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This study examines the factors of sustainable technology adoption (STA) in the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry and its impact on the environmental performance and other firm performances. Mainly, this study adopts stakeholder theory and hypothesizes necessary conditions to examine different stakeholders’ roles to facilitate STA and ameliorate firm performances such as environmental, financial and competitive advantages.

It is an empirical study which collected 240 responses from Bangladeshi apparel firms. Garment factories were considered as the unit of analysis.

Customer pressure, top management, competition among firms and government support significantly and positively impact STA. Surprisingly, regulatory pressure has no significant impact on the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry, which contradicts most existing literature in the field. The findings show that sustainable technology brings increased simultaneously enhances environmental outcomes and enhances financial performances and competitive advantage.

This study fills up the voids that exist in the STA literature in the clothing industry in the clothing industry’s STA literature. Specifically, western buyers have more influence than regulatory pressure to adopt sustainable technology and sustainable manufacturing for the Bangladeshi garments industry. Moreover, it proposes that sustainable technology can enhance firms’ competitive advantage in selling their products in the West besides environmental-friendly apparel manufacturers.

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of automation on job displacement and reshoring in the apparel industry. It also compares with predictions on the same subject matter by the existing literature and, thus, provides future research agenda for further studies.

Primary data were collected through 27 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The grounded theory was used for thematic and network analyzes, which traced the drivers and barriers, as well as the impact of automation and reshoring.

Initially, automation decreases human interactions in any specific production section. However, it increases productivity, quality and cost advantages, which invoke growth and further employment in clothing firms. The employment of unskilled workers decreases in the long run when automation is well adopted in the system. Automation does not stimulate reshoring but may support relocation initiatives of production sites around the centers of global value chains (GVCs). This GVC-based relocation may create job displacement in apparel manufacturing nations in Asia while bringing employment opportunities to Sub-Saharan African countries, Europe and North America.

Little empirical research has been conducted on the impact of automation on the apparel industry. This study predicts that human interventions will dominate the sewing of fashionable and sophisticated apparel products while automation may replace many human workers for basic garment items in the foreseeable future.

This paper aims to identify key theoretical cornerstones and research trends in the apparel industry. It also compares theoretical bases with those of the general research domain in technology adoption literature and, thus, provides future policy guidelines for practitioners and research gaps for further studies.

Documents were collected from the Web of Science (core collection) database using systematic methods. The bibliometric coupling and co-citation analyses were conducted using VOSviewer software to construct theoretical cornerstones and research trends in the apparel industry.

Literature in the apparel industry focuses mainly on the diffusion of innovation and the theory of reasoned action. Hence, the literature lacks investigations of technology–organization–environment and institutional theories for technology adoption in the apparel industry. This study also traces six clusters of prevalent research trends: radiofrequency identification, virtual-try on technology for e-commerce, computer-aided design, Industry 4.0 technologies, virtual-try on technology in design and information technology.

Little research is done on theoretical cornerstones on technology adoption in the apparel industry. This study looks into the theoretical bases for technology adoption, research trends in the apparel supply chain and calls for future research necessities.