Mohammad Hasan Imam

Research profile

I am a PhD student in the Department of Aalborg University Business School (AUBS), Denmark under the CREATE Project in Bangladesh funded by Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

My PhD research titled “Circular Economy Transition in Bangladesh’s Business Systems: Collaboration Strategies, Competitive Competencies and Capability Reconfiguration of Apparel firms” aims to investigate how apparel supplier firms in Bangladesh can complement the sustainability and circularity goals of their global apparel buyers (global brands or MNEs) with their (supplier firms’) competences, capabilities and strategies related to shifting their systems toward circular economy.

Bangladeshi apparel manufacturing firms (Suppliers in global apparel value chain) are characterized by weak or lack of proper authority hierarchy and mostly managed and governed by the owners or their kinships. However, the supplier firms can start the circularity initiatives by developing authority hierarchy and delegating the right authority to the managers and employees and capturing their long-term commitment toward the firms’ circularity vision. Hence, the authority sharing to the manager(s) will enable firms to gain competitive competences and will help managers to develop and execute the innovative decisions and strategies in order to upgrade or reconfigure firms’ existing resources and capabilities which has discrepancies in regard to circularity shifting.

This competitive competence will also provide supplier firms leverage to develop collaboration strategies with diverse actors (GVCs actors and institutional actors) who can complement with financial, technological and knowledge related incentives and supports to pursue circular economy practices which has rarely find in Bangladeshi apparel industry.

Further, my research will focus on the role of national and transnational institutions (regulations, policies, standards, tax and incentives system, financial system, skill development program, labor policies and so on) in developing these strategies and competences in order to reconfigure the capabilities by the supplier firms and make the transition smoother in the Bangladeshi apparel industry context.

Therefore, my PhD project will investigate the phenomena to answer the following research questions.

1) How national institutions shape apparel suppliers’ strategies in response to CE transition with regard to collaboration, competitive competency creation and capability reconfiguration, and why?

2) How MNEs (brands/buyers) and other global actors (i.e. institutions) interact and influence suppliers’ collaboration strategies, competitive competencies creation and capabilities reconfiguration in circular economy transition in national business systems?