The global reach of the UK clothing sector Available to Purchase

The concept of globalisation has received wide currency in the literature on international business strategy. Authors such as Levitt and Ohmae argue that, in the future, only global companies will succeed. This paper examines the theoretical concepts and their applicability to clothing products and then studies the global spread of the UK clothing industry's exports and overseas investments. It concludes that the applicability of the concept of globalisation to this sector may be limited by the nature of the product and that, in practice, the global spread of export and investment activity as exhibited by the UK clothing industry reveals some potentially disturbing features; notably an over concentration upon the EU. The paper appears in two parts.