Paper short abstract:

We examine social and economic upgrading in Ethiopia's apparel GPNs by studying the rise and fall of a prominent Turkish investment between 2010 and 2019. These two forms of upgrading proved highly intertwined, and the interaction of various actors' agency crucial to the outcomes.

Paper long abstract:

Ethiopia’s quest for export-led industrialization through manufacturing is seen by many as a test case for the larger potential of African countries to benefit from global value chains. In recent years this quest has run into difficulties, prompting critics to question the social and economic advantages of this strategy. This article takes a novel approach to this question by examining the rise and fall of one prominent international investment that failed, namely the Turkish textile/apparel firm Ayka Addis. It does so through the lens of agency in global production networks (GPNs), arguing that a multi-stranded understanding of the constraints and opportunities faced by different actors can shed light on possibilities for economic and social upgrading. Drawing on interviews, as well as on multiple primary and secondary written sources, it finds a variety of complex and overlapping levels of agency between and within the workforce, government, main buyer, and firm management. An initial alignment in goals increased the agency of many of these actors, putting the GPN on the path to social upgrading. But economic upgrading proved more difficult to achieve, especially when key actors’ ambitions began to diverge in later years. The responsibility to create sustainable value chains is diffuse, and no one party can be blamed entirely for Ayka’s failure. Nor can GPN actors “parcel up” the work required: just as economic actors such as firms must increasingly work to ensure worker wellbeing and social upgrading, actors concerned with social progress must also concern themselves with economic sustainability.