Economic Geography Research Research Articles

Creating elite encounters: The ‘campaign’ as approach for interviewing corporate elites

Qualitative research in economic geography recognizes the value of accessing business elite perspectives, yet identifying, approaching and interviewing elites present researchers with a set of challenges. Both practical and ethical, these challenges can be particularly acute for research involving ‘contentious’ firms and sectors – those facing increased societal scrutiny due to histories of labour exploitation, bribery and pollution and where there are often strong asymmetries in social power. This paper proposes a systematic approach for managing these challenges and successfully conducting interviews with business elites that we term an interview ‘campaign’. We propose the interview campaign as a strategic, organized and nimble approach designed to achieve a specific goal – an elite encounter. We show how instrumentalism and strategic ambiguity are central to the campaign, and how both can be harnessed to navigate an environment characterized by uncertainty, serendipity and structured relations of power. Our ‘campaign approach’ systematically breaks down a complex process into manageable parts without losing sight of the whole, via clear goals, strategic planning and critical reflection. The need for evidence-based research on corporate strategic action in relation to a wide range of contemporary economic phenomena suggests the campaign approach may have value across many areas of economic geography, business studies and beyond. The paper draws upon established social science literatures on elite interviewing and political campaigning, and on our own experience conducting interviews with senior executives in the oil and gas industry.

Queer Economic Geographies: Sexual Hegemony, Queer and Trans Work, and Homocapitalism

AbstractWhile queer and trans perspectives and theories are significant themes in most areas of critical human geography today, the same cannot be said of economic geography. This paper argues for the importance of theorising the relations between non‐normative sexualities and gender identities in economic geography. This argument builds on research in feminist economic geography and beyond about the centrality of cisheterosexuality to the economy and structures of capitalism. I show how queer and trans geography and feminist economic geography have already contributed to research about the relations between non‐normative sexualities and gender identities and the economy, then outline three queer economic geographies as examples of how economic geography might further engage with sexuality beyond cisheterosexuality: (1) sexual hegemony; (2) queer and trans work; and (3) homocapitalism. Together with existing research on the economy in queer and trans geography, these queer economic geographies—each touching on concepts central to economic geography—contribute further to our understandings of how non‐normative sexualities and gender identities can be theorised in economic geography.

Globalizing research on global cities and international business

Living up to the expectations of the JIBS Decade Award, Goerzen, Asmussen, and Nielsen’s 2013 paper not only introduced the literature on global cities to the international business (IB) community but continues to be generative. In their “Retrospective and a Looking Forward” paper 10 years later, the authors highlight megatrends about people, places and things, and new contexts and alternative perspectives, and they encourage further new ways of thinking about global cities and IB. This commentary expands upon their framework of three overlapping circles of global issues, global organizations, and global locations, by drawing especially from recent experiences in the U.S. and research in economic geography and allied fields. Facing global issues of climate change, human rights, health, housing, and the impacts of digital technologies on work, cities offer prospects of responding to these challenges, a context for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to consider. Against the backdrop of large-scale global migrations of unskilled, mostly contract, workers to global cities in developed economies, recruitment agencies and advocacy groups for migrants are global organizations as important as MNEs. Finally, the fluidity of physical boundaries, as illustrated by city-regions, world regions beyond traditional Western-centric perspectives, and intra-national variations, is key to analyzing global locations.

Institutional work: how lenders transform land titles into collateral in urban Tanzania

Abstract We examine the ‘institutional configuration’ that makes land titles work as collateral in Tanzania’s nascent credit market, through the ‘institutional work’ of local lenders. This work is effective and precarious: while lenders seek out and create institutional complementarities across diverse domains, they also require higher-level regulation to help stabilise land titles’ fungibility as collateral. Our results contribute to knowledge on path-dependency, contingency and uneven trajectories in the property-credit nexus development, and advance understandings of institutional interdependencies and coevolution in the situated economy. By combining deep contextualisation and institutional analysis, we progress an empirical engagement with institutional research in economic geography.

Neural production networks: AI’s infrastructural geographies

It is commonly argued that a handful of technology firms own the infrastructure that underpins the proliferation of artificial neural networks. But little is known about how this concentration of computational resources manifests itself in new geographies of production. To address this disparity, this article introduces the theoretical framework of neural production networks: geographically dispersed but computationally enveloped production arrangements powered by artificial neural networks. The article substantiates this framework by probing the role of Amazon, Google and Microsoft as lead firms in neural production networks. By reconsidering three key categories of production network scholarship – value, embeddedness and power – in light of those lead firms, the article opens a space for economic–geographical research on artificial neural networks.

Why is causal explanation critical in/to economic geography?

This intervention elaborates on why causal explanation can serve as an indispensable building block towards robust theory development in economic geography. It argues for the critical importance of causal explanation in the subfield’s intellectual development and to its wider appeal to the social sciences. First, I show how this vital importance is premised on explanations that uncover the causal mechanisms of economic events, practices and processes that make things happen in society and space. Put differently, explanation needs causal connections as its necessary condition of explanatory power and practical adequacy. Its empirical operation is grounded in contextual contingencies and place-based specificities in an economic-geographical world characterized by complexity, multiplicity and emergence. Second, I explain why causal explanation represents a necessary step towards pragmatic research in economic geography. Our socio-spatial interventions can be better developed if we have a clearer sense of why and how carefully theorized causal mechanisms interact with contingent contexts to produce specific events and outcomes in the space-economy. Framed in this double hermeneutic sense of being both vital and pragmatic, causal explanation is critical in/to economic geography.

The economic geographies of mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are on the rise. Interlocking processes of globalization and financialization have increased their attractiveness and incentivized an upward spiral of M&A activity in recent years. This rise is profoundly spatial, as M&As reshape the geographies of production, consumption and finance, while aggravating uneven power-geometries through the concentration of corporate control. Despite this growth and inherent spatiality, economic geography research into M&As has waned. The aim this article is to demonstrate the value of M&As to economic geographers and highlight avenues for future research. This is achieved by explaining how qualitative and quantitative research into the motivations, outcomes and geographies of M&A activity can provide fresh empirical and conceptual insights surrounding wider geographical debates.

Troubling economic geography: New directions in the post‐pandemic world

AbstractThis intervention focuses on recent disruptions and transformations in the (post)pandemic world economy that will likely ‘trouble’ economic geographers for some time to come. It aims to foster constructive dialogues and move conversations forward in the expanding field of economic geography whose presence and relevance in critical human geography is ironically at stake. I contend that economic geography in the early 2020s is characterised by a changing world and a changing generation of more diverse researchers who can be innovative enough to take on these troubling themes for future research. I suggest four such research directions that combine new themes of geopolitics and risks in remaking the global economy with older issues of work and environment that certainly merit renewed interest and greater analytical attention in the field. Taken together, these new horizons for economic geography research throughout the 2020s and beyond can be well capitalised upon to enhance the intellectual and public relevance of the field.

Towards an evolutionary economic geography research agenda to study migration and innovation

Abstract Different strands of literature have provided important insights into the economic effects of high-skilled migration. Evolutionary economic approaches have provided robust evidence and theories to explain how innovation unfolds in regions. However, with few exceptions they have been silent with regard to the role of migration in this process. This paper, while building on the insights of the above streams of literature, will elaborate a conceptual framework which applies evolutionary economic geography concepts to explore the link between migration, knowledge diffusion and regional diversification. By bringing together all the above arguments, this paper brings evolutionary economic geography (EEG) into an unchartered terrain, one where regional innovation meets migration studies. By engaging in these debates, EEG can prove its interpretative power and provide further insights into the drivers of regional economic dynamics and innovation.

Formal institutional context in global strategy research: A layer cake perspective

AbstractResearch summaryWe offer a novel view of formal institutions as a layer cake, suggesting a structural relationship between higher‐level and lower‐level institutions. In this context, inter‐layer conflict imposes complex pressures on multinational corporations (MNCs). These tensions have become more rife amid the growth in global connectedness and the commensurate increase in the importance of within‐country differences. Drawing on political science and economic geography research, we introduce regime type and the distribution of economic resources as conditions under which inter‐layer conflict is most likely to arise. We leverage two caselets to illustrate the inter‐layer conflict and the novel response options MNCs can deploy. Our perspective advances the theoretical understanding of intra‐national institutional diversity, laying the groundwork for future research at the nexus of institutional theory and global strategy.Managerial summaryFirms often encounter opposing pressures in their operating environments because institutions within the nation‐state impose misaligned policies. Despite acknowledging that such interactions exist, firms traditionally did not make it an integral part of their strategy. We demarcate how formal institutions cascade, forming a layer cake of relevant influences whereby the structural relationship between higher‐level and lower‐level institutions may impose complex pressures when in conflict. We turn to political science and economic geography literatures for explanations of when such conflict is most likely and offer a window into the responses by multinational firms using caselets within the COVID‐19 pandemic context. We offer new avenues for research on the ways in which institutions function to affect multinational firms in a global economy increasingly characterized by institutional complexity.

Geographies of night work

Night work is an area in which transformational changes are occurring, many identified by geographers, but in which the role of night itself – the ‘nocturnality’ of night work – has often been overlooked. This article looks at how geographical research into work and interdisciplinary research from night studies could inform one another, arguing that a focus on the nocturnality of night work can generate wider insights into existing social and economic geographical research into labour. Importantly, the challenges brought by the nocturnality of night work make its study valuable for understanding social justice under contemporary capitalism.

A century of integrated research on the human-environment system in Chinese human geography

Research on the integration of the human-environment system has been an important part of Chinese human geography for over a century, constituting the distinctive academic nature of the field. Human geography has been established as an interdiscipline of natural science and social science, highlighting the combination of academic inquiry and decision application, and exploring the interaction mechanisms and sustainable development model between the human sphere and natural sphere at different spatial scales. The development of the discipline is in line with the basic concepts advocated by the global research platform “Future Earth”, which has promoted the strong development of human geography in China, and has produced important societal influences. By selecting some of the most influential academic achievements, this paper briefly describes theoretical methods and social contributions to reflect the development process of human geography in the study of integrated human and environment systems in different stages in China. It also demonstrates the influence of the following elements on the adherence of Chinese human geography to the integration of human and environment systems: classical Chinese philosophical thinking on harmony between people and land, western theories of the human-environment relationship, Soviet economic geography research methods, the science of sustainability, the social demands of the construction of contemporary Chinese ecological civilization, ever-improving mathematical models and big data methods for studying enormous and complex systems, and management system reform and special scientific research system and background in China.

Post-COVID-19 tourism economics and economic geography research

Post-COVID-19 tourism economics and economic geography research

Relational economic geography and trade network research

Relational economic geography and trade network research

Changes in urban fabric – a cause or a result of an innovation district?

ABSTRACT The goal of our paper is to look at the connection between a city’s morphology and the development of innovation districts. We look at spatial planning as a strategic intervention that can affect urban morphology and help to create a better innovation district. Research in economic geography shows innovative industries (especially high-tech) have a higher tendency for spatial concentration than other types of industries. We are focusing on innovation districts that may emerge naturally within urban fabric. To demonstrate the limits and potential of the Naturally Occurring Innovation Districts (NOIDS), we focus on transformations taking place at Zabłocie, Krakow and Jeżyce, Poznan, both in Poland, and both of which can be recognized as typical examples of Polish NOIDs.

Listening to the buzz: Exploring the link between firm creation and regional innovative atmosphere as reflected by social media

This paper presents a novel approach to capture ‘buzz’, the vibrancy and knowledge exchange propensity of localised informal communication flows. Building on a conceptual framework based on relational economic geography, we argue the content of buzz may allow to probe into the character of places and investigate what is ‘in the air’ within regional entrepreneurial milieux. In particular, we analyse big data to listen for the presence of buzz about innovation – defined by discursive practices that reflect an innovative atmosphere – and explore how this may influence regional firm creation. Using information from 180 million geolocated Tweets comprising almost two billion words across NUTS3 regions in the UK for the year 2014, our results offer novel evidence, robust to different model specifications, that regions characterised by a relatively higher intensity of discussion and vibrancy around topics related to innovation may provide a more effective set of informal resources for sharing and recombination of ideas, defining regional capabilities to support and facilitate entrepreneurial processes. The findings contribute to the literature on the intangible dimensions in the geography of innovation and offer new insights on the potential of natural language processing for economic geography research.

Globalisation strategies and roles among Australian junior mining firms in Latin America

AbstractAustralian junior mining firms’ globalisation strategies and roles inside the sector remain understudied in economic geography. Such firms are often overshadowed by larger global mining interests, whose operations drive most foreign direct investment, capital, and operational expenditure tied to resource extraction. Unlike large multinationals and state‐owned enterprises, junior firms are nimble, often untethered from path‐dependent national systems, less encumbered by statutory constraints or corporate structures, and less accountable to shareholders. This study sought to understand globalisation strategies and roles among junior mining firms by reference to a case study of 55 Australian junior firms in Latin America. We used spatial analysis to uncover three patterns of junior firm globalisation strategies and roles: specialised service providers supporting the further development of mature and emerging mining industries; regional spearheads opening new destinations; and mineral avant‐gardists developing new speculative industries that are critical to clean energy technologies. We conclude both that Australian junior firms play a crucial role in the development of critical resource basins in other nations and that there are significant forms of firm heterogeneity and functional integration at the core of mining globalisation that need to be more comprehensively incorporated in economic geography research.

The Geography of Technology Legitimation: How Multiscalar Institutional Dynamics Matter for Path Creation in Emerging Industries

abstract Research in economic geography has recently been challenged to adopt more institutional and multiscalar perspectives on industrial path development. This article contributes to this debate by integrating insights from (evolutionary) economic geography as well as transition and innovation studies into a conceptual framework of how path creation in emerging industries depends on the availability of both knowledge and legitimacy. Unlike the extant literature, we argue here that not only the former but also the latter may substantially depend on nonlocal sources. Conceptually, we distinguish between multiscalar export, attraction, and absorption of legitimacy. Coupled with conventional knowledge indicators, this approach enables us to reconstruct how not only external knowledge sourcing but also multiscalar institutional dynamics contribute to a region or country’s ability to leverage its potential for path creation in an emerging industry. Methodologically, we develop legitimation indicators from a global media database, which was built around the case of modular water technologies. Cross-comparing the evidence from six key countries (India, Israel, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, the US) with differing path creation constellations for this emerging industry, allows us to hypothesize how multiscalar legitimation influences a country’s prospects for creating a radically new industrial path.

Resilience and related variety: The role of family firms in an ocean-related Norwegian region

Recent research in economic geography has introduced two notions that historical studies should explore: regional resilience and related variety. Regional resilience refers to a region’s ability to recover from external shocks. Related variety refers to the existence of related industrial sectors in a region, and the relatedness promotes economic development due to spill-overs between sectors. From an evolutionary perspective, external shocks result in new development paths in regions with related variety. This is a dynamic process well suited to historical studies. This article argues that historical studies can contribute to this literature by studying how related sectors interact in resilient regions. We propose that family firms may act as a micro-coordination mechanism by moving financial and human resources from one sector to another related sector as a response to shock. The paper develops this argument by studying how six major regional business families within ocean industries reacted to external shocks over time.

The geography of innovation as reflected by social media

Capturing whether mysteries of trade are ‘in the air’ remains a central issue for understanding the spatial nature of innovative activities. We offer new insights on the intangible dimension of the geography of innovation comparing the spatial distribution of patenting rates and a novel measure of ‘innovative buzz’ from a 9-billion-word corpus based on 900 million geolocated tweets across US counties. We find the use of words connected to innovation and technology to be characterised by significant spatial concentration. The results show the presence of strong bivariate correlation in the spatial clustering between the two elements, pointing to stimulating opportunities in the use of big data from social media for economic geography research.