Embedded Competitiveness:

The thesis studies Taiwan’s shifting role in international footwear sourcing networks over the last three decades. It draws on multiple sources of data, including in-depth interview, field observation, and published data, to construct phases and faces of the socially embedded market. The research points to the anomalies in the comparative advantage theory, evaluates the weakness of the state-centered and production-centered sociological approaches in giving satisfactory explanations, and demonstrates a global commodity chain approach which analyzes the changing institutional infrastructure, social networking, and transaction organizations that have been shaping the changing positions of Taiwanese footwear producers in the footwear OEM export market. The study shows that production site transitions in the world footwear market are not universalistic. Given similar state policy and environmental challenges on the global and local levels, the differences between the Japan-to-Taiwan and Taiwan-to-China transitions reveal the historically contingent and organizationally operated nature of markets.