The internationalisation of Chinese apparel companies, 1990–2020
研究1990年代以来中国大型服装企业的国际化模式，发现其与高科技行业有相似之处，但政府影响小、效率驱动强，且国际化方向多元，与西方服装企业不同。
This article challenges the dominant view in the literature on the internationalisation of Chinese companies; it supplements research on the global fashion industry from emerging economies. By studying leading Chinese apparel companies since the 1990s, we show that the existing theoretical frameworks of international business only partially apply to labour-intensive, low-tech industries. We base our discussion on an analysis of the 25 largest Chinese apparel firms in 2019. Our findings indicate that Chinese apparel firms share certain internationalisation patterns with high-tech industries, yet display distinctive features. Their expansion was marked by limited government influence and a strong efficiency-seeking motivation. Moreover, they pursued a multidirectional internationalisation encompassing production, wholesale, and retail, contrasting with the predominantly unidirectional pattern of Western fashion firms.