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Competition, Co-operation and Subcontracting - Lessons from the Clothing Industry in Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe DULBECCO

    (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International(CERDI))

  • Isabelle VAGNERON

    (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International(CERDI))

Abstract

A close examination of the organisation of the clothing industry in Thailand exhibits a rather paradoxical situation: although the structural features of the sector - the breaking down of the production process, high labour intensity, low asset specificity, low skilled labour - seem to legitimate a market co-ordination mechanism, it is a close, durable and multiform co-operation which cements, in Thailand, the relations between contractors and subcontractors, as well as between subcontractors themselves. We defend the idea that this kind of co-operative organisation of economic activities represents an appropriate answer to the flexibility required by ever changing markets. Co-operation is here understood as a mechanism of temporal co-ordination of economic activities which, far from substituting itself to the market co-ordination mechanism, rather completes it.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe DULBECCO & Isabelle VAGNERON, 1998. "Competition, Co-operation and Subcontracting - Lessons from the Clothing Industry in Thailand," Working Papers 199827, CERDI.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdi:wpaper:95
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    References listed on IDEAS

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