Peter Dicken

Firms in Territories: A Relational Perspective

Abstract The role of space and place in shaping the transformation of firms and industries and the impact of such transformations on the wider processes of territorial development at local, regional, national, and global scales are basic research issues in economic geography. Such analyses tend to be compartmentalized, focusing on a specific economic activity or on a specific territory, rather than on the relationships between them. It is difficult simultaneously to conceptualize economic activities (including such phenomena as firms, industries, and other types of systems of networked economic activity), on the one hand, and territorially defined economies, on the other. In this paper, we address the interconnections between economic activities and territories through an exploration of the mutually constitutive relationships between firms and territories: the firm-territory nexus. The focus of our analysis is the nexus of three major dimensions—firms, industrial systems, and territories—embedded in turn in the overall macro dimension of governance systems.

The Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography Global-Local Tensions: Firms and States in the Global Space-Economy

AbstractA key issue facing researchers of economic, political, social, and cultural change is the dialectical tension between globalizing and localizing processes. From an economic geography perspective, a major question concerns the relationship between the globalizing tendencies of many business firms and the prospects for a genuinely local economic development, particularly in light of the organizational and technological changes associated with the alleged transition to a post-Fordist world. This paper addresses a specific aspect of the “global-local nexus” that has not been well developed in the geographic literature: the relationships between transnational corporations and nation-states. Each can be conceptualized as highly embedded interacting networks. Firms and states are locked in competitive struggles. The competitive strategies they employ are both diverse and the outcome of contested power relations, internal and external. Increasingly, too, they involve various forms of collaborative relatio...

Transnational corporations and ‘obligated embeddedness’: foreign direct investment in China’s automobile industry

With the aid of an empirical case study of the automobile industry in China, we explore how, under certain political–economic conditions, the investments of transnational corporations (TNCs) can be shaped to meet the states objectives. We develop the concept of ‘obligated embeddedness’ to capture the dynamics of this process. We show that foreign direct investment in the automobile industry in China is a type of market-led and embedded investment which is characterised by joint ventures and the follow-up network configurations. However, to achieve such obligated embeddedness on the part of TNCs—and for the state and its citizens to gain its benefits—the state not only has to have the theoretical capacity to control access to assets located within its territory, but also the power actually to determine such access.

Organizing the Indonesian clothing industry in the global economy: the role of business networks

In a relatively short period of time, Indonesia has become a significant centre of clothing production within the global economy. Its overall growth can be explained primarily by the intersection between two sets of political-economic processes: those operating at the global level of the industry in general and those specific to Indonesia itself. Within these general processes, we explore the particular organizational mechanisms through which this growth has occurred. Detailed field evidence shows how the Indonesian clothing industry is deeply embedded in production networks which connect domestic producers with international networks of production and distribution, notably those organized by Korean, Taiwanese, US, and European firms. Although such networks are generally consistent with Gereffis concept of the buyer-driven global commodity chain, we show that the precise shape and the driver of the company-specific production networks in Indonesia are highly dependent on the specific market being served. Finally, brief attention is given to the potential impact of the current East Asian economic crisis on Indonesian clothing firms.

Inner metropolitan industrial change, enterprise structures and policy issues: Case studies of Manchester and Merseyside

Dicken P. and Lloyd P. E. (1978) Inner metropolitan industrial change, enterprise structures and policy issues: case studies of Manchester and Merseyside, Reg. Studies 12, 181–197. Industrial policy in the inner city emphasises the crucial role of small and medium sized local firms. In this paper the enterprise structures of two inner areas, Manchester and Merseyside, are examined in the context of observed industrial change at the establishment level between 1966 and 1975. The enterprise structure of the two areas in both years is identified in the light of a conceptual framework which classifies changes at the plant level into key enterprise categories based upon the locus of control. The major components of industrial change for each area are examined in terms of the contributions made by single and multi-plant firms and by ownership change. The position of inner city plants in single and multi-plant corporate structures is discussed in relation to possible future policies toward inner city areas.

Geographical perspectives on United States investment in the United Kingdom

American direct investment in Britain has a long history, dating back to 1851. In the past twenty years, however, the magnitude of US investment in Britain has dramatically increased. Events such as the closure of the Imperial Typewriter Co. at Hull and the threatened withdrawal of Chrysler from its UK manufacturing operations have served to focus attention on the activities of US based multinationals in Britain. Direct investment by US companies has a very considerable impact on the UK economy. American owned enterprises employ one in every fourteen workers in private enterprise manufacturing and account for more than 10% of total output. There is a high degree of sectoral concentration in this ownership pattern with the main emphasis in vehicles, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and the food, drink, and tobacco industries. Spatially there is a particular tendency toward concentration in the South East. In terms of net gains over time, however, Scotland has fared particularly well in attracting US companies. Within the North West of England there is also a tendency toward sectoral and spatial concentration. The motor vehicles industry on Merseyside represents the most prominent cluster and, in a region chronically prone to serious unemployment, there is potentially a degree of vulnerability which might give legitimate cause for concern.

International production in a volatile regulatory environment: the influence of national regulatory policies on the spatial strategies of transnational corporations

Abstract In face of the globalising strategies of transnational corporations (TNCs) it has become conventional wisdom in some quarters to regard the nation-state as an increasing irrelevance. TNCs, it is often implied, slice their way at will through national boundaries, rendering virtually all state economic policies ineffective. Although there is a kernel of truth in this viewpoint, it is a gross misrepresentation of current reality. Differential state regulatory (and deregulatory) policies in the areas of trade, industry and foreign investment remain highly significant. They are exceptionally important to the strategic behaviour of TNCs which, of course, attempt to take advantage of national differences in regulatory regimes in their pursuit of global competitive advantage. The result is a dynamic bargaining process in which each party attempts to capture the greatest gains. Current developments in the international political economy, notably the strengthening of regional economic integration in Europe and North America and the continuing GATT negotiations. are transforming the geographical scale and nature of the ‘regulatory surface’ on which TNCs operate. In exploring the relationship between regulatory environments and TNC strategies examples will be drawn from a variety of sectors, including automobiles, electronics, textiles and clothing, and pharmaceuticals.

The changing geography of Japanese foreign direct investment in manufacturing industry: a global perspective

The aim in this paper is to set Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe (including the United Kingdom) into its broader global perspective. The geographical form of Japanese FDI is the outcome of a complex interaction between economic and political forces, both internal to Japan itself and also in its external trading environment. The dominant foci of Japanese FDI are North America, and East and South East Asia. Initially, Japanese manufacturing investment was heavily concentrated in neighbouring countries of Asia but the emphasis has shifted more recently to North America. However, the organisational structure of Japanese investment tends to be substantially different in these two world regions. In East and South East Asia, in particular, a complex intrafirm division of labour has developed, whereas in North America (and in Europe) the Japanese plants tend to be directly market-oriented and established primarily in response to trading frictions. The recent massive revaluation of the yen promises to generate further substantial changes in the global geography of Japanese FDI.

Some Aspects of the Decision Making Behavior of Business Organizations

Spatial analysis in economic geography is at present undergoing a pronounced shift of emphasis. Until very recently its theoretical basis was founded predominantly on normative principles, in particular those devised by economists. Without doubt such theory has been of inestimable value in providing a conceptual framework for empirical studies and in encouraging economic geographers to search for general locational principles rather than submerging themselves in a morass of facts concerning unique cases. Economic geography is relatively healthy today not the least because of the intellectual transplants donated by theorists such as von Thiinen, Weber, L6sch, Christaller, Isard, Greenhut, and others. Without the insights and stimuli provided by workers such as these, the discipline might well be in a state of chronic ill health.

Europe 1992 and strategic change in the international automobile industry

Western Europe is the worlds largest automobile market and also the major region of automobile production. Until 1986, with the arrival of Nissan, the automobile industry in the region was shared between a mixture of US transnational producers and indigenous European producers, some of which also operate plants outside Europe. It is an industry in which, although a substantial degree of corporate integration has occurred, the impact of historical circumstances is still evident in its current locational structure. The creation of a Single European Market after 1992 will remove at least some of the internal barriers to full transnational integration by the European-based automobile producers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategies of the three major groups of volume automobile producers in Europe in the context of the changing European situation. A basic question to be posed is whether the Single European Market is likely to stimulate major strategic changes amongst automobile manufacturers or whether we are more likely to see a continuation of existing strategies. The potential implications of the recent political upheavals in Eastern Europe add further complexity to the situation.