Global competition, institutional context and regional production networks: up- and downgrading experiences in Romania’s apparel industry

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Index of Figures and Tables AbstractRegional suppliers still play an important role in the global apparel industry. By studying the experience of Romania's apparel sector, the paper highlights, first, the importance of multiscalar institutional, macro and policy contexts in analyzing the articulation of and up-and downgrading experiences in global production networks. These include the Multi-Fibre Arrangement, EU trade agreements and accession, the global economic crisis, and the specific institutional and policy context of post-Socialism. Second, the paper stresses the existence of diverse, non-linear and uneven up-and downgrading trajectories and of reactive adaptation rather than pro-active firm strategies. This questions the ideal upgrading account often portrayed in chain and network research.

Labor Regimes, Global Production Networks, and European Union Trade Policy: Labor Standards and Export Production in the Moldovan Clothing Industry

“…As Plank and Staritz (2015) and Pickles and Smith (2016) have highlighted, there is an increasing role played by macroregional production networks in the clothing sector across European borders. EU trade policy is central to this process, leading to the creation of expanded markets and investment opportunities for lead firms, including in countries neighboring the European Union.…”

“…SOEs were privatized during the 1990s, and a landscape of new enterprises, some domestically owned, some with foreign investment, emerged from the early 1990s. Trade liberalization has provided an opportunity for EU firms, especially Italian clothing manufacturers and UK brand and retail buyers, to expand production into a new lower-cost territory as production costs escalated in other East European new member states (Plank and Staritz 2015). Employment in the sector accounts for 19 percent of total manufacturing employment, with 14,400 employees in 2015.…”

Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains

“…Scholars are increasingly acknowledging the important contributions by firm and non-firm actors to GSC governance. Research in labour governance in GSCs has explored the roles of numerous actors, including transnational corporations (Nadvi, 2008), suppliers (Soundararajan and Brown, 2016;Plank and Staritz, 2015), labour contractors (Barrientos, 2013), unions (Fichter et al, 2011), and NGOs and third-party organisations (Khan et al, 2010). We add to this strand of literature by focussing on one important but neglected actor, the sourcing agent.…”

Social up- and downgrading of apparel workers in Romania: fast fashion, post-socialist transformation, Europeanization, and the global economic crisis

“…However, particularly in the 2000s, a number of apparel exporters increasingly switched part of their production to the domestic market, motivated by growing demand and better margins. But competition also increased on the domestic markets -increasingly owing to EU-15 retailers, and, hence, most domestically oriented firms continue exporting (for more information see Plank and Staritz, 2015). of lead firms in governing chains and in enabling or restricting the entry and economic upgrading prospects of supplier firms.…”

“…Industry dynamics are however mediated by multi-scalar institutional and regulatory contexts and state policies. In Romania -as in other CEE countries -the legacy of the country's state socialist past and its post-socialist transformation, Europeanization and the global economic crisis have been influential drivers of GPN outcomes (Smith et al, 2014;Plank and Staritz, 2015;Pickles et al, 2016).…”