Supply Chain Strategies of the Apparel Industry in Research: A Literature Review

Abstract

In recent decades, the apparel industry has received substantial attention from both practitioners and from researchers. This interest has been fueled by the desire to shrink product lifecycles as well as by the increasing competition in the apparel industry due to globalization and digitization. What is the convenient supply chain strategy? How can it be managed and what types of investigation do a company have to find the “right” direction? In this working paper, we present a short summary of the historical background of the apparel industry and in particular a comprehensive literature review. In this context, we have grouped the existing literature regarding supply chain strategies of the apparel industry in qualitative empirical, quantitative empirical and model theoretical research to lay a basis for further research tasks.

Keywords: supply chain strategy, fast fashion, apparel industry

JEL Classification: L10 L23 L67 M11