Introduction: setting up the stage

This introductory chapter presents the theoretical puzzle that triggered the writing of the book, namely who captures the vast value created by the global apparel supply chain. We present the tension between claims that the global brands exploit their market power to appropriate disproportionate shares of value and continuous reduction in apparel prices. We introduce the foundation of the approach we had taken to examine this puzzle in separating value creation from value appropriation and measuring them in relation to each other. The chapter concludes by presenting the historical evolution of global supply chains as discourse of changing balance between capital and labor, and presents major contemporary challenges, in the face of rising protectionist measures whose liberalization in previous decades gave rise to global supply chains, and the impact of the global pandemics on the future of global supply chains.