Patterns of Industrial Upgrading in the ClothingIndustry in Poland and Romania

This paper aims at understanding the impact of industrial networks with foreign and otherdomestic organizations on industrial upgrading of the clothing companies in Poland andRomania over the past decade. The research presented in this paper is based oninterviews carried out in ten large clothing companies in Poland and Romania. The papershows that there are differing structural influences of buyer-driven global networks on theindustrial upgrading of Polish and Romanian clothing firms. Taking these global buyersas exemplars to themselves, Polish and Romanian clothing firms follow relativelydifferent upgrading patterns, experiencing more or less the same network relationshipswith foreign buyers whereas differing networks with other organizations in theircountries. As the level of accumulation of knowledge and skills differs among the firms,the pace and level of upgrading differs too. This paper has proposed a stylized pattern butit should not be taken as inevitable since it also tries to show that some firms might skipsome sequences. As a consequence, it is not a question of the positioning of the countrieson a single upgrading ladder, but more accurately it is different upgrading ladders thathave been climbed in each country. There is no single pattern for all of them....