Reshoring: A strategic renewal of luxury clothing supply chains

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on reshoring by taking a value-driven enquiry into the renewal of supply chain strategy. It enhances the understanding of the use of reshoring in generating the value demanded by a changing business model. An iconic British high-end clothing brand, Burberry, is the chosen case study to explore the recent move towards reshoring because its changes of leadership, business model and evolving supply chain strategy from 1997 to early 2016 provide a timely and pertinent context. Burberry has continued to realign its business towards a brand-led and customer-centric model along with restoring its corporate heritage and core brand values. The changes in Burberry’s business model triggered the need to renew and realign its supply chain strategy through consolidating and rebuilding manufacturing activities back in the UK, in order to support its brand repositioning as quintessentially British and the company’s refocus on heritage products. The increased managerial control in the supply chain together with the close proximity of design and manufacture enables the promise of quality and brand provenance to be fulfilled. The renewal of Burberry’s supply chain strategy has contributed to an increase in revenues and brand values. These findings suggest that the renewal of supply chain strategy through reshoring and increasing control in supply chain operations can enhance value and firm competitiveness

Investigating fairness in global supply chains: applying an extension of the living wage to the Western European clothing supply chain.

YesThis paper explores the issue of fairness in global supply chains. Taking the Western European clothing supply chain as a case study, we demonstrate how applying a normative indicator in Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) can contribute academic and practical insights into debates on fairness. To do so, we develop a new indicator that addresses some of the limitations of the living wage for SLCA. We extend the standard form of living wage available for developing countries to include income tax and social security contributions. We call this extension 'living labour compensation'. Using publically available data, we estimate net living wages, gross living wages, and living labour compensation rates for Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) in 2005. We then integrate living labour compensation rates into an input-output framework, which we use to compare living labour compensation and actual labour compensation in the BRIC countries in the Western European clothing supply chain in 2005. We find that in 2005, actual labour compensation in the Western European clothing supply chain was around half of the living labour compensation level, with the greatest difference being in the Agricultural sector. Therefore, we argue that BRIC pay in the Western European clothing supply chain was unfair. Furthermore, our living labour compensation estimates for BRIC in 2005 are ~ 35% higher than standard living wage estimates. Indeed, adding income taxes and employee social security contributions alone increases the living wage by ~ 10%. Consequently, we argue there is a risk that investigations based on living wages are not using a representative measure of fairness from the employee's perspective and are substantially underestimating the cost of living wages from an employer's perspective. Finally, we discuss implications for retailers and living wage advocacy groups. Living labour compensation extends the living wage, maintaining its strengths and addressing key weaknesses. It can be estimated for multiple countries from publically available data and can be applied in an input-output framework. Therefore, it is able to provide a normative assessment of fairness in complex global supply chains. Applying it to the Western European clothing supply chain, we were able to show that pay for workers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China is unfair, and draw substantive conclusions for practice

Foreign investment in producer services - The Turkish experience in the post-1980 period

Since 1980, Turkey has been changing its growth strategy from protectionist import substitution to one more market-oriented and outward looking. As the restructuring has unfolded, the domestic market has opened up to foreigners. This paper discusses the increasing involvement in the economy of producer service firms with foreign capital. We describe 278 such firms: when they entered the Turkish market, their countries of origin (mostly European Community countries), industry groups and ownership structure. The most popular choice of location has been Istanbul

Globalization and the changing political economy of distribution channels in Turkey

Since the 1980s, under the influence of global economic processes, there have been dramatic changes in the distribution channels of food, beverages, tobacco, and other fast-moving consumer goods in Turkey, resulting in a redistribution of both economic and social power. The outcome has been the rise of a few businesses, with others being left increasingly vulnerable in the face of a changing environment. Consequently, there has been an important power shift towards large and enormously influential corporations (active in retailing, distribution, as well as in manufacturing) from small manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers who share commonalities with each other despite belonging to different sectors. One indicator of this shift is an ever-growing resentment among traditional communities, witnessed by their lobbying efforts as they look to the state to protect them from the devastating effects of intensifying competition. In this paper, the authors adopt a political economy approach in order to understand this power shift and to incorporate the larger political economy and the effects of globalization into their analysis. They show that these changing power structures are intrinsically connected to both the government's economic policy and also to global influences. In this context, three attributes of post-1980 Turkey are of primary interest: import liberalization, the opening up of the economy to global firms, and persistently high inflation and interest rates