THE PUPPET SHOW - CHANGING BUYER-SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN CLOTHING RETAILING

This paper considers the recent restructuring of the clothing retailing sector. The focus is upon changing relationships between clothing manufacturers and retailers. The traditional conceptualization of retailer control mechanisms throughout the 1980s was that there exists a spectrum ranging from the tight control 'marionette' model to the arms length approach. Our aim here is to refine this unrealistic representation of inter-organizational linkages, and to suggest that the traditional polar extreme control model is being replaced by a hierarchical or pyramidal model, with close control being exercised over preferred suppliers, alongside an increasingly fragmented chain of sub-contracting relationships further down the chain. We consider the implications of such changing buyer-supplier relations on the future of the British clothing industry, and argue that the prospect of an equalizing out of the asymmetrical relationship between retailers and clothing manufacturers seems remote.