Reconfiguring 'post-socialist' regions
Cross-border networks and regional competition in the Slovak and Ukrainian clothing industry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4263298 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adrian Smith (0000-0001-8027-712X, Queen Mary University of London, corresponding author), John Pickles (0000-0002-6736-2183, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Milan Buček (Bratislava University of Economics and Business), Robert Begg (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Poli Roukova (0009-0001-0479-8975, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 281-307 |
| Publication date | 2008-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Networks (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1471-0374.2008.00196.x |
| OpenAlex | W1985289865 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 18 |
The global garment industry is currently being reshaped in dramatic ways through processes of trade liberalization, delocalization and interfirm and interregional competition. There has been much speculation about the increasing importance of factor (especially labour) costs in fuelling further rounds of de-localization of garment production towards low-cost production locations, such as China and India. However, the extent to which these processes mean the end to garment production in higher factor-cost locations, including those neighbouring the major clothing markets of the USA and the EU, is open to question. In this article we interrogate the interregional shifts in garment sourcing taking place in Europe and its surrounding regions. While factor costs (including labour) are important determinants of the geography of sourcing, a range of other costs (logistical and policy costs) are important in structuring the geographies of global and regional production. Firms in the Slovak Republic are responding to increasing competitive pressures and we assess how trans-border sourcing, subcontracting and FDI are being integrated into strategies to sustain European production networks. We highlight the emergence of cross-border production relocation to Ukraine as one specific strategy. We examine the product specificity of these changes and the ways in which they are embedded within already existing production networks, forms of cross-border contracting and central European trade regimes. In other words, we explore some of the forces that shape the somewhat tentative continuation of garment production for export to EU markets in central Europe despite the 'spectre of China
Business · China · Clothing · Economic geography · Economics · International trade · Liberalization · Market economy · Political science · Relocation · Restructuring · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Global Trade and Competitiveness · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
Border Politics
The political economy of global production networks
Geographies of dissociation
Coping with the changing rules of the game in the global textiles and apparel industries
Turkishization of a Chinese apparel firm
Uneven transformations
Italian banks and business services as knowledge pipelines for SMEs
The globalisation of the hotel industry and the variety of emerging capitalisms in Central and Eastern Europe
Ukraine’s diverging space-economy
Geographical imaginaries of the ‘New Europe’ and the ‘East’ in a business context
The upgrading framework in the apparel industry literature
Europeanizing Timisoara
Mutating Neoliberalism
Delocalization and Persistence in the European Clothing Industry
The Global Economic Crisis, Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union
New economic geographies of manufacturing in China
State Regulation, Economic Reform and Worker Rights
Global Production in a Romanian Village
International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain
Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism
Ready-to-Wear Development? Foreign Investment, Technology Transfer, and Learning by Watching in the Apparel Trade
Outward Processing, EU Enlargement and Regional Relocation in the European Textiles and Clothing Industry
The Changing Global Geography of Low-Technology, Labor-Intensive Industry
Globalization Processes in the Clothing Industry of Transcarpathia, Western Ukraine
Upgrading, Changing Competitive Pressures, and Diverse Practices in the East and Central European Apparel Industry
Cutting It
Trade Liberalization, Industrial Upgrading, and Regionalization in the Global Clothing Industry
The Future of the Apparel and Textile Industries
Upgrading, uneven development, and jobs in the North American apparel industry
Industrial Districts, Magic Circles, and the Restructuring of the Italian Textiles and Clothing Chain
Power Relations, Industrial Clusters, and Regional Transformations
| Unique citing works | 18 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,06 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2023 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 18 |