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This paper investigates the relationship between generic marketing strategies and organisational designs of the Hong Kong clothing manufacturing firms. It also studies the strategic deployment adopted by firms with different marketing approaches in response to the MFA. It was hypothesised that there are generic marketing strategies that characterised clothing manufacturing firms (H1); there is a relationship between the marketing strategies and the organisations of a clothing manufacturing firm (H2); organisational characteristics determine a clothing firm's approaches toward generic marketing strategies (H3); and marketing‐oriented clothing companies tend to cope better with the challenges of the MFA than less marketing‐oriented ones (H4). The findings partially supported the first and second hypotheses but rejected the last two.

Hong Kong's prominent position in international textiles and the clothing trade will continue to shift under the transition of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA). To provide a better understanding of the relationships between the local clothing manufacturers' generic marketing strategies and their deployment for future challenges, some 33 industrialists were interviewed. The results reveal no difference between the marketing‐oriented firms and the less marketing‐oriented firms in relation to the adoption of strategic actions in response to the abolition of the MFA. The results also indicate that firms, irrespective of their marketing approaches, shared similar views regarding the perceptions of the impact of the MFA upon Hong Kong industry and the overall future prospects of the Hong Kong clothing industry. Nevertheless, an interesting finding was that there might be a relationship between a firm's marketing approaches and its attitude to experimenting with strategies under different business environments. Less marketing‐oriented firms are found to be less proactive towards future uncertainties than the more marketing‐oriented firms.