Orchestrating Luxury Brand Embodiment in Contemporary Markets: A Distributed Perspective
(A2026-133729)

AUTHORS

Clara Lecerf, ESCP BS; Luca visconti, Università della Svizzera italiana; Benjamin Voyer, ESCP Business School

ABSTRACT

Luxury brands use embodiment to create cultural meaning, drawing on a blend of human (founders, creative directors, artisans) and material resources (products, retail). While prior work identifies these resources, little is known about how they operate together. Building on the two-bodied brand metaphor, this research introduces a distinction between permanence-oriented and context-responsive resources and examines their interplay to understand how brands sustain coherence while adapting to contemporary markets. Using a multiple-case study of twenty luxury brands and drawing on Resource Orchestration Theory, we identify three mechanisms (multifaceted structuring, ecosystemic bundling, reciprocal and culturally embedded leveraging) that explain how brands combine heterogeneous embodiment resources. This research conceptualizes embodiment as a dynamic orchestration process and demonstrates how symbolic and cultural resources jointly support flexible yet coherent identity configurations.