IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/see/wpaper/19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patterns of Industrial Upgrading in the Clothing Industry in Poland and Romania

Author

Listed:
  • Denis Eylem Yoruk

    (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London and Science and Technology Policy Research Unit University of Sussex)

Abstract

This paper aims at understanding the impact of industrial networks with foreign and other domestic organizations on industrial upgrading of the clothing companies in Poland and Romania over the past decade. The research presented in this paper is based on interviews carried out in ten large clothing companies in Poland and Romania. The paper shows that there are differing structural influences of buyer-driven global networks on the industrial upgrading of Polish and Romanian clothing firms. Taking these global buyers as exemplars to themselves, Polish and Romanian clothing firms follow relatively different upgrading patterns, experiencing more or less the same network relationships with foreign buyers whereas differing networks with other organizations in their countries. As the level of accumulation of knowledge and skills differs among the firms, the pace and level of upgrading differs too. This paper has proposed a stylized pattern but it should not be taken as inevitable since it also tries to show that some firms might skip some sequences. As a consequence, it is not a question of the positioning of the countries on a single upgrading ladder, but more accurately it is different upgrading ladders that have been climbed in each country. There is no single pattern for all of them.

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Eylem Yoruk, 2001. "Patterns of Industrial Upgrading in the Clothing Industry in Poland and Romania," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 19, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    • Handle: RePEc:see:wpaper:19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17560/1/17560.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malerba, Franco, 1992. "Learning by Firms and Incremental Technical Change," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(413), pages 845-859, July.
    2. Lall, Sanjaya, 1992. "Technological capabilities and industrialization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 165-186, February.
    3. Garnsey, Elizabeth, 1998. "A Theory of the Early Growth of the Firm," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 7(3), pages 523-556, September.
    4. Hobday, Mike, 1995. "East Asian latecomer firms: Learning the technology of electronics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 1171-1193, July.
    5. H. Schmitz & P. Knorringa, 2000. "Learning from Global Buyers," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 177-205.
    6. Dieter Ernst, 1998. "Catching-Up, Crisis and Industrial Upgrading. Evolutionary Aspects of Technological Learning in Korea's Electronics Industry," DRUID Working Papers 98-16, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    7. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alina Florentina Avrigeanu & Flavia Gabriela Anghel & Elena Radu, 2010. "PLUSES AND MINUSES OF BEING IN A GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN – THE CASE OF ROMANIAN APPAREL SMEs," JOURNAL STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABES-BOLYAI NEGOTIA, Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Business.
    2. Gary Gereffi & Evgeni Evgeniev, 2008. "Textile and Apparel Firms in Turkey and Bulgaria: Exports, Local Upgrading and Dependency," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 148-179.
    3. John Pickles & Adrian Smith & Milan Bucěk & Poli Roukova & Robert Begg, 2006. "Upgrading, Changing Competitive Pressures, and Diverse Practices in the East and Central European Apparel Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(12), pages 2305-2324, December.
    4. Christos Kalantaridis & Ivaylo Vassilev & Grahame Fallon, 2011. "Enterprise Strategies, Governance Structure and Performance: A Comparative Study of Global Integration," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 153-166.
    5. Aspers, Patrik, 2006. "Designing for the Other: Using Knowledge to Upgrade Manufacturing in the Garment Industry," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Plank, Leonhard & Staritz, Cornelia, 2014. "Global competition, institutional context, and regional production networks: Up- and downgrading experiences in Romania's apparel industry," Working Papers 50, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    7. Gerald A. McDermott, 2003. "Institutional Change and Firm Creation in East-Central Europe: An Embedded Politics Approach," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-590, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    8. Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz, 2015. "Global competition, institutional context and regional production networks: up- and downgrading experiences in Romania’s apparel industry," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(3), pages 421-438.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yoruk, Deniz E., 2019. "Dynamics of firm-level upgrading and the role of learning in networks in emerging markets," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 341-369.
    2. Pham, Hanh Song Thi & Petersen, Bent, 2021. "The bargaining power, value capture, and export performance of Vietnamese manufacturers in global value chains," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6).
    3. Slavo Radosevic & Esin Yoruk, 2016. "A New Metrics Of Technology Upgrading: The Central And East European Countries In A Comparative Perspective," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 2016-2, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    4. Padmashree Gehl Sampath & Bertha Vallejo, 2018. "Trade, Global Value Chains and Upgrading: What, When and How?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 481-504, July.
    5. Azadegan, Arash & Wagner, Stephan M., 2011. "Industrial upgrading, exploitative innovations and explorative innovations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 54-65, March.
    6. Hansen, Ulrich Elmer & Lema, Rasmus, 2019. "The co-evolution of learning mechanisms and technological capabilities: Lessons from energy technologies in emerging economies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 241-257.
    7. Dey, Bidit L. & Babu, Mujahid Mohiuddin & Rahman, Mizan & Dora, Manoj & Mishra, Nishikant, 2019. "Technology upgrading through co-creation of value in developing societies: Analysis of the mobile telephone industry in Bangladesh," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 413-425.
    8. Epede, Mesumbe Bianca & Wang, Daoping, 2022. "Global value chain linkages: An integrative review of the opportunities and challenges for SMEs in developing countries," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5).
    9. Jan Fagerberg & Bengt-Åke Lundvall & Martin Srholec, 2018. "Global Value Chains, National Innovation Systems and Economic Development," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 533-556, July.
    10. Gideon Ndubuisi & Solomon Owusu, 2021. "How important is GVC participation to export upgrading?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(10), pages 2887-2908, October.
    11. Tarighi, Sina & Shavvalpour, Saeed, 2021. "Technological development of E&P companies in developing countries: An integrative approach to define and prioritize customized elements of technological capability in EOR," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Matanda, Margaret Jekanyika & Freeman, Susan, 2009. "Effect of perceived environmental uncertainty on exporter-importer inter-organisational relationships and export performance improvement," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 89-107, February.
    13. Murat A. Yülek, 2017. "On the Middle Income Trap, the Industrialization Process and Appropriate Industrial Policy," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 325-348, September.
    14. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-496 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Islam, Md. Saidul, 2008. "From pond to plate: Towards a twin-driven commodity chain in Bangladesh shrimp aquaculture," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 209-223, June.
    16. Binz, Christian & Gosens, Jorrit & Hansen, Teis & Hansen, Ulrich Elmer, 2017. "Toward Technology-Sensitive Catching-Up Policies: Insights from Renewable Energy in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 418-437.
    17. Slavo Radosevic, 2003. "The emerging industrial architecture of the wider Europe: The co-evolution of industrial and political structures," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 29, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    18. Shengjun Zhu & Canfei He, 2016. "Global and local governance, industrial and geographical dynamics: A tale of two clusters," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1453-1473, December.
    19. Paola Perez-Aleman, 2011. "Collective Learning in Global Diffusion: Spreading Quality Standards in a Developing Country Cluster," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 173-189, February.
    20. Prema‐chandra Athukorala, 2019. "Joining Global Production Networks: Experience and Prospects of India," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 14(1), pages 123-143, January.
    21. Martin Srholec, 2011. "A multilevel analysis of innovation in developing countries ," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 20(6), pages 1539-1569, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:see:wpaper:19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csescuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.