Pôles de développement économique et logistique d'entreprise

Abstract

Economic development policies such as the Enterprise Zone have been pursued with different designs by state and local governments in many countries. These programs can be defined by a double objective: to promote and control economic growth. This thesis investigates the compatibility of these public policies with the location strategies of the private companies based on their logistical needs. The first step of this research gives a global view on the key elements of the design of the public policies and private strategies. This analysis is based on the study of the relevant experiences of both governments and companies. This analysis shows that on the one hand, the public sphere develops policies with multiple objectives without having a constant strategy and a representative view of the real needs of the companies. On the other hand, the private sphere attempts to adapt itself to the continuously changing conditions and to apply its own (sometimes sub-optimal) strategy. Moreover, the mixed results of the investigated policies show this mismatch. However, the analysis also confirms that in certain cases, the economic development policies and the location strategy of the firms are not completely incompatible. Consequently, the public authorities involved in the implementation of these policies have difficulties to understand, to anticipate, and to integrate the behaviors of the logistical companies in their local development plans. In order to deal with this issue, this thesis develops a conceptual framework that describes the compatibility of the characteristics of a private company and an area managed by the public authorities. In this way, the framework allows the local authority to assess the area from a company's logistical viewpoint. It synthesizes the complex location decision process of the company by integrating the diversity of the decision criteria. This conceptual framework gives the possibility to the public authorities to segment their supply according to the companies' location potential. Finally, a decision support tool is provided to demonstrate the applicability of the conceptual framework. This tool is applied to some practical examples.