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 semistructured in-depth interviews with senior executives of Swiss luxury startups as key informants. The data is analyzed using the groundedtheoryapproach. 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. Research limitations/implications– The study advances research on strategic entrepreneurship as it combines a holistic approach to managerial success factors of startups with a contingency perspective on them. It also adds to the existing body of research on luxury management where studies with a focus on industry newcomers arestill a newdomain. Practical implications– The study makes important implications for luxury entrepreneurs and other stakeholders (e.g. investors) by showing that the success factors of luxury startups might differ from those of startups in other industries. Originality/value– Thepaperidentifiesanewconstruct–entrepreneurialluxuryexcellence. Keywords Firmperformance, Luxury, Grounded theory, Startups, Organizational success factors PapertypeResearch pape