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In the face of numerous challenges and ever-expanding competition, apparel firms in fast fashion are being compelled to focus on the effective management of their supply chains as a means to achieving competitive advantage and improving firm performance. Over the past decades, fashion retailers such as Zara, Benetton, Gap, and H&M have increasingly embraced the concept of ‘fast fashion’ (Wen et al., 2019) that focuses on establishing an efficient, accelerated supply chain (SC) to produce trendy designs and deliver them to the ultimate consumers (McNeill & Moore, 2015). As a disruptive business strategy, fast fashion strives to reduce the processes in the buying cycle and lead times for delivering new fashion product into stores to satisfy consumer demand at its peak (Barnes & Lea-Greenwood, 2006), thus suggesting the enormous importance of effective supply chain management (SCM) adoption and practice. In modern retailing, it is the supply chains that compete rather than companies (Wang et al., 2019), further emphasizing the criticality of SCM innovation in the success of firm performance. In addition, due to the long complex structures in the apparel SC, intense global competition, and increased uncertainty in SC, suppliers of fast fashion apparel (FFA) products are under immense pressure to adopt innovative practices to reduce cost and adapt to a timeline that is faster and responsive (Chan et al., 2017). Consequently, maintaining profit margins and expanding market presence have turned into a difficult proposition for FFA manufacturers in many supplier countries (Camargo et al., 2020; Bhardwaj and Fairhust, 2010). Therefore, developing the dynamic capability of a robust SC that can adapt to changing conditions and uncertainty is unequivocally important for apparel firms in fast fashion (Chowdhury & Quaddus, 2017). Despite the heightened interest of academics and practitioners in SCM issues, there is inadequate empirical research about guiding firms in SCM adoption and execution process to a degree that can enable them to realize the goal of achieving and sustaining competitive performance. This is more so in the fashion industry.
While various aspects of SCM have been broadly studied by numerous researchers, there is a lack of research relating to the differentiation of SCM adoption and practice, as per diffusion of innovation theory (DIT) (Rogers, 2003). Past research focused on either SCM adoption (e.g., Kotzab et al., 2006; Kumar et al., 2015) or SCM practice (e.g., Li et al., 006; Chin & Tat, 2015), but not both adoption and practice of SCM at the same time. Several studies (e.g., Li et al., 2006) used the terms “SCM adoption” and “SCM practice” interchangeably. In the context of the fast fashion industry, Barnes and Lea-Greenwood (2006) discuss the use of SC principles via qualitative research. The authors did not describe how various companies went through the process of SCM adoption but revealed that practices of SC are consumer-driven with quick response and just-in-time models. In discussing the changes in the FFA industry Bhardwaj and Fairhurst (2010) mention that most of the changes had been in the fast fashion SCs. The authors mention that emphasis has shifted from supply-driven to customer-driven SCs with the practices of just-in-time, quick response, and agile SC with short cycles. It is observed that the authors have not differentiated between the adoption and practices of various SC models. In a comprehensive review of the fashion retail supply chain (FRSC) Wen et al. (2019) reveal that more research needs to be done on the real-world relevance of FRSC dealing with real data and real case studies. The authors also discuss various operational models of FRSC but do not go into details of adoption aspects of FRSC. In studying sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) among the fast fashion firms Turker and Altuntas (2014) focus on the practice aspect of SSCM. The authors also reveal that companies must ‘internalized’ the concept of SSCM for better performance of SSCM. Hence, the adoption aspect of SSCM must also be planned effectively for the better companywide implementation of SSCM.