Search

This paper focuses on Australian development firms in the console and mobile games industry in order to understand how small firms in a geographically remote and marginal position in the global industry are able to relate to global firms and capture revenue share. This paper shows that, while technological change in the games industry has resulted in the emergence of new industry segments based on transactional rather than relational forms of economic coordination, in which we might therefore expect less asymmetrical power relations, lead firms retain a position of power in the global games entertainment industry relative to remote developers. This has been possible because lead firms in the emerging mobile devices market have developed and sustained bottlenecks in their segment of the industry through platform competition and the development of an intensely competitive ecosystem of developers. Our research shows the critical role of platform competition and bottlenecks in influencing power asymmetries within global markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines shifts in value chain governance and upgrading in the automotive component production node of Bursa in Turkey. Component suppliers in Bursa have gained design and product-development competences, one result of which is that European and global firms have turned to the creation of modular value chains for the sourcing of components from these suppliers. This paper considers the implications of the insertion of Turkish suppliers into modular value chains on suppliers' upgrading, and reveals that, despite the diffusion of design and product-development competences to suppliers in Bursa, cutting-edge innovation activities such as marketing and branding continue to remain the domain of the lead firms. It is argued that although Turkish suppliers seem to be successful in upgrading to take on design and product-development tasks, this has been more due to the willingness of global lead firms to relinquish these functions than to the success of Turkish suppliers in encroaching upon these once core competences of their customers. It is concluded that power asymmetries in global automotive value chains continue to exist, and that lead firms continue to have a major influence on the type of upgrading strategies that are open to their suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wacquant's territorial stigmatization concept asserts that state/private actors mobilize discourses of stigmatization about specific areas in a city in order to legitimize spatial solutions in an attempt to solve complex political-economic problems. Unlike conventional studies of territorial stigmatization which delineate the concept between the production of stigma from 'above' and the resistance of stigma from 'below,' this paper contributes the concept of territorial stigmatization from the 'middle'. Given their conceptualization as key players in the urban assemblage, we specifically examine how Business Improvement Areas (also known as Business Improvement Districts in the U.S) negotiate territorial stigmatization throughout the neighbourhood revitalization process. We highlight Business Improvement Areas' unique middle position by drawing on data collected from interviews, media articles, and urban planning reports in London Ontario's Old East Village over a fifteen-year period. In short, we find the use of territorial stigmatization by Business Improvement Areas is contingent upon their relationship within the urban assemblage (both actors from above and below). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical variations in voluntary sector activity are important where they lead to inequity in service provision and differences in the opportunity to participate in voluntary group activities. However, despite important theoretical work, very little work has demonstrated variation empirically, particularly variation at the local (neighbourhood) level. This paper, for the first time, examines nationally representative data to illustrate the very real geographical differences across England in the prevalence of voluntary organisations working at a neighbourhood scale. Overall, less deprived local areas have a much higher prevalence than more deprived local areas. While certain kinds of organisations are more prevalent in more deprived areas, including those working in the field of economic well-being, this reflects the presence of organisations which receive public funds. These patterns are consistent with a key element of 'voluntary sector failure', resource insufficiency, and the important role of government in ensuring resources are available in areas of particular need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring and tracing product and process qualities along global supply chains have become increasingly challenging tasks for companies at the downstream end of the chain. High levels of uncertainty in trade coordination arise among importing companies in the face of these developments. The conceptual aim of this paper is to show, by the example of organic food imports to Germany and Australia, how convention theory can contribute to the analysis of trade coordination in global value chains. Our empirical results affirm that industrial conventions such as standards and third-party certification have gained increasing significance over the past two decades. Simultaneously, however, we argue that industrial conventions are not enough to overcome uncertainties in trade. They do not necessarily lead to reduced differences in perceptions of product quality between suppliers and importers. Less tangible factors such as trust established through relationship management and reputation are likewise significant. Furthermore, not only companies with a certain ideological tradition, but also individual people with altruistic motives within other types of firms, can determine how 'dedicated' a firm is in pushing trade coordination according to civic and domestic conventions. Market conventions (ie, the importance of price and competitiveness) are stressed more by Australian firms reflecting the country's liberal market economy and low state subsidies especially in the area of agriculture. Finally, compromises between conventions are sometimes necessary to end a situation of conflict between buyer and supplier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a large sample of Italian manufacturing flrms over the period 2004-06, to investigate whether different types of agglomeration economies affect flrms' internationalisation choices. Tbe main novelty of the work consists in linking the hypothesis of flrm heterogeneity to the literature on agglomeration economies to explain flrms' approaches and forms of internationalisation. We analyse two types of agglomeration economies: localisation economies and related variety. Our analyses show that the higher the flrm's productivity level, the higher the probability it will engage in more complex modes of internationalisation and that localisation economies and related variety positively affect export but not the flrm's multinational strategy. We check the robustness of our results using a two-stage instrumental-variable multinomial logit model in order to control for potential endogeneity of agglomeration variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens to technologies, firms, regional outputs, interregional accessibility, and trade when they are understood as coevolving? This paper offers a relational mathematical approach to this question, one whose embrace of disequilibrium, context, history, uncertainty, both monetary and material perspectives on economic activity, and complexity resonates productively with many qual-itative theoretical approaches. I present a multiregion, multisector, multifirm model of a society shaped by the pursuit of profit and explore some of its theoretical implications through the narration of simulations, including points of contrast with the approaches and implications of geographical economics. Under different conditions, various economic geographies emerge, including inter-regional divergence and convergence, specialisation and diversification, as well as the possibility of transitions between these dynamical paths. The relational quantitative method advanced here suggests directions for future research into the theoretical landscapes of economic geographies emerging beyond equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the emergence of firm-based global environmental standards as an approach to managing the environmental performance of complex global production networks. Firm-based global environmental standards exist when a firm defines a uniform set of process and product environmental performance requirements that must be adhered to by all of a firm's facilities around the world, even if these firm-based standards exceed the requirements of local and national environ mental regulations. We identify increasingly stringent end-market environmental regulation, as well as growing concern over the need to protect a firm's reputational capital and operating legitimacy, as two key drivers of the adoption of firm-based environmental standards. Our analysis suggests, however, that firms are responding to these external drivers in part because of the characteristics of global production networks—a production form that depends on the ability to produce from any manufacturing plant to any end market. The paper examines the impact of firm-based environmental standards through case studies of a cement plant in Thailand and an electronics manufacturing plant in Penang, Malaysia. In line with the literature on new institution economics, the case studies demonstrate that firm-based standards are providing a platform for learning and innovation within the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between the geography of firms and the intensity of use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Our approach to the geography of firms is multifaceted, in relation to the various characteristics of their location area(s), to their organisational fragmentation, and to their spatial organisation at a national scale. Making use of a single cross-section dataset drawn from the `ICT and c-commerce' survey for the French industry, we examine firms' decisions to use the Internet more or less intensively. We find that firms' internal fragmentation lead to important variations in the intensity of Internet use. Moreover, we find that firms benefit from urbanisation economies through the location of their headquarters and also through that of their units in the case of multiunit firms. Finally, we observe a strong positive effect of competitive pressure at both national and international levels as well as geographical and sectoral epidemic effects on the intrafirm diffusion of the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the exemplar of global headhunting firms to provide new insights into the intricacies of internationalization and related 'spatial economies' of producer services in the world economy. In particular, we unpack the complex relationships between the organizational rationale for, the selected mode of, and future benefits gained by internationalization, as headhunting firms seek and create new geographical markets. We achieve this through an analysis of headhunting firm- specific case study data that detail the evolving way such firms organize their differential strategic growth (organic, merger and acquisition, and alliances/network) and forms (wholly owned, networked, or hybrid). We also highlight how, as elite labour market intermediaries, headhunters are important, yet understudied, actors within the (re)production of a 'softer', 'knowledgeable' capitalism. Our argument, exemplified through detailed mapping of the changing geographies of headhunting firms between 1992 and 2005, demonstrates the need for complex and blurred typologies of internationalization and similarly complex internationalization theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern theoretical concepts in economic geography are used to try to explain the positive sides of geographical clustering of industries. Of the few theoretical concepts which are used to try to explain the negative sides of clustering, that is, the decline of old industrial areas, evolutionary regional economics, in general, and the lock-in concept, in particular, are promising ones. Lock-ins have been furthest developed by Grabher in his study on the steel and coal-mining complex in the Ruhr Area, Germany. They can be considered as thick interfirm, institutional, and cognitive tissues aimed at preserving existing industrial structures and therefore unnecessarily slowing down industrial renewal. It is particularly in regions with political lock-ins in which the legacy of manufacturing endures. On the basis of a study on the restructuring of the textile industry in Westmünsterland in Germany, in this paper I analyse whether these kinds of lock-ins can also be observed in regions with strong concentrations of the textile industry, an industry that strongly differs from the above-mentioned steel and coal-mining complex. I show that the impact of lock-ins can be regarded as relatively weak in the textile region of Westmünsterland. Partly because of that, industrial renewal has been relatively successful, which in turn has kept lock-ins weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regional-growth literature emphasises the importance of positive network externalities as determinants of the long-run competitiveness of region, highlighting their role in reducing spatial transaction costs and facilitating collective learning and innovation. In this paper we contribute to this literature by presenting new evidence from a firm-based survey within three Turkish industrial centres about the causes of differentiated network activity. Using multivariate analysis, we show that locational rather than sectoral differences explain local-linkage intensities, but this is not the case for global links. Second, there is an important relationship between firm size and local-linkage and global-linkage densities; the density of local networks decreases with increasing firm size, whereas the density of global networks increases with firm size. Third, there is a positive relation between global-network density and firm productivity. We argue that the comparative and quantitative analysis we employ is a useful adjunct to case-study analysis, which could help avoid misconceptions and lead to a more realistic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resources are crucial for the technological and economic development of firms in spatial perspective. In this paper we contrast two ways of conceptualizing resources, and argue that a conventional, substantive understanding implies a number of shortcomings which can be overcome through the application of a relational conception of resources. In examining four types of resources—material resources, knowledge, power, and social capital—our argument is that resources are constituted in a relational way in two aspects. First, resources are relational in that their generation, interpretation, and use are contingent. This depends on the particular institutional structures and social relations, as well as on the knowledge contexts and mental models of the agents involved. Second, some types of resources, such as power and social capital, are also relational because they cannot be possessed or controlled by individual agents. They are built and mobilized through day-to-day social practices. Individuals or groups of agents may appropriate the returns, but not the resources themselves. We conclude that a relational concept reflects the contextual and interactive nature of the selection, use, and formation of resources. This offers new insights into the explanation of heterogeneity in firm strategies and trajectories, as well as regional differences in the development of localized industry configurations, such as clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some, networks have ontological status, being associated with the embeddedness of social life in general and the necessary embeddedness of firms in their industries and regions in particular. For others less certain about ontology, networks are vital ingredients in firm-specific competitive strategies and long-term growth prospects. In this paper we approach the issue with reference to firm-specific competitive strategies, reporting the results of a large-scale pan-European survey of small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) network-related responses to changing market conditions. Distinguishing between different types of production network (supply and distribution) operating at various geographical scales (regional, national, EU, and global), it is shown that the scope and scale of firm networks are strategic issues. All things being equal, firms adopt advanced technologies in response to changing market conditions, enabling their networks to change in scope and geographical scale. We also show that the significance of local as opposed to national and EU networks is changing with less 'localism' and wider geographical scope becoming increasingly important. Using probit models for different types of networks, we identify and distinguish between predictive variables driving network formation, including the type of SME ownership. Implications are drawn for the theoretical status of networks in industrial organisation and their significance for European economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of regional governance in the United Kingdom has been, in part, premised on the notion that regions provide new territories of action in which cooperative networks between business communities and state agencies can be established. Promoting business interests is seen as one mechanism for enhancing the economic competitiveness and performance of 'laggard' regions. Yet, within this context of change, business agendas and capacities are often assumed to exist 'out there', as a resource waiting to be tapped by state institutions. There is little recognition that business organisations' involvement in networks of governance owes much to historical patterns and practices of business representation, to the types of activities that exist within the business sector, and to interpretations of their own role and position within wider policymaking and implementation networks. This paper, drawing on a study of business agendas in post-devolution Scotland, demonstrates that in practice business agendas are highly complex. Their formation in any particular place depends on the actions of reflexive agents, whose perspectives and capacities are shaped by the social, economic, and political contexts within which they are operating. As such, any understanding of business agendas needs to identify the social relations of business as a whole, rather than assuming away such complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a supplier-centered approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in global value chains (GVCs) by answering the research question: why are suppliers in the Global South that are integrated into GVCs often highly skeptical of CSR? As CSR constitutes a vague and contested term, we undertake a short review of some of the most dominant CSR conceptions that have emerged in the last 20 years. We argue that these CSR definitions are often framed and promoted by key actors in the Global North, the home of many lead firms, in ways that overlook the unique challenges and broader circumstances faced by suppliers and countries in the Global South. We conclude by combining the key considerations of local suppliers in a more consolidated supplier perspective on CSR in GVCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant cluster policy research has largely ignored the particular role that cluster organizations play in reifying cluster policies in practice. Based on a survey of 163 cluster organizations in the European life sciences sector, this study explores the heterogeneity of cluster organizations in geographic space and examines whether and where revealed competition – defined as the combined overlap in service offerings, sub-sectoral focus and funding sources – between life science cluster organizations within European regions is most apparent. The findings indicate that the degree of functional and sectoral substitutability of cluster organizations differs substantially across Europe, though some regions, particularly in Spain, Denmark, France and Estonia, are more prone to revealed competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital industries cluster known as Silicon Roundabout has been quietly growing in East London since the 1990s. Rebranded Tech City, it is the focus of huge public and government attention. National and local policy makers wish to accelerate the local area's development: such cluster policies are back in vogue as part of a reawakened interest in industrial policy. Surprisingly little is known about Tech City's firms or the wider ecosystem, however, and cluster programmes have a high failure rate. We perform a detailed mixed-methods analysis, combining rich enterprise-level data with semistructured interviews. We track firm and employment growth from 1997 to 2010 and identify several distinctive features: branching from creative to digital content industries; street-level sorting of firms; the importance of local amenities and a lack of conventional cluster actors such as universities or anchor businesses. We also argue that the existing policy mix embodies a number of tensions, and suggest areas for improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the role of regional import flows for renewal of regional industries. The hypothesis is that imports stimulate renewal of local industries by being vehicles for technology diffusion and means by which local firms can exploit advantages of global specialisation. We find robust and positive relationships between high-quality imports and renewal of regional exports, where the latter are measured by the introduction of novel export products of local firms. Connectedness to international markets via import networks appears to be a stimulus for the renewal of regional exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We adopt a stochastic actor-based modelling framework to present a longitudinal analysis of an intercity corporate network formed by 53 globalised advanced producer service firms across 107 cities for three different time points in the period 2000-10. Our longitudinal framework allows us to investigate the different processes underlying firm networks' dynamics. The observed network changes are explained by a combination of exogenous city characteristics (eg, GDP and population) and endogenous local network structures (eg, 'star' and '4-cycle' structures). Our analysis contributes to an understanding of how interactions amongst cities and firms at the local scale give rise to the empirically observed network patterns at the global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the ways in which recruitment and selection processes facilitate the reproduction of elites and elite cultures within City law firms. The research is based upon original research carried out during 2009, consisting of in-depth semistructured interviews, semiotic and content analyses of recruitment materials and websites, and the analysis of publicly available data demonstrating the educational backgrounds of lawyers practising in the City. By deploying Bourdieusian concepts including the field, 'doxa', cultural capital, and habitus, the authors show that, in the firms studied, homologous elite cultures and social groups are maintained and legitimated as part of attempts to reproduce 'normalised' expectations about the identity and practice of a City professional. Maintenance is ensured by assessing the objectified, institutionalised, and embodied cultural capital of applicants in recruitment and selection processes, with only those possessing certain types of capital being recruited. This selection by cultural capital limits social mobility in City professions, which are dominated by the upper-middle classes, and helps explain why, in the face of critique and in the context of programmes designed to widen social diversity, the City legal profession remains socially exclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study interfirm relations among ceramic tableware manufacturers in the city of Lampang, Thailand. Data consist of face-to-face interviews with the principals of thirty-four manufacturers, and with representatives of supporting institutions. We find that specialization in production and knowledge sharing are complementary; that knowledge sharing is substantially discretionary, rather than taking the form of passive spillovers; and that a weak knowledge base, built on firm-based training within vertically integrated mass producers, constrains the development of flexible specialization, despite the efforts of numerous local and external actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study systematically analyzes the impacts of supplier- client and technological linkages with foreign firms on domestic firm technological innovation, based on a unique dataset that was collected through a survey of over 600 firms in China's information and communication technology industry. The results revealed that Chinese firms were engaged in extensive supplier - client relation- ships with foreign firms, although their technological collaborations with foreign firms were very limited. It was found that firm innovation benefited significantly from technological relationships with foreign firms. However, the results also suggest that, although export/import did contribute to domestic firm innovation, supplier- client relationships with foreign-invested enterprises in China did not show positive effects on domestic firm innovation. The analyses further suggest that such market transactions between domestic and foreign firms helped building technological linkages between domestic firms and foreign firms. These results clearly demonstrate the value of networking in enhancing firm innovation in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overview is provided of the development process for implementing a customer data base. An effort is made to highlight some of the pitfalls and describe the evolution of a customer marketing data-base as experienced by the authors. Key objectives of the marketing data-base are outlined in order to highlight the potential of the development. The authors believe that the issues apply to many companies in consumer or business markets and expect that the paper will act as a catalyst for marketing strategists.

Commercial applications of geodemographic data and associated techniques of market analysis are described from the perspective of companies in North America. After a discussion of the development of the industry and the types of data and services available, some important current trends are identified. Possible developments in the short-term future are reviewed, and the paper concludes with an evaluation of the prospects for the industry.