Localization and the Use of Information Sources

Abstract

Business scholars have long emphasized the need for a continuous flow of strategic, tactical and operational information in order for decision makers to make informed organizational choices. However, much of the practical and theoretical work on ‘organizational learning’ and ‘environmental scanning’ has been aspatial and focused on the large corporation. Researchers of small business dynamics and entrepreneurship have measured firms’ use of information sources, but this work also remains largely aspatial. Geographers have only begun to scratch the surface of the relationships between forms of industrial spatial organization and the use of specific information sources at a firm level. Coupling these various perspectives, I investigate the use and qualitative assessment of information sources by establishments in a highly localized industry (carpets in northern Georgia) and make some comparisons with several other industries in other regions (plastics and textile producers). Analysis is based upon responses to a mail survey soliciting information from (mainly small) firms regarding their use of 15 common sources of market and technical information. I contextualize the use of information sources in the carpet industry by reviewing important industry trends and circumstances as well as the industry’s spatial organization. The results indicate that firms in the carpet industry, perhaps the most agglomerated industry in the United States, report relatively low overall use and availability of common sources of information compared with firms in other industries and regions. Organizational attributes, such as size and affiliation, may have stronger relationships to the sources of information that firms typically use than local context.