استراتژی ها و جریانات تامین کننده برای توسعه قابلیت ها
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Literature review
3- Methodology
4- Results
5- Discussion, contributions and limitations
References
Abstract
This paper examines the strategies and routines adopted by small and medium-sized suppliers to develop capabilities that enable them to engage in upgrading, despite a precarious relational and institutional context. To this end, we investigate the strategic behaviour of two Bangladeshi garment manufacturers. Both started out as small suppliers for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and have eventually grown into micro-multinationals. The firms are involved in ‘tacit promissory contracting’ with their buyers, a specific form of international outsourcing relationship. The study adopts a multiple case study design that involves interviews with managers/owners of the firms. The analysis yields two key findings. Both firms have devised strategies and taken coherent routines involving actions to develop skills and motivation needed to perform appropriate functional activities (i.e. pre-production, production and post-production) as they embarked on different stages of upgrading. Furthermore, firms have designed routines to internalise the challenges originating from their relationships with their buyers and the institutional environment at the time that had the potential to affect their upgrading goals. The paper contributes to IB studies by highlighting how suppliers, even in a precarious context, can control their own strategies and routines, so as to develop capabilities that allow them to gradually redress the power imbalance between themselves and their buyers.
Introduction
The present study sets out to examine how two Bangladeshi garment manufacturers built capabilities to progress from one stage of upgrading to another despite a challenging institutional environment. We define capabilities as the “resources and ability needed to generate and manage technical change, including skills, knowledge and experience, and institutional structure and linkages” (Bell and Pavitt, 1997:89). The concept of upgrading is defined as “a process of improving the ability of a firm to move to a more profitable and/or technologically sophisticated capital and skill-intensive economic niche” (Gereffi, 1999:38). The findings contribute to the literature on micro foundations of routines and capabilities by focusing on the question of what organisations can do to create and change capabilities (cf. Felin et al., 2012; Felin et al., 2015; Foss, 2009). Our study also contributes to research on the absorptive capacity of emerging market firms. More specifically, to the emerging theme of barriers to absorptive capacity and what firms can do to overcome these (Cuervo-Cazurra and Rui, 2017). Last but not least, our study contributes to integration efforts between the international business (IB) and global value chain (GVC) analysis literatures (Sinkovics et al., 2018). While the term ‘global value chain’ is increasingly utilised in the IB literature, there is a steadily growing field dedicated to the analysis of GVCs based on the pioneering work of a multidisciplinary group of scholars (Sturgeon, 2009). The GVC analysis literature is mostly focused on externalisation and inter-firm relationships through the lenses of governance and upgrading (Lee and Gereffi, 2015). It provides a very useful entry point for the investigation of knowledge flows and innovation dynamics that take place outside of the hierarchical boundaries of multinational enterprises (MNE) (De Marchi et al., 2014). To this end, we draw on the economic upgrading concept from the GVC analysis literature (Humphrey and Schmitz, 2002) to investigate the development and modification of capabilities in emerging market supplier firms over time. Bilgili et al. (2016) divide emerging markets into three categories based on their degree of institutional and factor market development. Bangladesh belongs to the category of traditional emerging economies because of its low levels on both dimensions (Bilgili et al., 2016). While studies on mid-range emerging economies and newly developed economies are steadily increasing, indepth case studies in traditional emerging economies are rare due to access difficulties. The present paper provides detailed case studies on two large garment manufacturing companies that successfully passed through all stages of functional upgrading and eventually developed into emerging market multinationals (EMNE). Generally, firms in traditional emerging markets have been found to adopt a short term focus and avoid more risky strategies requiring considerable investment (cf. Awate et al., 2012). The volatile and unpredictable institutional environment and underdeveloped factor markets tend to hamper firms' attempts to improve their capabilities (cf. Hitt et al., 2005). As a consequence, Bilgili et al. (2016) propose that firms from traditional emerging markets are more likely to engage in duplicative imitation learning as opposed to creative imitation and innovation. They furthermore propose that the main focus of firms from this type of emerging markets is on knowledge from external sources and on objective knowledge rather than on internal sources of knowledge resulting in only small increases in absorptive capacity.