Western Buyers Research Articles

Critical determinants and firm performance of sustainable technology adoption in the apparel industry: the stakeholder approach

PurposeThis study examines the factors of sustainable technology adoption (STA) in the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry and its impact on the environmental performance and other firm performances. Mainly, this study adopts stakeholder theory and hypothesizes necessary conditions to examine different stakeholders’ roles to facilitate STA and ameliorate firm performances such as environmental, financial and competitive advantages.Design/methodology/approachIt is an empirical study which collected 240 responses from Bangladeshi apparel firms. Garment factories were considered as the unit of analysis.FindingsCustomer pressure, top management, competition among firms and government support significantly and positively impact STA. Surprisingly, regulatory pressure has no significant impact on the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry, which contradicts most existing literature in the field. The findings show that sustainable technology brings increased simultaneously enhances environmental outcomes and enhances financial performances and competitive advantage.Originality/valueThis study fills up the voids that exist in the STA literature in the clothing industry in the clothing industry’s STA literature. Specifically, western buyers have more influence than regulatory pressure to adopt sustainable technology and sustainable manufacturing for the Bangladeshi garments industry. Moreover, it proposes that sustainable technology can enhance firms’ competitive advantage in selling their products in the West besides environmental-friendly apparel manufacturers.

Ethical business strategy between east and west: an analysis of minimum wage policy in the garment global supply chain industry of Bangladesh

There are two primary purposes of this manuscript: (i) to evaluate the western buyers’ ethical issue in the setting of eastern and western economies, and (ii) to assess the ethical values of the employers and the government in their business dealing in the background of Bangladesh. Analyzing the present minimum wage (MW) policy of the garment global supply chain industry in Bangladesh and the extent to which the policy functions are two of the other purposes of this study. This study is the mixed approached of exploratory, descriptive, and phenomenological qualitative research. Each of the exploratory, descriptive, and phenomenological qualitative research goals has identified and described in a systematic way to get the best outcome of the purposes set in this manuscript. This study shows that rule utilitarian ethics are being followed by the Western buyers in their business dealings in Western territories. The philosophy of rule utilitarianism holds moral principles, and this principle tends to place greater emphasis on ethical interests rather than economic gains. Unfortunately, Western buyers do not follow the rule utilitarianism in their business dealing in eastern countries. Thus, this study shows western business leaders/buyers are not ethically correct. The act utilitarian ethics, on the other hand, are being followed by the eastern buyers in their business dealing. The philosophy of act utilitarianism holds immoral principles, and this principle tends to place greater emphasis on economic gains rather than ethical interest. This philosophy permit firm’s unethical behavior such as an exploitation of MW on the ground that this practice increases its incomes and maximizes the owner’s interest. The employers and buyers unethically gain profit, keeping the workers in a disadvantaged situation, which contradicts John Rawls’ Theory of Justice. Furthermore, the government has become an accomplice in exploiting and depriving the garment works of their entitlement and labor rights to appease the so-called investors. This study helps buyers, employers, government, and stakeholders to correct their unethical business deals. It also helps the policymakers to implement the MW policy for the betterment of garment global supply chain workers.

Sweated Labor as a Social Phenomenon Lessons from the 19th Century Sweatshop Discussion

The ongoing controversy about sweatshop labor has mainly focused on economic, on the one, and ethical aspects, on the other side. While proponents of sweatshop labor have argued that low wages would attract foreign investments, would create new workplace opportunities and thus improve economic welfare in less-developed countries, opponents of sweatshop labor argue that such treatment of laborers would violate their dignity, and they prompt western buyers to stop this kind of exploitation. However, the arguments in this debate are not new. As we will show, they can be traced back to the early “sweatshop” debate between social reformers and classical liberals in the 19th century. Interestingly, the 19th century debate identified sweatshop labor not as an industrial system but as a social phenomenon which becomes more likely when several social preconditions are fulfilled. It will be shown that the social preconditions identified in this debate determine working conditions till today and can be used to identify industries were sweatshop labor is more likely than in others—even in western countries.

Changing labour power on smallholder tea farms in Kenya

Informal wage workers on smallholder tea farms make important contributions to world export of tea. The literature on global production networks only recently began to pay more detailed attention to conceptualizing the role that labour plays in such networks and has so far focused mainly on industrial settings – not smallholder farming. Similarly, the literature on sustainability standards has focused on wage-workers in large-scale workplaces such as factories or plantations. This article seeks to remedy this lack of attention and make contributions to both literatures by arguing first, that labour agency in export-oriented smallholder tea production in developing countries may not be advanced much by the sustainability certifications demanded by Western buyers and second, that labour agency can nevertheless be present at ‘the margins’ of global production networks even though informal rural wage workers are most often assumed to lack both ‘structural’ and ‘associational’ power. These arguments are made on the basis of a case study of on-farm wage labour in smallholder tea production in Kenya. The article finds labour’s bargaining power to be stronger in some locations compared to others and that differences between locations can be fruitfully explored by looking not just at workers insertion into the vertical structures of the global production network but by also including more ‘horizontal’ dimensions relating to the local context in which smallholder tea production and on-farm wage-workers are embedded.

Disruption causes and disruption management in supply chains with Chinese suppliers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify and rank supply chain disruption causes for Western buying firms in the Chinese market; to identify supplier-relationship-specific mitigation strategies to avoid and resist such disruptions; and to develop and propose a framework of relational supply chain disruption management with Chinese suppliers.Design/methodology/approachTwo group exercises with 42 representatives from Western manufacturing buying firms and nine in-depth interviews were conducted. The group exercises applied the nominal group technique.FindingsThe authors identified and ranked 22 disruption causes in China for Western buying firms. Evaluating the five most urgent causes, 43 mitigation strategies could be identified that build on implementing strategic relationships with Chinese suppliers. A framework of relational supply chain disruption management for Western buying firms was developed with six propositions on primary constructs, mediators, and moderators, highlighting guanxi as a fundamental construct of relations within the Chinese culture.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings contribute to theory development at the intersection of risk management and culture. Quantitative testing of the proposed relationships in the framework is needed to derive more reliable conclusions.Practical implicationsThe study depicts how cultural differences between Chinese suppliers and Western buyers influence relational supply chain disruption management strategies. Using the study findings, managers of Western buying firms are informed regarding the most pressing disruption causes in the Chinese market and the value and strategic use of Chinese-supplier relationships.Originality/valueThe study provides a valuable contribution to the scant body of literature on disruption management in supply chains with Chinese suppliers. It contributes to our understanding of a successful risk management in the presence of cultural differences.

Art and vegetables: ‘Ground buyers’ and the contemporary art trade in Papua New Guinea

Abstract The contemporary art of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been described so far as a political form of expression revealing the postcolonial aspirations of the population since the country’s independence from Australia in 1975. However, observers, critics and anthropologists have until now neglected to take into consideration the economic aspects of art production in the country. Drawing on Karl Marx and Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of artworks as commodities and as a social field, this article describes a little-known aspect of the PNG art market. It analyses the role of cash in art production and its progression. Copied from the vegetable trade, the Papua New Guinean art market has given birth to the figure of the ‘ground buyer’. They are local intermediates who operate as usurers and have become the main interlocutors to western buyers. In comparing cash crop and art, the article underlines the versatility of PNG players in the art world and allows comparison between art production and other economic activities in urban Melanesia.

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

The role that sourcing agents, autonomous peripheral actors located in developing economies, play in the governance of working conditions in global supply chains has been greatly underexplored in the literature. The present article reports on an in-depth qualitative study of garment supply chains that examined the boundary work of Indian sourcing agents aimed at dismantling or bridging the boundaries that affect the interaction between western buyers and local suppliers, in order to facilitate development and implementation of meaningful working conditions or social relations at work. We identify four types of boundary work that sourcing agents used to manage combinations of accommodative and non-accommodative buyers and suppliers in order to work through boundaries created by buyers’ liability of foreignness: reinforcing, flexing (type 1 and 2) and restoring. We also found four essential conditions for a sourcing agent to become an effective boundary spanner in practice: acquiring knowledge about the relevant fields and actors, gaining legitimacy in the relevant fields and in the opinion of the parties involved, effectively translating the expectations of each party to the other, and benefiting from satisfying incentives. We contribute to the literature on governance for working conditions in global supply chains, boundary theory and liability of foreignness.

Self-efficacy, disability level and physical strength in the injured workers: findings from a major factory disaster in Bangladesh

Introduction: In 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza – a high-rise building in Bangladesh where garments were being made for the Western markets collapsed. In this study, we report on the surviving workers’ physical strength, self-efficacy, and disability level one year after the disaster. Methods: This cross-sectional study took place at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) which provided care for more than 600 victims. For this study, upper extremity strength among the survivors was assessed by dynamometer hand grip (HG) and lower extremity strength by five time sit to stand test (FTSST). The WHODAS tool measured level of disability and General Self-Efficacy questionnaire measured self-efficacy. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalence was determined by the PCL-scale. Results: The study recruited 181 injured workers. The mean disability score among them was 49.8 (SD 17.5) and mean self-efficacy score was 24.9 (SD 6.9). In multivariate models, after adjusting for age, gender, education, injury profile, employment, marital status and job category, self-efficacy was found to be higher among those who scored above median HG test score [β= −2.32 (95% CI: −4.63, −0.01)] and FTSST performance score [β= −2.69 (95% CI: −4.93, −0.46)]. The disability level was found to be significantly associated with PTSD score [β = 0.84 (95% CI: 0.62, 1.06)] and self-efficacy score [β= −0.45 (95% CI: −0.78, −0.13)]. Conclusions: There is an immense need to develop and deliver effective post-injury recovery, rehabilitation and return-to-work programs for injured workers in resource poor countries.Implications for RehabilitationThe study findings suggest that one year after the factory disaster in Bangladesh, the injured workers are suffering from a high degree of disability, low physical performance and reporting low self-efficacy. The national and international stakeholders including Western buyers, aid agencies, NGOs, worker advocacy groups, consumer associations and the government of Bangladesh can be updated on the progress made so far.There is an immense need to develop and deliver effective post-injury recovery, rehabilitation and return-to-work programs for injured workers in resource poor countries. International organizations like ILO, WHO, World Bank can help developing countries in building these capacities.

Cultural adaptation and socialisation between Western buyers and Chinese suppliers: The formation of a hybrid culture

We aim to examine culturally-influenced behavioural adaptation embedded in socialisation processes at interfaces between Western buyers and Chinese suppliers in China. We conducted multiple case studies, including four cross-cultural partnerships, exploring how interface teams hosting trans-cultural boundary spanners at buyer-supplier interfaces socialise formally and informally and adapt behaviourally to three key cultural differences between Chinese Guanxi and the Anglo-Saxon form of Western culture. Data collected from 36 interviewees are used to explore the process of cultural behavioural adaptation and the emergence of a hybrid culture. We find that cultural adaptation is confined to those interface teams who interact routinely at the buyer-supplier interface and leads to the formation of a hybrid culture, which is a combination of Guanxi and western rules and procedures. The hybrid culture and cultural adaptation are two intermediary constructs between socialisation and relational capital, which enriches and explains this relationship in a cross-cultural context.

Uncovering generalized patterns of brand competition in China

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to analyze brand competition in China using the Duplication of Purchase (DoP) law, with important implications for understanding Chinese buyer behavior in comparison with Western buyers. Discovered in the Western markets, the DoP law holds across a variety of product categories. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple sets of new data are examined to extend past research in the application of the DoP law in Chinese buying behavior. This study draws on panel data and self-reported data, utilizing bootstrapping to identify partitions where excess sharing occurs. Findings – This paper finds the DoP law holds across six categories (two personal care, two impulse categories and two durables), as well as over multiple years. Brands in China share customers with other brands in line with the market share of the competitor brand. There were few partitions where brands shared significantly more customers than expected. Partitions occur due to the same umbrella brand or ownership, and geographic location. Research limitations/implications – Areas for further research include extended replication in other categories, investigating partitions and whether a different consumer path to purchase occurs in China. Practical implications – DoP can be applied across a wide range of categories in China to understand market structure. New entrants to China can use this approach to understand a category from a consumer behavior perceptive. DoP provides guidelines for marketers to identify competition and allocate resources appropriately. Originality/value – This research provides a comprehensive, unparalleled examination across six very different categories of brand competition in China. This gives confidence in the robustness and generalizability of the results.

Craft and Small Scale Production in the Global Economy: Gujarat and Kachchh in the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Centuries

India's production of fine luxury and craft goods for world markets was discovered and exploited by Europeans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Textile producers in Gujarat, the Coromandel Coast, and Bengal applied fine craft skills to European designs, colour codes, and textile lengths and widths. Through the intervention of the East India Companies and private traders as well as their intermediaries, brokers and local merchants, weavers, and printers produced the goods to satisfy Western markets just as they had done for Eastern and African markets in the centuries before.Today Indian craftspeople are engaging in a new phase of production for global markets. They are using traditional techniques of the kind that attracted Western buyers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: hand weaving, hand block printing, and natural dyes. Accessing the niche national and international markets needed to provide a future for these crafts is a major challenge. This article focuses on the artisans, skills and markets in one area of India—the region of Kachchh in northern Gujarat, even now considered a remote part of the new global India. It sets this within a wider context of Gujarat and the earlier and more recent history of its textile industries. Douglas Haynes's recent book, Small Town Capitalism in Western India (2012) provides a framework for the study of small-scale industry, and the article will address his subject and methods. The new sources used are a collection of oral histories of craftspeople in a range of industries. These oral histories address skills and training across generations, and how these crafts have adapted and continue to adapt to the demands of national and world markets.

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Trading the Happy Object: Coffee, Colonialism, and Friendly Feeling

Mitigation of supply chain relational risk caused by cultural differences between China and the West

PurposeThis paper aims to add a cultural‐relational dimension to the supply chain risk management (SCRM) literature.Design/methodology/approachInter‐firm learning and cultural adaptation literatures are reviewed, missing themes identified and a conceptual model proposed.FindingsThe authors define the problem of supply chain relational risk (SCRR) and explain the cultural differences between China and the West, which form a subset of SCRR. They then propose cultural adaptation as the solution to this problem. Two missing themes are identified concerning the process of cultural adaptation between China and the West and the causal relationship between cultural adaptation and partnership performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a conceptual paper based on secondary data.Practical implicationsCultural differences between China and the West impact the relational risks facing Western buyers and their Chinese suppliers. To create a mutually beneficial partnership, it is necessary for both parties to understand the cultural differences and the process of cultural adaptation. Ultimately, the paper will help firms mitigate the relational risks associated with cultural differences.Originality/valueThe paper extends prior work in the area of SCRM by adding a relational‐cultural dimension. With a view to mitigation of SCRRs, the authors develop a conceptual process model, which describes a relationship‐building process incorporating cultural adaptation for the creation of a mutually beneficial partnership, which features a hybrid cultural interface.

Business communication in interactions between Mainland Chinese and Western firms through Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries

PurposeThe paper aims to analyse the nature of business communication and its influence on relationships development between Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries sourcing from Mainland Chinese sellers involved in manufacturing for sale to Western buyer firms.Design/methodology/approachA case study‐driven methodology with purposeful sampling is applied to yield maximum variation in the sampling to elicit underlying tendencies and generative mechanisms that exist within and across the multiple cases of relationships.FindingsThe paper finds that Mainland Chinese sellers and Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries tend not to have the close ties that might be expected. Mainland Chinese sellers constrained their use of social information, requiring Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries to use commercial information transfers to evaluate the trustworthiness of their Mainland Chinese partners. An ingroup/outgroup bias exacerbates the modesty bias of the Mainland Chinese and also hinders learning through the transfer of technical information within these Chinese interactions. On the other hand, Western buyers tend not to prefer social information interactions with their Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries, requiring these intermediaries to emphasise commercial information interactions to evaluate the trustworthiness of their Western buyers.Research limitations/implicationsThis research uses a restricted sample of case study respondents. Representative sampling across multiple contexts will assist in testing the generality of the findings.Practical implicationsFor the West to source increasingly attractive manufactures from Mainland China, Hong Kong intermediaries will remain fundamentally important even though this creates further interactions. The aggregate of these multiple exchange arrangements is less problematic than would be the case if Western business were to deal directly with the Mainland Chinese.Originality/valueThis article sheds light on the nature of business communication interactions in a group of relationships between Hong Kong Chinese intermediaries and Mainland sellers, and buyers from the West. Implications for relationships development among the Chinese and Western actors are identified with propositions framed to guide further investigation.

Globalizing Taipei: The Political Economy of Spatial Development (review)

Reviewed by: Globalizing Taipei: The Political Economy of Spatial Development David A. Smith (bio) Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok , editor. Globalizing Taipei: The Political Economy of Spatial Development. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. xiv, pp. Hardcover $105.00, ISBN 0-415-35451-x. This volume is based on the well-founded premise that Taipei is a relatively understudied East Asian city (compared to, say, Seoul, Hong Kong, or Singapore). It proposes to analyze "the current political economy of Taipei's development from a globalization perspective," including "key aspects of Taipei's development process toward a global city" (p. 1). As a comparative sociologist who studies global cities and is particularly interested in East Asian political economy (but who knows relatively little about Taipei), my intellectual appetite was whetted. I also appreciated the volume's attempt to provide an insider's perspective on Taipei; with the exception of the editor and one other chapter author (both at the University of Hawai'i), all of the contributors are based in Taiwan. An edited collection grounded in conceptual issues of "globalization" and "global cities" written by scholars with detailed local knowledge offers great promise. [End Page 187] And this is a valuable book. I learned a great deal about Taipei from its chapters. It makes a crucial contribution by providing a wealth of information about the city, its environs, and its pattern of growth and development. Scholars interested in comparisons with other "globalizing cities" in East Asia and around the world will find gems of wisdom here, with some of the chapters singularly informative. But the book fails to live up to its potential. There is the common dilemma of the lack of coherence for an edited collection: it is frequently a problem to make all the essays "fit." The final two chapters, under the heading "Cultural Reorientation," seemed the farthest from the book's title/theme, with the biggest "stretch" being an essay on an ethnic Chinese filmmaker from Malaysia who came to Taiwan and made movies about marginalized people in Taipei. There are also (rather unsurprising) language difficulties for some of the Taiwanese authors writing in English (most of the chapters are well-edited in this regard, but a few could use some work). However, I think the most significant problem is a failure to define clearly some of the key terminology. Editor Kwok introduces "globalization" and the idea of the "global city" in his introduction. These are increasingly popular terms, but they are also frequently invoked by people who mean quite different things. Clear analytical definitions of these two concepts would have helped readers as well as framed these issues for the chapters that follow. The opening Kwok essay (written with Jinn Yuh-Hsu) provides a nice introduction to Taipei's urban primacy, the role of the developmental state and export-oriented industrialization in Taiwan's economic rise, and the South China Growth Triangle (Taipei-Hong Kong-Shanghai). It suggests that Taipei's trajectory is toward a "second-tier" global city, which should have implications for the sorts of "producer services" that develop-a good hypothesis that is borne out in later chapters. Leaving aside the missed opportunity to define some key terms, the facile acceptance of the inevitability of global neoliberalism caused me the most concern. Surely nations like Taiwan, where developmental states have been so crucial (and successful), should be able to mediate some of the effects of this sort of "globalization." The first part of the book is the clearest in focus, examining "economic and spatial restructuring," and the first two essays may be the strongest in the collection. The lead-off chapter by Hsu provides a nice overview of the economic transformation of Taipei from an industrial city prior to the 1970s to an "interface city" coordinating informatics in the 1990s, with an era in between when the city emerged as a "broker" for Western buyers interested in overseas Taiwanese production in places like mainland China and Southeast Asia. This brokerage function-which also became important in places like Seoul and Hong Kong at about the same time-is currently framed by comparative sociologists as a result of the rise of "buyer-driven commodity chains" (à la...

Asian Transnational Corporations and Labor Rights: Vietnamese Trade Unions in Taiwan-invested Companies

According to the reports in the past decade, some Asian subcontractors, mainly Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea transnational corporations, tend to be labor abusive in their overseas investment destinations like China or Southeast Asia. Taking Vietnam as an example, this paper raises questions as to why Taiwanese transnational companies can control workplace unions in a trade-union-supportive regime. Given the government’ s constraint of political rights, and the individualized workplace unions, the function of trade unions in Vietnam is destined to be limited. The trade unions turn out be an arm of management, rather than representing workers’ interests in these transnational companies. This article also explores the influence of the newly developed ‘codes of conducts’ from Western buyers. In the survey of three companies which are required to follow the codes of conduct by buyers, trade unions had no more freedom than those in companies without codes of conduct. The paper discusses the implications of this research, offering strategies for labor rights improvements.

Cutting It: European Integration, Trade Regimes, and the Reconfiguration of East–Central European Apparel Production

Since the late 1980s the European apparel sector has witnessed a dramatic transformation. Driven by increasing costs in Western Europe, major Western apparel retailers and buyers have expanded their contracting of production into lower cost regions of ‘postcommunist’ Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. One consequence of these changes is a burgeoning of apparel producers in peripheral European and North African regions, locked into supply relations with Western buyers. Equally apparent is a dramatic growth in apparel trade between the European Union (EU) and the countries of East–Central Europe (ECE). For much of the 1990s these processes were driven by outward processing trade arrangements between EU countries and applicant states in ECE, along with the EU customs union with Turkey. Further liberalization of trade regimes during the 1990s removed these outward processing customs arrangements, but outward-processing forms of assembly production continue. The authors chart these transformations, and signal one part of the emerging architecture of trade relations between the EU and ECE after 1989. They explore the trade regulation changes that have provided a context for outsourcing and examine the different strategies of EU retailers and manufacturers in the governance of pan-European apparel production and trade.

Power Relations, Industrial Clusters, and Regional Transformations: Pan-European Integration and Outward Processing in the Slovak Clothing Industry

Since the late 1980s the East European clothing sector has witnessed a dramatic transformation. Driven by increasing costs in Western Europe, Western clothing retailers and buyers have increasingly outsourced production to lower-cost regions of postcommunist Eastern Europe. One consequence of these changes has been a dramatic growth of clothing producers in Eastern Europe, locked into supply relations with Western buyers while simultaneously involved in dense networks of relations between firms in regional clusters. This article focuses on the form that power relations take, which knit together pan-European supply linkages and regional clusters of clothing firms in Slovakia. In drawing on a weak form of actor-network theory and an understanding of capitalist commodity production, the article explores the uneven nature of these power relations, as well as their fluidity at three levels. First, attention is given to relations between Slovak firms and Western buyers that largely involve a tenuous form of price competitiveness, which is simultaneously under threat from lower-cost production zones elsewhere. Second, the variant power relations between producers in regional clusters of clothing firms in Slovakia are explored. Production flexibilities have been built through a network of locally agglomerated workshop production units and domestic home-based workers to whom work is outsourced when required. Third, the implications of these forms of outsourcing are explored in relation to workplace and wage-level pressures. The article therefore suggests the importance of understanding dynamic and fluid power relations in the economic geography of regional clusters and the globalization of outsourcing in the clothing sector.

The Structure Conundrum in Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management leading to concepts such as lean enterprise is much in vogue today fuelled by the adoption of strategies and partnership practices used so successfully by the Japanese companies. As part of this change, product owners are outsourcing more value through both components and systems which has effectively meant redistributing competencies. This change is concurrent with the initiative to reduce the number of suppliers. The Japanese perfected their SCM strategies and practices within their compatible supply chain structure or keiretsus. The structures emerging in the western automotive supply chains (the paper is based on research on European automotive industry) are different in many key characteristics from the keiretsus. Secondly, they appear to be emerging in an ad‐hoc rather than a planned manner. This poses a critical question for western buyers ‐ is supply chain structure critical for superior performance and if yes, then which type of structure(s) provides the most benefits while maintaining or enhancing product uniqueness?