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Corporate and Industrial Geography

Readings and Resources
(http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/readings/corpgeog.html)


Supporting Pages

Internet Sites:

FIRM RELOCATION: STATE OF THE ART AND RESEARCH PROSPECTS, (PDF) P.H. Pellenbarg et al., posted 8/2005.

Corporate Behaviors Project [University of Newcastle, Australia] [http://www.newcastle.edu.au/curs/projects.htm#corporate]

Department of Marketing and Corporate Geography [Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration]

The Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration. is situated in Helsinki. In order to meet the need for university-level education in Swedish in the fields of economics and business administration in Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia on the west-coast of Finland, a branch campus was set up in 1980 in the city of Vaasa (Vasa).

Yeung, Henry Wai-chung, Reconceptualising the "Firm" in New Economic Geographies: An Organizational Perspective. Singapore 2000.

  • Corporate change? It's in the little things Seattle Times, Nov.24, 1996 by Jerry Large Seattle Times staff columnist "Corporations, those business bodies that exist to give us what we want and extract from us a little green to keep the stockholders and execs nourished, are often criticized for not being good citizens."

    Literature:

    ADLER N J: International Dimensions of Organisational Behavior. Thomson Business Press 1997. 320pp.

    Axtell, Robert L., Zipf Distribution of U.S. Firm Size. Science v293, Sept 7, 2001.

    BARNES TJ, HAYTER R., THE LITTLE TOWN THAT DID - FLEXIBLE ACCUMULATION AND COMMUNITY RESPONSE IN CHEMAINUS, BRITISH-COLUMBIA, REGIONAL STUDIES 26: (7) 647-663 1992

    Times Cited: As a result of corporate restructuring within the forest products corporation of MacMillan Bloedel, the sawmill at Chemainus, B.C., closed down in 1983 resulting in over 650 workers being laid-off. When the new mill reopened over two years later, computerized sawmill technology had been installed, and just over 140 workers were employed.

    Bowman, Edward H., Kogut, Bruce Mitchel. Redesigning the firm. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995. [Business Admin General Stacks HD31 .R436 1995]

    Brockhoff, Klaus. Internationalization of Research and Development. Heidelberg and New York: Springer, 1998. Pp. x, 144. ISBN 3-540-64819-4.

    Explores the internationalization of R&D in firms having laboratories in countries other than the home of its headquarters. Why would a company want to have more than one R&D laboratory at different locations? Reviews the pros and cons of the internationalization of R&D and why internationalized R&D is different from laboratories in a home country. Considers various ways of starting up foreign R&D operations.

    Aleid E. Brouwer, Ilaria Mariotti and Jos N. van Ommeren, The firm relocation decision: An empirical investigation, The Annals of Regional Science Volume 38, Number 2 June 2004, pp. 335 - 347

    Abstract: "In the current paper, the determinants of firm relocation behaviour in twenty-one countries during the period 1997-1999 are analyzed. We demonstrate that internal growth factors measured by increases, but also decreases, in the workforce induce firm relocation..."

    Conti, Sergio, Edward J. Malecki, Paivi Oinas. The industrial enterprise and its environment: spatial perspectives Aldershot, England ; Brookfield, Vt., USA : Avebury, c1995. viii, 247 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. (Industrial-location. Industrial-management. Strategic-alliances-Business. Space-in-economics.) [Suzzallo General Stacks, HD58 .I485 1995]

    Crandall, Robert W., Manufacturing on the Move. Brookings, Washington D.C., 1993. [HD9725.C68]

    Carr, Martyn. "A Contribution to the Review and Critique of Behavioral Industrial Location Theory," Progress in Human Geography 7(3), 1983, pp.386ff.

    Crevoisier, Oliver. Differentiated Spatial Structures of Financing of Large Firms and SMEs. Revue d'Economie Regionale et Urbaine, 1998, 4, pp. 625ff.

    While financial activities become more and more integrated at a global scale, SMEs have no access to these circuits. How do they find their equity capital? The concept of "proximity capital" articulates informal capital and proximity relations between demander and supplier of capital. A typology of spatial forms of financial circuits of industrial activities is built by contrasting proximity capital and financial cores which link the largest firms and banks together.

    Danielsson, Albert, "The Locational Decision from the Point of View of the Individual Company," Swedish Journal of Economics. 66(2), 47-87

    • p.57 "The Location Decision"
    • p.60 "Location Factors"
    • p.62 "Investment Calculi as the Basis for Locational Decisions"

    Dicken, Peter; Forsgren, Mats; Malmberg, Anders: The Local Embeddedness of Transnational Corporations. In: Amin, Ash; Thrift, Nigel (eds.): Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe. Oxford (Oxford University Press) 1994. pp. 23-45.

    DICKEN, PETER (1990): The geography of enterprise. Elements of a research agenda. In: de Smidt, Marc, Egbert Wever (Hrsg.): The Corporate Firm in a Changing World Economy. Case Studies in the Geography of Enterprise. London / New York, Routledge. S. 234-244

    Dicken Peter, "A Note on Location Theory and the Large Business Enterprise," Area 9, 1977, pp.138-43.

    Dicken, Peter. "The Multiplant Business Enterprise and Geographical Space: Some Issues in the Study of External Control and Regional Development," Regional Studies 10, 1976, pp.401-12.

    Dicken, Peter. "Some Aspects of Decision-Making Behavious in Business Organizations," Economic Geography 47, 1971, pp.426-37.

    DUBOIS FL, TOYNE B, OLIFF MD, INTERNATIONAL MANUFACTURING STRATEGIES OF UNITED-STATES MULTINATIONALS - A CONCEPTUAL-FRAMEWORK BASED ON A 4-INDUSTRY STUDY, JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES 24: (2) 307-333 1993

    Drawing upon complementary streams of research from the international production and manufacturing strategy literature a conceptual framework was developed that identifies the major internal and external factors that may influence a firm's international manufacturing configuration (IMC) decisions.

    Ettlinger, Nancy. "Modes of Corporate Organization and the Geography of Development," Papers in Regional Science, 71(2), 1992, 107-26.

    Ettlinger, N., and J.R. Crump, "The Military Industrial Firm. Economic Control, and Local Development," Environment & Planning C (Government & Policy) vol. 7 (1989), pp.27-38.

    Florida, Richard. Regional creative destruction: production organization, globalization, and the economic transformation of the Midwest. Economic geography [Worcester, MA] Vol. 72. No. 3. July 1996. p. 314-334. ^

    Hagstrom, Peter, "Unshackling Corporate Geography," Geografiska Annaler 72(B), 1990, pp.3-12.

    Hakanson, H., Toward a Theory of Location and Corporate Growth, in: F.E.I.Hamilton, and G.J.R. Linge, eds., Spatial analysis, Industry and the Industrial Environment, Vol.I: Industrial Systems, London: Wiley, 1979, pp.115-38,

    Harrington, James W. and Barney Warf. Industrial Location: Principles and Practice. Routledge 1995. [$24.95/ paperback]

    Harrison, Bennett; Kelley, Maryellen R.; Gant, Jon. Innovative firm behavior and local milieu: exploring the intersection of agglomeration, firm effects, and technological change. Economic geography [Worcester, MA] Vol. 72. No. 3. July 1996. p. 233-258. Maps.

    Hayter, Roger. The Dynamics of Industrial Location: The Factory, the Firm and the Production System. Chichester: Wiley 1997 (Paperback)

    Hayter R, Edgington D., Cutting against the grain: A case study of MacMillan Bloedel's Japan strategy, ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 73: (2) 187-213 APR 1997

    For many Western corporations, Japan poses formidable barriers to export and investment. Although trade policy confrontations with Japan have been scrutinized, the strategies pursued by Western corporations in attempting to penetrate the Japanese economy remain poorly understood. This paper addresses this lacuna via a corporate case study.

    Hayter, Roger and H.D.Watts, "The Geography of Enterprise," Progress in Human Geography vol.7, 1983.

    HEALEY MJ, RAWLINSON MB, INTERVIEWING BUSINESS OWNERS AND MANAGERS - A REVIEW OF METHODS AND TECHNIQUES, GEOFORUM 24: (3) 339-355 AUG 1993

    Interviews with business owners and managers are a prime source of information for economic geographers, yet very little has been written about this technique. Although the issues involved in business surveys are not unique, several points about research methods are highlighted when undertaking business interviews, including the link between interview techniques and research design, identifying respondents and obtaining access, preparing for interviews and obtaining 'accurate' answers, and ways of conducting and recording interviews.

    Holly, Brian, Cleveland: the rise, fall, and rise of a rustbelt city, (with B.L. Warf) Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, (forthcoming, 1997).

    Holly, Brian, The organization of production in high technology industries: an empirical assessment, (with A.E. Clarke) The Professional Geographer, 48 (2) 1996, 127-139.

    Holly, Brian, Restructuring the production system, in P.W. Daniels and W.F. Lever (eds.) The Global Economy In Transition, Addison Wesley Longman, 1996, 24-39.

    Holly, Brian, Recent spatial and structural changes in commercial banking: a case study of Ohio, (with A.E. Clarke) The Great Lakes Geographer, 1 (2) 1994, 1-14.

    Holly, Brian, Organizational structure of wine production in the United States, Journal of Wine Research, 5, 1994, 91-101.

    Houck, John W., Williams, Oliver F. Is the good corporation dead? : social responsibility in a global economy. Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, c1996. [Business Admin General Stacks HD60 .I77 1996 UW-Tacoma Lib. Stacks HD60 .I77 1996]

    Hwang-J.-S., Computer networks and the reorganization of corporate space: The case of the Korean electronics industry. Papers-in-Regional-Science. 1998; 77(2): 131-154 Location: Suzzallo Periodicals Display Shelves -- Call number: HT390 .R44

    ... investigates theoretically and empirically, the patterns and mechanisms of the interrelation between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and corporate space. ... divided into two parts: (1)...previous literature in order to build a theoretical framework; (2) empirical study, the Korean electronics industry. Research results show that firms adopt and utilize computer networks in accordance with their spatial structure and division of function... also suggest that computer networks can create new patterns of spatial division only through organizational change.

    Johnson, J.H. and J.Salt. Labour Migration: The Internal Geographic Mobility of Labour in the Developed World. 1990 [HD5717.L3..??]

    Jonas, A.E.G., Corporate Takeover and the Politics of Community: The Case of Norton Company in Worcester. Economic Geography 68(4), 348-72.

    Jones, Andrew, Truly global corporations? Theorizing ‘organizational globalization’ in advanced business-services. J Econ Geogr 2005 5 (April): pp.177-200

    J. D. Kirkham H. D. Watts Multi-locational Manufacturing Organisations and Plant Closures in Urban Areas, Urban Studies Volume 35, Number 9 / August 1, 1998, pp. 1559 - 1575

    Abstract: "Plant closure is one way in which a multi-locational firm can restructure the spatial organisation of its production system. In many cases, a firm has to select for closure one of a number of plants undertaking similar activities in different urban areas."

    Krumme, G. [various papers]

    Laulajainen, Risto, What about managerial geography? GeoJournal, Volume 44, Number 1, January 1998 pp.1 - 7

    Abstract; "A business school perspective to Corporate Geography is offered. The mission is to provide an executive with operational tools for the creation of wealth...."

    Laulajainen, Risto, Temporal Hierarchy of the Corporate Space," GeoJournal Vol.6 (5), 1982, 399-408.

    Laulajainen, Risto and Howard A. Stafford. Corporate Geography: Business Location Principles and Cases. Kluwer 1995. [HC79.D5.L38]

    LIEPMANN P., EXTERNAL GROWTH OF FIRMS AND EXTERNAL CONTROL - AN ANALYSIS OF THE SIEMENS-NIXDORF MERGER, JAHRBUCHER FUR NATIONALOKONOMIE UND STATISTIK 210: (1-2) 1-17 JUL 1992

    (in German with English Abstract) Heavy financial losses by Nixdorf Computer Inc. have led to a friendly takeover by Siemens AG, resulting in the joint venture Siemens-Nixdorf-Information-Systems (SNI), expected to provide substantial competitive advantages. Analysis of conditions for the successful external growth of an enterprise that is reorganizing divisionally and at the same time decentralizing interregionally. As SNI is operating in unstable environments and intends to exploit multiproduct economies of scope, internal communication and control systems will have to comply.

    Mannion A.F.,Sullivan J., What are the functions of corporate home pages? - Insights from the innovation diffusion literature Journal of World Business, Summer 1999, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 193-210(18) (Elsevier Science)

    MARKUSEN A., STUDYING REGIONS BY STUDYING FIRMS PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER 46: (4) 477-490 NOV 1994

    This paper presents a method for inferring regional economic structure and prospects from key informant interviews. It describes assumptions which must be made and steps to be taken in moving from individuals to establishment, firm, and industry aggregations.

    MARSHALL J.N., BUSINESS REORGANIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CORPORATE SERVICES IN METROPOLITAN-AREAS, GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL 160: 41-49, Part 1 MAR 1994

    ...examines the impact of business reorganization on service activities in large metropolitan areas. Employment in head offices is declining, and growing head office demands for business services are being supplied by local specialist service firms. As they grow, large metropolitan areas are increasingly becoming the base for higher order managerial, business service and financial services, with routine administration being relocated to their hinterland.

    McCann, Phillip (ed.). Industrial Location Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002. ISBN 1 84064 672 1. 372 pp. Price: #69.95/$110.00 (hardback) [reviewed by Alan Wilson, in: J Econ Geogr 2003 3: 337-338. [PDF]]

    McNee, Robert, Towards a More Humanistic Geography: The Geography of Enterprise. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 51, 1960, 201-6.

    Mistera, Ludvik, The Geography of Enterprises in the System of Socio-Economic Geography, in: Sbornik Ceskoslovenske Geograficke Spolecnosti 85 (1), 1980, pp.51-6.

    Oinas, P., The embedded firm: Prelude for a revived geography of enterprise - 1998 - Helsinki: Helsinki School of Economics and Business [Acta Universitatis Oeconomicae Helsingiensis A-143]

    Oinas, Paivi. "Types of Enterprise and Local Relations," in: Human Resources and Industrial Spaces. Chichester: Wiley, 1995. [HC79.D5.H86]

    Porter, Michael. The Competititve Advantage of Nations, 1990

    Rees K, Hayter R., Flexible specialization, uncertainty, and the firm: Enterprise strategies in the wood remanufacturing industry of the Vancouver metropolitan area, British Columbia, CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER-GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN 40: (3) 203-219 FALL 1996.

    We articulate the relationships between strategies of flexible specialization, uncertainty, and the firm in order to emphasize the internal differentiation of flexibly specialized regions. Conceptually, the paper argues that this variability is an implication of uncertainty. In particular, in response to uncertainty, firms develop different types of flexibility with respect to production, technology, and employment in sometimes novel ways that do not correspond to ideal types.

    deSchmidt and Wever, eds., Corporate Firm in a Changing World Economy: Case Studies in the Geography of Enterprise. 1990 [HC79.D5.C67]

    • IBM (Kelly and Keeble);
    • Philips (deSchmidt);
    • Standard Elektrik Lorenz (Fuchs and Schamp);
    • Goodman Fielder Wattie (Le Heron);
    • ccFriesland (Wever);
    • MacMillan Bloedel (Barnes, Hayter and Grass);
    • Nissan (Takeuchi);
    • Volvo (Alvstam and Ellegard)
    • Daewoo (Sam Ock Park);
    [HC79D5.C67]

    Schmitz, Hubert (ed.) Local Enterprises in the Global Economy—Issues of Governance and Upgrading Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2004. [rev. in J of Econ Geography June 2005]

    SCHOENBERGER E., THE CORPORATE INTERVIEW AS A RESEARCH METHOD IN ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHY, PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER 43: (2) 180-189 MAY 1991

    Schoenberger, Erica. The Cultural Crisis of the Firm. Blackwell, 1997. [HD58.7 S346 1997/ Bothell]

    Schoenberger, E. "Corporate Strategy and Corporate Strategists: Power, Identity, and Knowledge within the Firm," Environment and Planning A, Vol.26, 1994, pp.435-51.

    Steed, Guy, various papers.

    Stopford, John. The Impact of the Global Political Economy on Corporate Strategy (Date: ?) (Bibliography/footnotes) [Professor of International Business, London Business School]

    Taylor, Michael and Nigel Thrift, "Business Organization, Segmentation and Location," Regional Studies 17(6), December 1983, 445-65.

    Toedtling, Franz, Firm Strategies and Restructuring in a Globalising Economy, IIR-Discussion Paper 53 [Vienna/Wien]

    "...it seems useful to consider sectoral and regional changes basically as reflections of more profound strategic and organisational responses of firms to a rapidly changing environment. By "restructuring" I consequently understand not just sectoral or regional shifts of industry but rather underlying changes of organisation and technology of production, of labour relations, as well as of relations between firms."

    Townroe, P.M. Locational Choice and the Individual Firm, Regional Studies, 3, 1969, 15-24.

    VANGEENHUIZEN M, NIJKAMP P, TOWNROE P, COMPANY LIFE-HISTORY ANALYSIS AND TECHNOGENESIS - A SPATIAL VIEW, TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE 41: (1) 13-28 FEB 1992

    Relationship between innovation dynamics in individual companies and the urban environment. First, a theoretical discussion and an overview are presented of major new insights in this field. Then it is suggested that a company history analysis is a useful method for an empirical investigation of the long-term renewal of firms in a spatial context.

    Walker, Richard. "A Requiem for Corporate Geography: New Directions in Industrial Organization, the production of place and the uneven development," Geografiska Annaler 71(B), No.1, 1989, pp.43ff.

    Watts, H.D. Industrial Geography. 1987. [HD58.W33]

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