ABSTRACT
Product market fragmentation is identified as a major impulse, possibly the major impulse, to restructure the clothing industries in all countries. In all the countries considered, clothing imports from low-wage economies have intensified cost competition and added to the pressure for shorter lead times arising from market segmentation. Labour market conditions have acted as an impulse to restructuring in the three especially high-wage countries, Finland, Germany and Japan, where relatively low wage rates in clothing present employers with the problem of retaining labour while remaining cost competitive. Institutional restructuring has been relatively unimportant in most of the high-wage countries studied because labour relations in clothing industries is traditionally free from conflict. Technological restructuring has, nevertheless, occurred in all countries in those leading edge companies with access to adequate capital. The delivery imperative caused by shorter lead times is more clearly associated with both internal and external restructuring strategies.
