Strategic Partnerships in the U.S. Textile and Apparel Industry

This chapter provides a comprehensive investigation of strategic partnership social value, economic value, relational distance and fairness. Application of social exchange, transactional cost analysis, and distributive justice theories provides the theoretical basis for this research. Results from qualitative interviews with U.S. textile industry executives, a national quantitative questionnaire and case study research with a successful company that engages in strategic partnerships provide a multi-faceted understanding of strategic partnerships. While social and economic value were reported to occur in strategic partnerships, the relationship between social value and fairness was the only relationship found to be statistically significant (r = .68, P <.001). Implications for industry and future research possibilities are discussed.