Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-95185-6
Judith Wiemann
{"title":"Geographies of Practice Transfer","authors":"Judith Wiemann","doi":"10.1007/978-3-030-95185-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95185-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50985824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-08DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1987879
S. Wickramasingha, N. Coe
abstract This article seeks to develop the concept of labor regimes as a tool for understanding the uneven labor outcomes of global production networks (GPNs). Existing work on labor regimes tends to give primacy to the control of labor, thereby analyzing labor regimes largely from a governance perspective. The agency of labor, however, is deeply embedded in the workings of labor regimes in GPNs, and remains somewhat undertheorized therein. In this article, we seek to build on recent work that has revivified the concept of labor regimes in the context of global production to develop an approach that brings the governance and agency of labor under one analytical domain. For this purpose, we develop a multiscalar conceptual framework with relations amongst and between labor, capital, the state, and international civil society organizations delimited as the key dynamics shaping labor regimes. By employing comparative case study methods and qualitative inquiry, the article deploys this framework to examine and compare the labor regimes of the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan apparel industries, which exhibit seemingly very different labor outcomes in the context of enrollment in similar GPNs. Based on the findings, the article explains how and why labor regimes are shaped as a result of the variable intersections of governance and agency, which in turn are deeply embedded in, and constitutive of, both global production dynamics and territorially specific characteristics.
{"title":"Conceptualizing Labor Regimes in Global Production Networks: Uneven Outcomes across the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan Apparel Industries","authors":"S. Wickramasingha, N. Coe","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1987879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1987879","url":null,"abstract":"abstract This article seeks to develop the concept of labor regimes as a tool for understanding the uneven labor outcomes of global production networks (GPNs). Existing work on labor regimes tends to give primacy to the control of labor, thereby analyzing labor regimes largely from a governance perspective. The agency of labor, however, is deeply embedded in the workings of labor regimes in GPNs, and remains somewhat undertheorized therein. In this article, we seek to build on recent work that has revivified the concept of labor regimes in the context of global production to develop an approach that brings the governance and agency of labor under one analytical domain. For this purpose, we develop a multiscalar conceptual framework with relations amongst and between labor, capital, the state, and international civil society organizations delimited as the key dynamics shaping labor regimes. By employing comparative case study methods and qualitative inquiry, the article deploys this framework to examine and compare the labor regimes of the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan apparel industries, which exhibit seemingly very different labor outcomes in the context of enrollment in similar GPNs. Based on the findings, the article explains how and why labor regimes are shaped as a result of the variable intersections of governance and agency, which in turn are deeply embedded in, and constitutive of, both global production dynamics and territorially specific characteristics.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48876154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-21DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1985995
Wenying Fu, Kean Fan Lim
Abstract Research on the strategic coupling between regions and global lead firms has largely assumed that the regional assets for coupling are ready made and are largely unchanging throughout the coupling process. This article takes this assumption as its critical point of departure and presents a new framework that considers how regional assets are actively (re)configured across multiple scales in ways that could redefine the prevailing mode of strategic coupling. The empirical basis of this framework is derived from a long-term case study on the formation and evolution of Sino-German production networks in environmental goods and services (EGS) in Jieyang, a relatively peripheral city in Guangdong province in China. The analysis draws from thirty-three interviews and seven focus group discussions, conducted between 2014 and 2020, with nonstate and state actors in Jieyang. Findings highlight how Zhongde, a coalition of Jieyang-based firms, transcended the limitations of structural coupling, which exemplifies uneven power relations between regions and lead firms, and attained more balanced coupling relations with German-led EGS global production networks (GPNs) through realigning interests with those of national-level institutions. Responding positively to the structural constraints and opportunities within a Chinese state structure based on experimental governance, Zhongde connected German EGS lead firms to the highly profitable but protected EGS market in China. This ability to jump between scales underscores the cross-scalar and dynamic aspects of strategic coupling: Zhongde was able to meet German-led EGS GPNs’ demand for market access and enhanced localization economies through reconfiguring regional assets. Abstracting from these findings, the article enhances the explanation of the evolution of strategic coupling by conceptualizing its intrinsic dynamism and incorporating state structural effects. Finally, it presents two directions for further research on GPN reconfigurations.
{"title":"The Constitutive Role of State Structures in Strategic Coupling: On the Formation and Evolution of Sino-German Production Networks in Jieyang, China","authors":"Wenying Fu, Kean Fan Lim","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1985995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1985995","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Research on the strategic coupling between regions and global lead firms has largely assumed that the regional assets for coupling are ready made and are largely unchanging throughout the coupling process. This article takes this assumption as its critical point of departure and presents a new framework that considers how regional assets are actively (re)configured across multiple scales in ways that could redefine the prevailing mode of strategic coupling. The empirical basis of this framework is derived from a long-term case study on the formation and evolution of Sino-German production networks in environmental goods and services (EGS) in Jieyang, a relatively peripheral city in Guangdong province in China. The analysis draws from thirty-three interviews and seven focus group discussions, conducted between 2014 and 2020, with nonstate and state actors in Jieyang. Findings highlight how Zhongde, a coalition of Jieyang-based firms, transcended the limitations of structural coupling, which exemplifies uneven power relations between regions and lead firms, and attained more balanced coupling relations with German-led EGS global production networks (GPNs) through realigning interests with those of national-level institutions. Responding positively to the structural constraints and opportunities within a Chinese state structure based on experimental governance, Zhongde connected German EGS lead firms to the highly profitable but protected EGS market in China. This ability to jump between scales underscores the cross-scalar and dynamic aspects of strategic coupling: Zhongde was able to meet German-led EGS GPNs’ demand for market access and enhanced localization economies through reconfiguring regional assets. Abstracting from these findings, the article enhances the explanation of the evolution of strategic coupling by conceptualizing its intrinsic dynamism and incorporating state structural effects. Finally, it presents two directions for further research on GPN reconfigurations.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44014717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-09DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1989302
Lotte Thomsen, M. Hess
abstract This article aims to substantiate how processes of valuation translate between different registers of value. We develop an analytical framework of how valuation is intertwined with geographic origination and the geographies of association and dissociation, which establish how commodities and consumer products are either associated with, or dissociated from, matters that are beneficial or damaging for sales and brand reputation. The article focuses on the rather unexplored gemstone and jewelry sector, and shows how the analysis of value is not reducible to Marxist notions of exchange and use value but needs to take into account symbolic and sign value, and embrace dis/association dialectics. It develops a novel conceptual framework that draws upon the early work of Baudrillard on symbolic value, together with Marxian value theory, and mobilizes it for the analysis of association–dissociation dialectics and practices in global value chains. We are particularly concerned with the role of origination and provenance to highlight the intrinsically geographic dimensions of gemstones that are enacted by traders and retailers in the valuation process. The article shows how valuation and consumption of gemstone and jewelry play out through complex and multiscalar, relational associative and dissociative practices, which intertwine with revealed sustainability problems in the diamond industry. It also shows how a current rise in the value and popularity of colored stones interrelate with a corporate refocusing away from mined diamonds, and entails even more in-transparent supply networks.
{"title":"Dialectics of Association and Dissociation: Spaces of Valuation, Trade, and Retail in the Gemstone and Jewelry Sector","authors":"Lotte Thomsen, M. Hess","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1989302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1989302","url":null,"abstract":"abstract This article aims to substantiate how processes of valuation translate between different registers of value. We develop an analytical framework of how valuation is intertwined with geographic origination and the geographies of association and dissociation, which establish how commodities and consumer products are either associated with, or dissociated from, matters that are beneficial or damaging for sales and brand reputation. The article focuses on the rather unexplored gemstone and jewelry sector, and shows how the analysis of value is not reducible to Marxist notions of exchange and use value but needs to take into account symbolic and sign value, and embrace dis/association dialectics. It develops a novel conceptual framework that draws upon the early work of Baudrillard on symbolic value, together with Marxian value theory, and mobilizes it for the analysis of association–dissociation dialectics and practices in global value chains. We are particularly concerned with the role of origination and provenance to highlight the intrinsically geographic dimensions of gemstones that are enacted by traders and retailers in the valuation process. The article shows how valuation and consumption of gemstone and jewelry play out through complex and multiscalar, relational associative and dissociative practices, which intertwine with revealed sustainability problems in the diamond industry. It also shows how a current rise in the value and popularity of colored stones interrelate with a corporate refocusing away from mined diamonds, and entails even more in-transparent supply networks.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41622543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-12DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1973420
R. Huggins, Piers Thompson
Abstract This article argues that theories of economic development and productivity should move beyond the generally known factors and mechanisms of such development. It is theoretically proposed and empirically illustrated that differences in human behavior are significant deep-rooted causes of spatial economic and productivity disparities. The article examines the relationship between behavioral constructs and productivity using data for local areas across England. Measures of personality psychology and community culture (including both living culture and cultural heritage) are hypothesized to be related to activities impacting upon productivity performance at the local level. The analysis indicates that underlying human behavioral factors play a role in determining rates of productivity and levels of economic development in localities and regions. Culture and psychological traits, as manifested in the form of the psychocultural behavior of localities and regions, appear to shape their long-term development trajectories. Localities that have relatively atomized behavioral environments with high levels of individual commitment tend to enjoy productivity benefits. Similarly, places with high rates of cultural diversity and extravert individuals have relatively high rates of productivity. It is concluded that from a policy perspective, governments looking to level up local and regional economies should pay greater attention to understanding behavioral influences on productivity, especially related to strategies focused on behavioral nudges, institutional changes, and education systems.
{"title":"Behavioral Explanations of Spatial Disparities in Productivity: The Role of Cultural and Psychological Profiling","authors":"R. Huggins, Piers Thompson","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1973420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1973420","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article argues that theories of economic development and productivity should move beyond the generally known factors and mechanisms of such development. It is theoretically proposed and empirically illustrated that differences in human behavior are significant deep-rooted causes of spatial economic and productivity disparities. The article examines the relationship between behavioral constructs and productivity using data for local areas across England. Measures of personality psychology and community culture (including both living culture and cultural heritage) are hypothesized to be related to activities impacting upon productivity performance at the local level. The analysis indicates that underlying human behavioral factors play a role in determining rates of productivity and levels of economic development in localities and regions. Culture and psychological traits, as manifested in the form of the psychocultural behavior of localities and regions, appear to shape their long-term development trajectories. Localities that have relatively atomized behavioral environments with high levels of individual commitment tend to enjoy productivity benefits. Similarly, places with high rates of cultural diversity and extravert individuals have relatively high rates of productivity. It is concluded that from a policy perspective, governments looking to level up local and regional economies should pay greater attention to understanding behavioral influences on productivity, especially related to strategies focused on behavioral nudges, institutional changes, and education systems.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43103679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-11DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1973419
C. Lenzi, G. Perucca
abstract The rise of a geography of political discontent in the EU documented in recent studies highlights a strong spatial association between antisystem voting, regional economic decline, and poor occupational opportunities, suggesting that economic disparities within the EU are the origin of some of the most recent and shocking political events like Brexit. This article reexamines this statement by disentangling the effect on individual and political discontent of different socioeconomic disadvantage conditions at the interregional, intraregional, and individual level. Making use of a large data set on the individual and political discontent perceived by EU citizens between 2013 and 2018, our analysis confirms that a geography of discontent exists across EU regions. Nevertheless, our findings also highlight that intraregional inequalities do matter for individual discontent, and individual socioeconomic disadvantage conditions amplify further this negative effect.
{"title":"People or Places that Don’t Matter? Individual and Contextual Determinants of the Geography of Discontent","authors":"C. Lenzi, G. Perucca","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1973419","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1973419","url":null,"abstract":"abstract The rise of a geography of political discontent in the EU documented in recent studies highlights a strong spatial association between antisystem voting, regional economic decline, and poor occupational opportunities, suggesting that economic disparities within the EU are the origin of some of the most recent and shocking political events like Brexit. This article reexamines this statement by disentangling the effect on individual and political discontent of different socioeconomic disadvantage conditions at the interregional, intraregional, and individual level. Making use of a large data set on the individual and political discontent perceived by EU citizens between 2013 and 2018, our analysis confirms that a geography of discontent exists across EU regions. Nevertheless, our findings also highlight that intraregional inequalities do matter for individual discontent, and individual socioeconomic disadvantage conditions amplify further this negative effect.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49309386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-01DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1977115
Yiou Zhang, D. Rigby
abstract Do capabilities reside in firms, in regions, or in both? Within economic geography, most contemporary research on diversification examines how local structures condition regional development possibilities. The underlying logic is that capabilities are generated within regions and sometimes shared between them. We challenge that logic, exploring whether capabilities are more likely to emerge within the firm and to flow across spatial boundaries than they are to be built within the region flowing across firm boundaries. Analysis focuses on technological diversification within the establishments of multilocational firms operating across Chinese cities. Overall, the results demonstrate that the knowledge structure of firms is more important than the knowledge structure of cities in shaping diversification within establishments. We show that rates of technological diversification vary according to plant status (headquarters or not), location (core or peripheral city), and on whether plants are introducing more or less complex knowledge. The influence of plant, firm, and regional characteristics on diversification vary markedly across the analytical samples examined.
{"title":"Do Capabilities Reside in Firms or in Regions? Analysis of Related Diversification in Chinese Knowledge Production","authors":"Yiou Zhang, D. Rigby","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1977115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1977115","url":null,"abstract":"abstract Do capabilities reside in firms, in regions, or in both? Within economic geography, most contemporary research on diversification examines how local structures condition regional development possibilities. The underlying logic is that capabilities are generated within regions and sometimes shared between them. We challenge that logic, exploring whether capabilities are more likely to emerge within the firm and to flow across spatial boundaries than they are to be built within the region flowing across firm boundaries. Analysis focuses on technological diversification within the establishments of multilocational firms operating across Chinese cities. Overall, the results demonstrate that the knowledge structure of firms is more important than the knowledge structure of cities in shaping diversification within establishments. We show that rates of technological diversification vary according to plant status (headquarters or not), location (core or peripheral city), and on whether plants are introducing more or less complex knowledge. The influence of plant, firm, and regional characteristics on diversification vary markedly across the analytical samples examined.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41327440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-20DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1967739
Jason Deegan, Tom Broekel, R. D. Fitjar
abstract This article examines which economic domains regional policy makers aim to develop in regional innovation strategies, focusing in particular on the complexity of those economic domains and their relatedness to other economic domains in the region. We build on the economic geography literature that advises policy makers to target related and complex economic domains, and assess the extent to which regions actually do this. The article draws on data from the smart specialization strategies of 128 NUTS-2 regions across Europe. While regions are more likely to select complex economic domains related to their current economic domain portfolio, complexity and relatedness figure independently, rather than in combination, in choosing priorities. We also find that regions in the same country tend to select the same priorities, contrary to the idea of a division of labor across regions that smart specialization implies. Overall, these findings suggest that smart specialization may be considerably less place based in practice than it is in theory. There is a need to develop better tools to inform regions’ priority choices, given the importance of priority selection in smart specialization strategies and regional innovation policy more broadly.
{"title":"Searching through the Haystack:The Relatedness and Complexity of Priorities in Smart Specialization Strategies","authors":"Jason Deegan, Tom Broekel, R. D. Fitjar","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1967739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1967739","url":null,"abstract":"abstract This article examines which economic domains regional policy makers aim to develop in regional innovation strategies, focusing in particular on the complexity of those economic domains and their relatedness to other economic domains in the region. We build on the economic geography literature that advises policy makers to target related and complex economic domains, and assess the extent to which regions actually do this. The article draws on data from the smart specialization strategies of 128 NUTS-2 regions across Europe. While regions are more likely to select complex economic domains related to their current economic domain portfolio, complexity and relatedness figure independently, rather than in combination, in choosing priorities. We also find that regions in the same country tend to select the same priorities, contrary to the idea of a division of labor across regions that smart specialization implies. Overall, these findings suggest that smart specialization may be considerably less place based in practice than it is in theory. There is a need to develop better tools to inform regions’ priority choices, given the importance of priority selection in smart specialization strategies and regional innovation policy more broadly.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46859967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-16DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1968296
Moritz Breul
Almost twenty years have passed since the global production network (GPN) framework was first proposed, seeking to understand the fragmented, transnational production of goods and services and its ...
{"title":"Advanced Introduction to Global Production Networks","authors":"Moritz Breul","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1968296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1968296","url":null,"abstract":"Almost twenty years have passed since the global production network (GPN) framework was first proposed, seeking to understand the fragmented, transnational production of goods and services and its ...","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45744573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2021.1941858
Pengfei Li, H. Bathelt
abstract Knowledge generation is often viewed as a direct outcome of spatial proximity or other social affinities between firms. In rejecting structural interpretations, this article emphasizes the crucial role of agency in orchestrating knowledge transfer and generation over space. We explore how firms strategically leverage the uneven geography of knowledge in international investments and identify four spatial knowledge strategies according to the direction of knowledge flows and mode of connection: knowledge replicating, scouting, connecting, and integrating. Drawing from a relational perspective, we develop four propositions to investigate how these strategies are configured in specific spatial settings. It is argued that replicating and scouting strategies occur from clusters to nonclusters and from nonclusters to clusters, respectively, while connecting and integrating strategies take place in cluster-to-cluster contexts. Adopting fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), an investigation of forty-nine headquarters-subsidiary linkages between Canada and China substantiates the four knowledge strategies and their spatial configurations, and shows how spatial structure and agency are fundamentally intertwined and influence each other.
{"title":"Spatial Knowledge Strategies: An Analysis of International Investments Using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)","authors":"Pengfei Li, H. Bathelt","doi":"10.1080/00130095.2021.1941858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1941858","url":null,"abstract":"abstract Knowledge generation is often viewed as a direct outcome of spatial proximity or other social affinities between firms. In rejecting structural interpretations, this article emphasizes the crucial role of agency in orchestrating knowledge transfer and generation over space. We explore how firms strategically leverage the uneven geography of knowledge in international investments and identify four spatial knowledge strategies according to the direction of knowledge flows and mode of connection: knowledge replicating, scouting, connecting, and integrating. Drawing from a relational perspective, we develop four propositions to investigate how these strategies are configured in specific spatial settings. It is argued that replicating and scouting strategies occur from clusters to nonclusters and from nonclusters to clusters, respectively, while connecting and integrating strategies take place in cluster-to-cluster contexts. Adopting fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), an investigation of forty-nine headquarters-subsidiary linkages between Canada and China substantiates the four knowledge strategies and their spatial configurations, and shows how spatial structure and agency are fundamentally intertwined and influence each other.","PeriodicalId":48225,"journal":{"name":"Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00130095.2021.1941858","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43368708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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