach. Findings The study develops a new construct of entrepreneurial luxury excellence consisting of two dimensions, resource-related excellence and strategy-related excellence, and identifies the underlying specific success factors related to these two dimensions of entrepreneurial luxury excellence. Originality/value The paper identifies a new construct - entrepreneurial luxury excellence.