Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
economic geography, it has recently become fashionable to discuss 'pipe-
lines' (Bathelt et al. 2004) whereby informal knowledge flows between key
individuals and actors, sometimes referred to as gatekeepers, are deemed
to be critical for the knowledge-access of specific places. In contrast, the
arguments in this topic suggest that the various manifestations of global
knowledge-transmission mechanisms, including the movements of money,
investment capital, goods, and people, are overwhelmingly transmitted via
multinational corporate and proprietary channels which operate within
tight legal and formal contractual arrangements, irrespective of whether
the multinational corporations are operating in the financial services,
logistics, shipping, manufacturing, or airline sectors. These multinational
intra-corporate as well as inter-corporate linkages are so powerful and
rapid precisely because they are so tightly organized and controlled. The
monetary aspects of the exploitation and communication of knowledge
are characterized by formality rather than informality and are under-
pinned by global systems rather than tacit arrangements. As scholars of
international business have long understood, structures and design are the
hallmarks of ongoing multinational knowledge transmission mechanisms
(McCann and Mudambi 2004, 2005), rather than the informal pipelines
and tacit knowledge spillover arguments popular with economic geogra-
phers. Detailed case-studies offer the most fertile grounds for uncovering
the specific geography of activities and functions within MNEs, and as we
discuss below, a greater range of such studies would also help to provide
a sounder knowledge base for the design of appropriate local economic
development policies.
As repeatedly demonstrated in this topic, evolutionary approaches to
technological change and regional growth are very useful for consider-
ing the disruptive changes imposed by MNEs in terms of increasing the
interdependence between the 'global' and the 'local'. Localized produc-
tion systems are increasingly interdependent with globalized knowledge
systems, and the potential dynamic advantages of clustering for MNEs to
foster path dependent processes which themselves shape cluster features.
When considering the geographical variations in local absorptive capacity
and the potential for MNEs to tap into the local knowledge base in order
to facilitate linkages and spillovers, it is necessary to look beyond firms'
competence accumulation and to consider the likelihood of various poten-
tial endogenous or evolutionary 'feedback' mechanisms actually operating
in local institutional settings (von Tunzelmann 2009b).
Evolutionary approaches to economic geography and MNEs therefore
still face major challenges, particularly with respect to the formulation of
policy recommendations. As we have seen in the taxonomical exercise on
spatial configurations proposed in Chapter 5 of this topic, the relation-
