Abstract
Abstract The paper explores the links between capital relocation and soft locational factors addressing the quality of the business environment and the quality of life within the European Union. System competition is viewed as a competition between countries for the mobile factors capital and labour. The issue of systems competition is topical and insufficiently explored by contemporary literature. The scarcity of scientific papers describing the links between system competition theories and contemporary corporate geography theories, especially of the ones including the analysis of soft location factors, is a challenging aspect, which motivates the choice of this subject. This paper’s primary aim is to deliver an overview of the basic corporate geography conceptions, stressing the importance of soft location factors in today’s competition between systems for the mobile factors capital and labour. The paper further contains an analysis of the correlations between indicators regarding the institutional design of countries as developed by the World Bank (Ease of Doing Business), the Happiness Scale and the latest available data of FDI Stocks for the EU countries (2016). The relevance of such a study is based on the evidence that the contemporary business education relies on an extensive knowledge of the business environment. In the circumstance of similar infrastructural conditions, the main difference between locations is made by soft location factors. Since developed economies are characterised by a high degree of ubiquity of soft factors, the paper concludes that developing and emerging economies should foster the development of their soft location factors.
Highlights
It is companies, brands, products and services that compete with one another, and cities, regions and, countries
In the circumstance of equivalent infrastructural conditions, the main difference between locations is made by soft location factors
The number of disrupters from the theoretical framework by actual cases caused the contemporary approaches of the topic of locational factors to a change of view
Summary
It is companies, brands, products and services that compete with one another, and cities, regions and, countries. These systems compete for the () mobile factors, namely capital and labour by using a wide range of instruments to be described further within this article. System competition in its “classical” meaning refers to competition between communism and capitalism. These competitor systems fought for economic, cultural and, most importantly, military dominance. This competition took the form of mutual observation, imitation and innovation within closed borders. Peter Auer underlines that, while the liberal 19th century form of globalisation produced extraordinary wealth, it came at the cost of intolerable poverty, and ended in World War I, the world recession of 1929 and World War II (Auer, 2006)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
