The Global Apparel Value Chain, Trade and the Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

By Gary Gereffi, S. Frederick. 2010

424 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper examines the impact of two crises on the global apparel value chain: the World Trade Organization phase-out of the quota system for textiles and apparel in 2005, which provided access for many poor and small export-oriented economies to the markets of industrialized countries, and the current economic recession that has lowered demand for apparel exports and led to massive unemployment across the industry’s supply chain. An overarching trend has been the process of global consolidation, whereby leading apparel suppliers (countries and firms alike) have strengthened their positions in the industry. On the country side, China has been the big winner, although Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam have also continued to expand their roles in the industry. On the firm side, the quota phase-out and economic recession have accelerated the ongoing shift to more streamlined global supply chains, in which lead firms desire to work with fewer, larger, and more capable suppliers that are strategically located around the world. The paper concludes with recommendations for how developing countries as well as textile and apparel suppliers can adjust to the crisis.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dba8991d9b0bc7dd8d9406564408d7ed7b9fb662

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Gary Gereffi
2. S. Miroudot
3. M. Anner
4. Karina Fernández-Stark
5. F. Mayer
6. Daria Taglioni
7. John Pickles
8. Rudolf R. Sinkovics

In Strategy and Management

1. Gary Gereffi
2. F. Mayer
3. M. Anner
4. John Pickles
5. Karina Fernández-Stark
6. S. Miroudot
7. Shengjun Zhu
8. Rudolf R. Sinkovics

Citations in the corpus

• Rana Plaza collapse aftermath: Are CSR compliance and auditing pressures effective? (2016, background): “Gereffi and Frederick (2010) propose four functional upgrading trajectories.”
• Joining, Upgrading and Being Competitive in Global Value Chains: A Strategic Framework (2013, background): “Task bundling is necessary in a context of GVC consolidation, where lead firms reduce the number of intermediates and expect them to provide a more comprehensive package with a higher services-content (Gereffi and Frederick, 2010).”
• GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS: A PRIMER (2011, background): “The apparel industry is a classic case that has been used to illustrate different upgrading and downgrading trajectories, since a large number of countries have been significant apparel exporters from the 1970s until the present (Gereffi, 1999; Gereffi & Frederick, 2010).”
• Regulation and economic globalization: Prospects and limits of private governance (2010, background): “This can be seen in industries as diverse as apparel (Gereffi and Frederick, 2010), automobiles (Sturgeon et al., 2009), and electronics (Sturgeon and Kawakami, 2010; Sturgeon and Lester, 2004).”
• Squeezing workers’ rights in global supply chains: purchasing practices in the Bangladesh garment export sector in comparative perspective (2020, background): “At the same time, there has been a dramatic dispersion of apparel suppliers across developing countries (Gereffi & Frederick, 2010).”
• Bring In, Go Up, Go West, Go Out: Upgrading, Regionalisation and Delocalisation in China’s Apparel Production Networks (2014, background): “With expanded exports, dependence on specific markets was reduced (Gereffi and Frederick 2010).”