How innovation creates value in the Portuguese fashion value chain

The Portuguese footwear industry had in the last five years a remarkable performance in the exportation values, the trade balance and others economic indicators. After a long period of difficulties and with a strong reduction of companies and employees since 1994 until 2009, the Portuguese footwear industry changed the strategy and is now a success case between the international players of footwear. The 2015 exportation values confirm this situation.These results are linked with the strategy in innovation followed and with the type of innovation adopted by the footwear companies. The research methodology was qualitative and the strategy for data collection was the case study.The model “Ace of Diamonds” proposed by the authors explains the way how this performance was reached by the seven companies that participate in the study and if this model can be used in others traditional and low-tech industries as they are the fashion industries (apparel and textile).FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme-COMPETE and by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-00713