Boosting Added Value: Upgrading Patterns of Ten Manufacturers in the Textile and Clothing Industry

At the interface between supply chain management and strategy, this paper uses a global value chain (GVC) perspective to explore the concept of firm-level upgrading – i.e, changing the processes, products, the position in the supply chain or the supply chain itself - to increase the share of added value obtained by a firm. In particular, by means of ten case studies at the different stages of the textile and clothing GVC, the paper analyzes: 1) the initiatives related to the different types of upgrading (i.e., process, product, functional, chain); 2) the patterns of upgrading (i.e., the sequence of different types upgrading) followed by the companies through the last decade; 3) the effect of contingent variables (i.e., size, position in the GVC, critical success factors) to explain the differences and similarities among the ten case studies. As a result, three groups of companies are identified (innovators, craftman, marketeers) showing similar patterns of upgrading. In conclusion, the importance of operations and supply chain management for upgrading is discussed.