Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
For the purposes of this topic these are the commonly-shared avenues
which require much deeper exploration.
Chapter 4 therefore firstly reviews the main tenets of the literatures sur-
rounding the economics of the firm growth and of technological change,
in order to clarify their treatment of innovation sources, competencies,
capabilities and learning processes. This chapter aims at bringing the
micro-level of analysis, as represented by the firm, up to the meso-level of
analysis as represented by the industrial cluster and the regional economic
and innovation system. Following on from Chapter 3 we know that in
terms of microeconomic location theory the MNE is seen to be simply
a special case of the firm in general, and in particular of the multiplant
firm. However, Chapter 4 emphasizes the importance from the literature
of understanding the critical role played by knowledge acquisition and
exploitation in MNE behaviour. Therefore, an examination of the growth
impacts of an MNE's location behaviour on the MNE itself due to its
locating in a particular region is seen to be a function of the number and
variety of the sources of knowledge accumulation which the MNE derives
from the region. Similarly, the growth impact on the region in which an
MNE locates depends on the number and variety of the knowledge out-
flows from the MNE to the surrounding territory. Mutually reinforcing
firm-environment knowledge flows must be two-way in order to foster
sustained local learning and innovation processes. Understanding how,
when and where these strong local complementarities arise between learn-
ing processes and sources of innovation, irrespective of whether they are
internal or external to the firm, therefore calls for the identification of
those commonalities which are displayed by
groups
of firms in the same
industry or location. It is the innovation systems literature which explores
these issues and based on the earlier chapters, our argument here is that it
is uniquely the
regional
innovations systems literature, rather than other
innovations systems literatures, that best captures these commonalities.
Part II of the topic - Multinationals and the changing economic geog-
raphy of globalization - comprises Chapters 5 to 8, and aims to provide
a more ground-based view of the evolutionary changes in firms' structure
and organization, and the associated changes in the spatial systems at dif-
ferent levels of analysis which modern globalization induces.
Chapter 5 builds on the micro foundations of firm location and innova-
tive behaviour examined in the earlier chapters, focusing in particular on
MNEs' technological capabilities and strategies, and integrates these with
the meso perspectives of regional and local industrial systems. This allows
us to explore the new combinations of internal and external sources of inno-
vation which are accessible to MNEs in the modern era of globalization.
By taking into account the ways in which MNEs can interact with the local
