The Forming of E-platform-driven Flexible Specialisation: How E-commerce Platforms Have Changed China’s Garment Industry Supply Chains and Labour Relations

ABSTRACT: E-commerce platforms have promoted the rise of consumer-demand-driven supply chains in the garment industry. This kind of supply chain has raised the demand for a new type of production organisation exemplified by low processing costs, small batches, multi-varieties, and quick reorders. Drawing on the insights of flexible specialisation theory, this paper proposes the concept of e-platform-driven flexible specialisation to describe this emerging production organisation form. This flexible specialisation is characterised by highly fragmented and informal production organisations such as husband-and-wife-run workshops and production units based on daily wage workers. In the context of a severe labour shortage in the garment industry, workers participate in the construction of these informal production organisations in order to obtain higher wages and work autonomy. However, the increase in informal employment also makes garment workers more atomised and vulnerable to social risks such as the outbreak of COVID-19. It is necessary to innovate labour relation negotiation modes to cope with the impacts of the rise of the platform economy on labour relations.

KEYWORDS: E-commerce platform, garment industry, flexible specialisation, informal employment, supply chain, value chain.