Howard A. Stafford

Corporate geography : business location principles and cases

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Location Factors. 3. Location Decisions. 4. Territorial Strategies. 5. Production Systems. 6. Restructuring. 7. Administration. 8. Competitive Strategies. 9. Epilogue. References. Company Index.

Biotechnology in Cincinnati

This research, conducted via interviews at 32 biotechnology firms, which provide rare information on actual firm interactions, elucidates the factors that influence the location and growth of the biotechnology sector in a typical American metropolitan area. Results indicate that most of the biotechnology firms within the Cincinnati region are there because of entrepreneurial ties with universities and research hospitals in the area, not because the region has specific advantages for biotechnology firms compared to other metropolitan areas of similar size. The authors find that interfirm linkages range from extremely weak to nonexistent. No specialized labor force exists to support biotechnology firms, nor are there specialized infrastructure and business services. No biotechnology-dedicated government office exists. In summary, the authors see more colocation than interactive clustering of biotechnology firms, implying that economic development efforts to enhance interfirm linkages are likely to be less effective than support for hospital and university research and education.

Book Review: The dynamics of the industrial location: the factory, the firm and the production system

of offender and offence characteristics would be needed – as is provided in Hood (1992) – but this kind of analysis is not present here. Thus the book is a very detailed data study, operating at a surface level. It is suggestive of further, more discursive, lines of inquiry which would involve probing more deeply into particular facets. But such analyses would be more controversial and less politically neutral than is the tendency in this book. Nevertheless, the fact there is a positive rather than negative corre l a t i o n between homicide and execution rates is something that is worthy of media exposure and comment.

Manufacturing Plants in Ohio: Spatial Changes, 1978-1987

The numbers of manufacturing plant births and deaths are both very highly correlated with the total number of manufacturing plants per county. For the period from 1978 to 1987 there have not been dramatic absolute changes in the spatial distribution of manufacturing within Ohio. Spatial variations in opening and closing rates are less easily explained. About half to three quarters of the variations in rates are statistically explained by different collections of variables and counties. Three submodels attempt to determine whether these variations in rates are mainly functions of the economic and social attributes of counties, of general levels of economic activity, or are consequences of the inherited industries and plants. The structural model is generally more powerful than either the socioeconomic or vitality configurations. Relative change in manufacturing is best predicted by the industrial profile of an area, for example, the sizes and ages of plants and diversity of industrial types, and its classification as a central, suburban, or rural county.