Abstract
As apparel manufacturers and fabric suppliers are positioned in the middle of the apparel supply chain, these supply chain members build up a partnership to establish a win-win mutual relationship and to gam global competition. This study aimed to provide useful suggestions in setting up operational strategies by investigating the current state of a partnership between apparel manufactures and fabric suppliers. Partnership variables were included as: cooperative attitude, information sharing, interdependency, communications, strategic fit trust and commitment. Manufacturers' performance included productive/economic/emotional performance. A questionnaire was distributed to apparel manufactures who are doing business with fabric suppliers. A total of 101 complete questionnaires were used for further analysis. The results were as follows; First, apparel manufacturers do business with $10\~20$ fabric suppliers mainly, duration of business relation with main partners ranged from 1 year to 30 years, with 7 years on average. Among criteria with which apparel manufactures select fabric suppliers, quality and delivery-time were the most important. Second, cooperative attributes, communications, and strategic fit were positively related with trust. The higher commitment led to the high level of interdependency and strategic fit and tend to more trustworthy. Trust and commitment were significantly re lated with manufacturers' performance(i.e., productive/economic/emotional performance). This study is expected to contribute to increase the better performance for domestic apparel manufacturers.