Local Responses to Global Market Pressures in the Textile and Apparel Industry: Evidence from Seven Northern Italian Companies

The global nature of today’s competition, no longer between firms but between supply chains (SCs), led to a greater attention on SC management issues. SC management has become a valuable way to support companies’ competitiveness and innovation, both by reducing uncertainty and creating stronger relationships with suppliers and customers. Using the lenses of the Global Value Chain analysis, this paper explores the concept of upgrading and the role of SC management in the context of the Italian textile and clothing industry. By means of seven case studies, we highlight different upgrading trajectories and which SC management practices were applied. Moreover, we identify the upgrading paths followed by the companies through the last decades. The overall analysis allows us to detect differences and commonalities between the seven case studies, thus recognizing the contingent variables that influence the upgrading-related choices of the firms. Results show that SC management practices appear fundamental not only for efficiency related upgrading but for all the forms. Moreover, three groups of companies are identified within our sample, each of them characterized by different upgrading paths. In conclusion, exploring the features of the three groups, we detect three main variables that affect the upgrading path followed by a company: turnover, position in the supply chain and critical success factors.