SMEs in Indian Textiles examines how globalisation in its transformative influence affects both firms and workers in the developing economies. Firms are able, through planned actions or gradual improvements, to take up specialised or value enhancing activities. Workers' experience and learning of practices and processes for internationally certified products enable the skills and rigor of innovation and learning-by-doing to be transferred down the value chain. This has an indirect and diffusing effect not only on the fortunes of specific companies, but also affects the industries and regions they are a part of.

These effects may be negative if the phenomenon of immiserising growth is imminent. This is the phenomenon faced by developing country firms when overall economic activity increases, but the return to this activity falls, which can happen when export prices fall faster than export volumes increase, or when the terms of trade become more stringent and expensive. Firms in developing countries like India may not be engaging in activities that truly benefit them in the process of their integration with global supply chains.

Exploring the handloom cluster's value chain and its linkages, SMEs in Indian Textiles examines whether firms in the cluster gained from their association with global buyers over this extended period, and in what ways. It provides important research on whether high road growth has been made possible due to the continued integration into the value chains of retailers, or whether there has been a slow redundancy in the importance of their functions and benefits.