Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
industrial environment, and the degrees of openness and attractiveness
of regions and clusters, we are able to move forward our understanding
of their dynamics and their likely directions of global competition. The
chapter presents a spatial classification scheme based on the transactions
costs relationships evident among co-located firms, and then expands this
into a broader and more comprehensive taxonomy defined according to
the knowledge, innovation and transactions costs characteristics of the
cluster or region. The spatial and industrial categories, which are also illus-
trated with empirical examples, provide steps forward in uncovering the
evolutionary trajectories of different spatial economic configurations, all
of which may exhibit a major presence of multinational investment. The
objective of this chapter is to provide some new analytical tools for assessing
the degree of fit between the MNE and its local environment. This taxono-
metric schema allows us to better evaluate the likelihood of the develop-
ment of local innovative networks and the direction of the co-evolutionary
processes linking firms and their spatial-industrial structures. The schema
described in this chapter builds on earlier widely-published research.
However, the extended taxonomy described here is both more detailed and
also more comprehensive than previous frameworks, and explicitly posi-
tions issues of knowledge and innovation at the very centre of the analysis.
In order to appreciate the importance of the extended taxonomy pro-
vided in Chapter 5 and also to situate these discussions in a real-world
context, a historical overview of globalization is essential in order to
understand how firms, activities and their geographical location have co-
evolved over time and continue to do so. Chapter 6 therefore expands the
discussion developed in the previous chapters in the context of historical
trends in globalization. From this perspective which integrates knowledge,
technology, innovation and geography, the MNE is seen to be the most
important actor in modern globalization processes. The chapter shows
how in order to keep abreast with global competition the interdependence
between institutional, organizational and geographical changes reflects
the increasing pressures on firms to exploit the complementarities result-
ing from the systemic nature of knowledge and technology. However,
what emerges is also that such changes, and the potential benefits that they
trigger, are disproportionately associated with particular types of places
and regions, both at supra-regional and at sub-national regional levels.
Importantly, following the arguments in this topic we see that MNEs play
an ever increasing role in determining the distribution of these costs and
benefits across these different levels of geography.
In terms of economic geography, one of the dominant features of the
current wave of globalization is the emergence of a new set of relationships
between the location of knowledge assets, the role of particular city-regions
