Historical Analysis of Apparel Marketer’s Strategies: Evidence from a Nike Case

Abstract

Abstract In the decades previous to 2010, many firms in consumer product industries, including the apparel industry, have experienced changes both in the structure of the industries (e.g., ownership, control and location of production) and the functions of the firms (e.g., production- or product oriented vs. marketing-oriented) within the industries (Su et al., 2009). One force in this change was the economic globalization that brought about shifts of production and trade from domestic production to off-shore sourcing of production and then of fabrication and design (Ha-Brookshire and Dyer, 2009). Gereffi (1994) argued that the continued interest in this dynamic of globalization in the apparel industry may remain because global restructuring of the economy is historical in shifts of power across commodity chains. As a major industry in the global market, this argument emphasizes the importance of historical analysis for the apparel industry. However, a review of literature revealed that only a few academi...