| Textile industry is one of the traditional pillar industries in China with a number of individuals depend upon the industry for their livelihoods, and also have obvious advantages in international competition industries. China, as the largest apparel producers and exporters in the world, however, are mainly engaged in OEA or OEM, and Chinese apparel producers are mostly involved in low value added sectors. The apparel industry is a buyer-driven value chain, as manufacturers are relatively weak in the activities, most Chinese apparel producers are restricted by giant international buyers. Faced with disadvantages of global economy, Chinese apparel manufacturers are under enormous pressure, and need to find effective ways to breaking through the bottleneck urgently.Based on the theories of the global value chain governance, the complexities of transactions, the ability to codify transactions, and the capabilities in the supply-base are the three major determinants factors of governance patterns. According to the characteristics of apparel industry, labor intensive with lower entry barrier, the capabilities of suppliers is low. Besides, these sectors are more diversified, increasing the complexity in coding and transactions. In this current situation, raising the capabilities in the supply-base will help the governance of apparel value chain shifted from captive to relational.Combination with the theory and practice of apparel industry, the criteria of suppliers'capabilities may be included:quality, cost, design, technology, service, productivity, delivery time, reputation, market recognition, and cooperation. Apparel manufacturers should to identify the urgency and importance of these strategies, and improve enterprise strategic initiative, to strengthen the awareness of strategies on the links of design, branding, and marketing.The results showed that:to implementate appropriate strategies, like quality management, supply chain management, customer relationship management, corporate channel network, brand building, information technology, corporate social responsibility, environmental protection and clean production, product differentiation, advanced technology and equipment, research and design, cost leadership, flexiblity, and "packaged-supply", the abilities of the apparel producers can be enhanced. As the improvement of the capabilities in the supply-base will effectively ease the situation of "captive", the governance pattern will tend to be relational. At this point, producers can gain more profit margins in the value chain, to achieve healthy and sustainable development.The conceptual framework of Context-Structure-Conduct-Performance (CSCP) is applied in the paper. Through desk research, questionnaire surveys and typical cases, aims to analyze the characteristics of apparel value chain governance and the strategies of Chinese apparel producers conducted in relation to the requirements of the transaction with buyers. SPSS 17.0 is adoped in data analysis, and the methods involve:reliability analysis, descriptive statistics (such as mean, frequency, variance, etc.), cluster, correlation analysis, and one-way ANOVA test.Data sources:project of a study on VSF value chain. The research carried out in 2008 (February to April), in Zhejiang, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai and other textile and apparel major clusters. At last,153 valid questionnaires were obtained, and 144 of samples are relevant with 68 enterprises including clothes. The data of the attitude towards the global value chain governance, the assessment of buyers, and the producers'strategies were all reliable. |
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