Power Relationship of Fast Fashion Industry (original) (raw)
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Dynamics of Power Influence and Relations in the Clothing/Fashion Global Supply Chain
The role of power in the supply chain is crucial in that through its interactions with other elements of the relationship atmosphere, it can seriously impede cooperation (Cox, 2001; Tokatli, 2007; Yaqub, 2009). Therefore, it is important to rationalize the power relationship among these actors in the clothing industry for comprehension and analysis of the supply chain to ensure the actors maximize competitive advantage because it is at the core of the success or failure of business (Porter, 1985:1).
Global Fashion Management Conference
This research investigates the power use in self and collective interests of retailers and small apparel suppliers' relationships. Our findings highlighted that power use of fast fashion retailers in self-interest and collective interest related goals are evident mainly in the areas of capability development, production processes and innovation in asymmetric relationships with Turkish apparel suppliers.
The power structure of the fashion industry: Fashion capitals, globalization and creativity
International Journal of Fashion Studies, 2014
Geography plays a crucial role in the fashion industry. For example, clothing brands are readily associated with specific countries and cities, and the apparel value chain is globalized in ways that have generated a lot of attention from social scientists, for example regarding outsourcing. In this article, the geographical perspective on fashion is extended and analysed through a power angle. In other words, the origins of the current ‘oligarchic’ structure of fashion - around New York, London, Milan and Paris - are explored in order to (1) better understand how power is shared in fashion; and (2) determine whether this structure actually has a future. More specifically, can the current fashion oligarchy make room for a fully democratized industry or a polyarchical structure that would include additional players, in Brazil, Russia, India or China among others?
MARKET POWER AND INTERORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY: THE ROLE OF TRACEABILITY
escp-eap.net
Traceability is a very complex concept which regards the sharing of knowledge on product information and production processes along the supply chain in btb networks until the consumers in the final market. It has undoubtedly an important impact on the relationships between actors along the supply chain, especially in the fashion industry, where traceability has an increasing role due to the strong integration between industrial and retail functions and the relevance of changes in the organization of production networks (global shift of production to new industrialized countries and emerging markets). The paper aims to analyse * Simone Guercini and Andrea Runfola share the final responsibility for this paper. Simone Guercini wrote sections "Concepts of traceability and buyer-seller relations", "Traceability and supply chains in the fashion industry"; Andrea Runfola wrote section "Methodology and cases analysed" and "The impact of traceability in the cases analysed". Both authors wrote section "Introduction" and "Final remarks". The authors thank Aldo Burresi for useful suggestions during the drafting of the present paper. 7 TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS, MARKETING TRENDS UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI VENEZIA, VENEZIA, 17-19 JANUARY 2008 2 the relation between traceability and buyer-seller relationship. Empirically, it presents
Buyers' power strategies and suppliers' compliance mechanism : case of Indian apparel export firms
Apparel industry in the developing world is experiencing a boom in apparel export since the quota free trade. However, incidences of poor working conditions and labor standard violations are commonly reported. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors and mechanisms affecting apparel suppliers' compliance, particularly with the code of conduct policies that were adopted by international buyers to regulate social compliance issues in the global apparel industry. This research investigated the influence of buyers' (apparel importers from developed countries) power strategies on suppliers' (apparel manufacturers from developing countries) motivations, and its overall effect on the suppliers' compliance mechanisms in the Indian apparel industry context, which is a force to reckon with in this industry. Face-to-face interviews of 210 managers from Indian apparel export firms were conducted. Data was analyzed using a statistical procedure of structure equation mode...
Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, 2018
The fashion industry is affected by an imbalance of power that goes beyond the outsourcing of part of the manufacture to developing countries. Said imbalance characterises the whole supply chain and hinders freedom of expression, freedom to conduct business and, hence, creativity and innovation. In order to understand fashion, IP lawyers and lawmakers need to take into account that the law is not the main device the regulating the relevant relationships. Indeed, fashion is a closed community, a family where complaining is rather frowned upon and where contracts do not reflect the actual relationships between the parties. In order to rebalance power, this article explores the possibility to treat good faith and inequality of bargaining power as unifying principles of contract law. However, in light of the evidence collected during a number of in-depth interviews with fashion stakeholders, it seems clear that social norms are the main source of regulation of relationships and, therefore, intervening at the level of the contracts may not be helpful. Competition law, in turn, may be of more help in rebalancing power; however, cases such as Coty v Parfümerie Akzente do not augur well. Moreover, competition law is useful when the relationship is over, but it is in all the stakeholders' interest to keep the relationship alive while fixing its imbalance. This study confirms recent findings that social norms do not only have a positive impact on fields with low IP-equilibrium and it sheds light on the broader consequences of the reliance on social norms and on its relationship to power imbalance. This work makes a twofold recommendation. First, IP lawyers should engage more with the unfamiliar field of social norms. Second, advocates of a reform of IP aimed at transforming the industry in an IP-intensive one should be mindful that the effort may prove useless, in light of the role of social norms, especially if power is not distributed. This research has been carried out with the generous support of the SLS Society of Legal Scholars. Please cite as Guido Noto La Diega, ‘‘Can the law fix the problems of fashion? An empirical study on social norms and power imbalance in the fashion industry’ (2018) Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, jpy097, https://doi.org/10.1093/jiplp/jpy097
In studies of the fragmentation and internationalization of production, most value chain approaches consider the inter-firm balance of power as the critical dynamic in development. With the firm as the primary unit of analysis, research long held out two promises: first, bridging the 'micro-macro gap' in development theory, meaning making valid inferences from micro-level actors (firms) to macro-sociological outcomes; and second, reconciling its firm-level organizational approach with institutionalism. This paper argues, first, that the literature is artificially constrained in bridging the micro-macro gap due to its delimited conceptualization of 'power,' based on the 'agentic-strategic' behavior of firms. It argues for broadening the notion of power to bridge the levels of analysis, based on the concept of 'emergence.' Second, while institutional critics are correct in criticizing value chain scholarship for its neglect, this paper finds that the effects of institutions are not as consistent or determinative as suggested, and hence, it seeks to expand the scope for incorporating institutionalism. These points are illustrated through an intra-industry comparative study of three textile agro-industries in China.
Contemporary Fashion Supply Chains - Under the Control of Style Agencies?
International Business Research, 2013
The contemporary approach to market driven strategy considers that the supply chains, now, must be analysed from the "customer backwards" rather than the "company outwards". If the improvement of the degree of responsiveness to demand changes is a incontestable source of competitive advantage, it would be reductive not to underline that the companies also try to guide the demand to facilitate the planning activities along the supply chain. Studies led in social psychology insist on the capacity of manipulating individuals to make them act in a certain direction, here in terms of purchasing behaviour. The case of fashion supply chains, though considered as an archetype of demand chain management, show that style agencies' mission is to impulse the trend that allow to create the consumer's demand rather than to put up with erratic changes. They are only five style agencies in the world and their work is to offer a framework that will give value to the information, to analyse the consequences of change that emerge rapidly and to offer creative solutions. By spreading the trend books to the whole of the fashion industry, they provide a work base common to all supply chain actors for implementing a collective strategy of consumer demand manipulation. In this case, in a provocative way, could we not talk about offer driven view?
This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan's apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and