Market power and interorganizational control in the fashion industry: the role of traceability

Traceability is a very complex concept which regards the sharing of knowledge on product information and production processes along the supply chain in btb networks until the consumers in the final market. It has undoubtedly an important impact on the relationships between actors along the supply chain, especially in the fashion industry, where traceability has an increasing role due to the strong integration between industrial and retail functions and the relevance of changes in the organization of production networks (global shift of production to new industrialized countries and emerging markets). The paper aims to analyse the relation between traceability and buyer-seller relationship. Empirically, it presents findings from a case analysis process of five actors in the fashion industry, which show how different traceability concepts adopted by the dominant actor in the network affect buyer-seller relationships, emerging from how the necessity for traceability has changed the way the specific company does its business.