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This paper investigates the relationship between generic marketing strategies and organisational designs of the Hong Kong clothing manufacturing firms. It also studies the strategic deployment adopted by firms with different marketing approaches in response to the MFA. It was hypothesised that there are generic marketing strategies that characterised clothing manufacturing firms (H1); there is a relationship between the marketing strategies and the organisations of a clothing manufacturing firm (H2); organisational characteristics determine a clothing firm's approaches toward generic marketing strategies (H3); and marketing‐oriented clothing companies tend to cope better with the challenges of the MFA than less marketing‐oriented ones (H4). The findings partially supported the first and second hypotheses but rejected the last two.

Using a test‐retest methodology, an established measurement scale for consumer‐perceived service quality in fashion retailing was further evaluated in terms of reliability. Results indicate that the scale possesses, relative to another popular nonindustry‐specific scale, high internal consistency reliability. However, in terms of temporal reliability, the scale is relatively inferior. Suggestions are also made for further study, as to why the scale is unstable.

This study attempted to explore the development of an industry‐specific, quantitative instrument for assessing the customer‐perceived service quality level of casual‐wear chain stores. It was the wish of the authors that this alternative approach would supplement existing generic measure instruments for assessing service quality when used in fashion retailing. Applications of the proposed instrument in fashion retailing were also discussed.

This paper examines the performance in value‐added terms of the local clothing manufacturing industry. A longitudinal study was carried out by means of analysing industry production data over a period of ten years. Results seemed not to support the proposition that the industry had shifted to focus on higher value‐added production so as to improve its productivity. On the contrary, there was a strong indication that a gradual decay of productivity in value‐added terms had occurred. The paper concluded with suggesting a few probable reasons for the apparent reduction in value‐added productivity of the industry and recommendations for further research in related areas.

Within the last decade of the twentieth century, the apparel industry in Hong Kong has been undergoing drastic changes. These changes mainly stem from the challenges of process globalization, which has led to manufacturers shifting a majority of production processes to countries that entail better cost‐competitive advantages, while retaining crucial planning and decision‐making services centrally. Industrialists, educators and even the Government have made a great deal of effort to enhance the provision of high quality service in an attempt to transform the industry strategically into a centre of service excellence in the South‐East Asian region. However, without accredited standard and reference points, the measuring and monitoring of quality in manufacture‐related service is very vague and perplexing. In this paper, the authors first review the extant literature for measuring perceived quality in service provision and then explore the respective implementation issues. A Servqual scale in three‐column format, adapted from the service quality measurement scale proposed by Parasuraman (1995), is used to survey the opinion of international buying offices and to assess the Hong Kong apparel manufacturers’service performance. Two expectation‐discrepancy standards in Service Adequacy and Service Superiority are constructed to measure the service deficiency (gaps). As a result the authors learnt that there are empirical differences between what is perceived in the existing manufacturer’s service performance and what the buyer side really desires. The paper concludes with a discussion of the Servqual modelling operational implications and future research directions.

This paper examines the impact of both the China-Hong Kong free-trade agreement and quota phasing-out on Hong Kong's textiles and clothing manufacturing industry in the post- MFA regime. In particular, it answers the question whether CEPA benefits companies in the short term and strengthens their strategic decisions in the long run as shown by evidence from various data sources and other related studies in the literature. Findings show that the industry will continue to consolidate even in light of the zero import tariffs in China provided by the agreement. We conclude that, from strategic perspectives, the agreement can act as a test-bed to enhance China's regulatory reform and govern the trade restructuring. Some other implications for the industry will be mentioned.

The merchandising process of a large buying office in Hong Kong was studied using a network analyses tool, programme evaluation and review technique (PERT). Quantitative and qualitative data were both obtained by in‐depth interviews with key people in the company. The delivery lead time, which was the cycle time from the receipt of an order by the buying office to the point where the garment lot was ready for shipment at the manufacturer’s factory, was determined quantitatively, and probabilities of late shipments analysed. For bulk orders of woven garments, the activity time of fabric manufacture and garment manufacture was found to account for about half and one‐third, respectively, of the total delivery lead time (about 69 days). Also the PERT was shown to help identify critical activities which were redundant and thereafter, through process re‐engineering, could shorten the delivery lead time and reduce the work load of the merchandiser.

Following the previous sequel, we posit innovation activity management as managing process-based interactivity dependencies to achieve organizations’ desired goals for novel competitive advantages in global supply pipelines, either by means of product or process development. In this paper, we propose a computational method to address the specific issue of modelling and managing a dynamic innovation process, and posit inter-organizational process dependency as a fundamental issue within the modelling organization’s cooperation process. Adopting the perspectives of interdependency within an embedded network, we define innovation activities as networked process structure systems, and simulate and evaluate the dynamic performance of embedded process structures through an adaptive heuristic process. To illustrate the use of this method and its potential benefits, we apply it to real life case studies of inter-organization cooperation, concerning an innovative control and coordination system for globally dispersed textile firms. The validity of our methodology is partially justified by the results of several computational experiments. From an industry point of view, this framework aims to benefit those concerned with design and selection of organization cooperation and coordination systems that are characterized by a high degree of complexity and structural dynamics within today's proliferating organizational cooperation contexts.