Rethinking economic upgrading in apparel GVCs: Value capture through strategic partnerships in product innovation cycles

The global value chain (GVC) literature usually approaches the question of value capture among supplier firms in global supply chains through the conceptual lens of economic upgrading, defined as moving from contract manufacturing to design and then to own brand. However, in the global apparel industry, research shows that few if any apparel manufacturers have developed their own global brand and that apparel suppliers have taken on ever more tasks within manufacturing and logistics without increasing their profit share per product. Given that GVC scholars have been concerned with the distribution of the profit share within the chain and how supplier firms can capture more of it, we argue that it is time to re-think how the GVC approach conceptualizes value capture in globalized industries. This paper offers one way of re-thinking value capture, through our product innovation cycle framework. This framework is tailored to the global apparel industry, building on the work of scholars in economic geography and business studies as well as iterative theory building with original empirical data on the top transnational apparel suppliers. However, we think that it can contribute to a broader rethinking of how to explain value capture by supplier firms in globalized industries.