Systematic Literature Review on Competitive Strategies in Apparel Industries

Firm competitive strategies are the more important concept that firms should concern about more precisely. This study aims to analyze the different types of firm competitive strategies that the apparel industry follows to enhance the organizations’ profit and survive within the global market by fulfilling the compliance requirements of international competitive forces. However, this study does not focus on reviewing human resource management strategies, which is the opposite strategy to competitive strategy. One hundred fifty-two previous research articles were analyzed and published since the 1990s. The researcher has identified that most of the analysis focus on Porter’s three generic strategies for discussing both in a supportive and arguable way, while the other typologies of firm strategies paid less attention. However, some firms undertake these less paid attention typologies also. Therefore, the present study identified this gap and re-reviewed all these sources to identify the diverse range of typologies of firm strategies that previous scholars described and arguable on competitive strategies that firms follow. questioned or criticized later on and the strategies that paid less focus. This review was done through the citation analysis to classify them in systematic order. Also, a thematic analysis was followed to express the identified characteristics of firm strategies. This study exposed the four strategies of competitive strategies mainly by covering other factors identified through the literature review, namely, competitive forces, stuck in the middle strategy, hybrid strategy and ocean strategies. As firms adopt multi-type firm strategies together, firm strategies depend on especially compliance requirements of buyers, and firm strategies are a must for future survival.