Analysis of key influencing factors for sustainable development in the Ethiopian textile and apparel industry based on Fuzzy-DEMATEL
In the textile and apparel industry,sustainable development implies that companies pursue economic benefits while protecting the environment and fulfilling social responsibilities.Achieving sustainable development in Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry is not only crucial for the country's economic growth but also important for safeguarding and enhancing the returns on China's overseas investments.However,the development of Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry still faces numerous challenges,including an incomplete industrial chain,severe shortage of upstream raw material supply,and low labor quality.These challenges not only individually affect industrial development but also interact with each other,increasing the complexity of formulating solutions.Currently,research on the sustainable development of Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry is generally limited to one or a few influencing factors,with rarely systematical and comprehensive studies on the influencing factors.Although some studies have attempted to adopt a more systematic approach to discuss influencing factors,they often approach from the perspective of international investors,and fail to fully consider the viewpoints of local experts and government departments,resulting in a lack of comprehensive and multi-perspective understanding of the industry.More critically,existing research lacks in-depth exploration of the interrelationships between influencing factors and the extent and importance of influencing factors on industrial sustainable development.These limitations hinder the identification of key influencing factors,which in turn affects the optimization of industrial resource allocation and the formulation of effective development strategies.To explore the interrelationships between influencing factors of sustainable development in Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry and identify key influencing factors,this study first constructs a set of influencing factors based on literature review and semi-structured interview data from 10 senior experts investing or serving in Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry using the grounded theory method.Next,the fuzzy set theory and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory(Fuzzy-DEMATEL)method are employed to quantitatively identify the key influencing factors of sustainable development in Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry by analyzing the evaluation data of 12 experts and scholars in this field(excluding the aforementioned 10 interviewees)on the degree of mutual influence between factors.Finally,targeted recommendations for the sustainable development of Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry are provided.This study conducts an in-depth exploration of the interrelationships between influencing factors and the extent and importance of influencing factors on industrial sustainable development based on qualitative and quantitative research data,further identifying key influencing factors and formulating targeted development strategies.The results show that the sustainable development of Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry is constrained by 15 influencing factors across three dimensions:enterprises,industry,and government,among which labor productivity,infrastructure construction,endogenous motivation,policy and institutional support,and government self-construction are five key influencing factors.Accordingly,the key sustainable development strategies for this industry are optimizing production management,enhancing employee skills,increasing investment in critical infrastructure,promoting technological innovation and knowledge transfer,establishing sound policies and regulatory mechanisms,and improving the professional capabilities and service levels of government officials.Compared to influencing factors identified by other methods,the influencing factors identified by this study's method are more systematic and comprehensive.Meanwhile,the development strategies discussed based on the identified key influencing factors are more targeted than those in other studies.The research systematically analyzes the complex interrelationships of influencing factors on the sustainable development of Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry through the Fuzzy-DEMATEL method,pointing out the direction for further development of the country's textile and apparel industry,and also providing technical reference for identifying influencing factors of sustainable industrial development in other developing countries.
Ethiopiatextile and apparel industrysustainable developmentFuzzy-DEMATELgrounded theorysemi-structured interviews
万方数据
维普
