Global competition, institutional context and regional production networks: up- and downgrading experiences in Romania's apparel industry

摘要

Global competition, trade policy and national institutional context are reconfiguring the role of regional apparel suppliers. By studying the development of Romania's apparel industry, the paper highlights two conceptual points that are increasingly discussed in the chainetwork literature: first, the importance of multi-scalar institutional contexts and state policies that influence industry and firm dynamics and are, in turn, shaped by private capital interests and second, the existence of diverse and uneven up- and downgrading trajectories and of re-active adaptation, rather than intentional firm-level strategies, with important implications for regional development.