Flexible Specialization Research Articles

The Firms of Flexible Specialization Type in Die and Mold-related Industry

The Firms of Flexible Specialization Type in Die and Mold-related Industry

Flexible Specialization: Workshop Management and Wage Organization of the Engineering Workshop of Jacobi, Haniel and Huyssen, 1869–1872

Flexible Specialization: Workshop Management and Wage Organization of the Engineering Workshop of Jacobi, Haniel and Huyssen, 1869–1872

Domestic timber auctions and flexibly specialized forestry in Japan

In Japan, a well‐established, widespread system of local timber market auctions, featuring the exchange of privately owned logs, is increasingly threatened by imports organized according to mass production principles. This article assesses the evolution, rationale, and functions of Japan's timber auctions that were primarily created in post‐war Japan to provide key roles linking small‐scale (private) forest owners to flexibly specialized value chains that are consummated in Japanese homes. The conceptual point of departure for the analysis is flexible specialization theory's interpretation of industrialization as a contest between mass production and small‐scale production. We extend this discussion by giving analytical priority to markets as an institution distinct from firms and by interpreting markets from the perspectives of transaction costs and embeddedness, concepts normally deemed antagonistic to one another. Empirically, four case studies of timber auctions located in central and southern Japan are analyzed based on personal interviews with auction managers and participants within the context of broader trends in forestry. Three auctions feature ‘silent’ bidding and one involves open bidding. While the auctions exhibit varying characteristics, they continue to be the fulcrum of localized forestry systems, even as they are threatened by declining prices driven by imported wood and by restructurings within the Japanese solid wood sector. The continued resiliency of the flexible specialization model, and the auctions that are at its core, has important implications for forestry throughout Japan.

New Places But Old Spaces: Knowledge Hierarchies Among Asian Small and Medium Size Enterprises Abroad

Small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role today in Asian regional production. However, their long-term viability depends on innovation drawing on local as well as global knowledge flows. In this paper, I ask whether firms moving to new production sites abroad have penetrated new spaces of information and knowledge. Japanese and Korean SMEs manufacturing abroad retain a static comparative advantage in sub-contracting for larger home country firms where accumulated knowledge is sufficient today for cost efficient production. They remain tied largely to knowledge hierarchies at home dominated by larger firms. Weak ties to the local business context abroad, however, deprive them of new learning advantages critical for flexible specialization. Lacking entrée to the learning environment of their offshore production sites, Asian SMEs often remain offshore factories rather than international firms participating in global learning environments. They find themselves in new geographical places but old cognitive spaces, confined to static rather than dynamic comparative advantage.

Subcontractors for tractors: Theory and evidence on flexible specialization, supplier selection, and contracting

Buyer–Seller networks are pervasive in developing economies yet remain relatively understudied. Using primary data on contracts between the largest tractor assembler in Pakistan and its suppliers we find large variations in prices and quantities across suppliers of the same product. Surprisingly, “tied” suppliers – those that choose higher levels of specific investments – receive lower and more unstable orders and lower prices. These results are explained by developing a simple model of flexible specialization under demand uncertainty. A buyer faces multiple suppliers with heterogeneous types to supply customized parts. Specific investments raise surplus within the relationship but lower the seller's flexibility to cater to the outside market. Higher quality suppliers have a greater likelihood of selling outside and so this cost is greater for them. Therefore even if a buyer typically prefers high types, some low type suppliers might be kept as marginal suppliers because of their greater willingness to invest more in buyer-specific assets. Further empirical examination shows that the more tied suppliers are indeed of lower quality.

Flexible Specialisation 20 Years On: How the ‘Good’ Industrial Districts in Italy Have Lost Their Momentum

Twenty-two years ago, Piore and Sabel (1984) identified a ‘second industrial divide’. The aim of this paper is to propose some reflections, starting from that work, on the interaction between industrial organisation and institutional configurations as it has evolved in Italy in the form of ‘industrial districts’ or ‘regional clusters’. Given that Piore and Sabel proposed a necessary change in institutions, our concern is whether the flexible specialisation model, characterising industrial districts and regional clusters, really requires institutions to have less of a stabilising effect. Contrary to Piore and Sabel, we suggest that such systems do not benefit from a general deregulation and from a substantial rise in uncertainty due to the demise of stabilising institutions.

Industrial Clusters in Developing Countries: A Survey of the Literature

This paper provides a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature relating to industrial clusters. These clusters are groups of firms that are specialized by sector, located in close geographic proximity and consist of mostly small and medium sized enterprises. The benefits to firms from clustering are sometimes referred to as active and passive collective efficiency. Passive collective efficiency refers to benefits accruing to a firm by virtue of being in a cluster, such as access to markets and skilled labor, technological spillovers, flexible specialization, and reduced transaction costs. Active collective efficiency, on the other hand, stems from purposeful cooperation between clustered firms to undertake a large-scale project to upgrade production, such as entering into product marketing.

Really dealing

Concepts such as ‘relational contracting’, ‘the flexible firm’ and ‘flexible specialization’ are all associated with intense academic effort directed to understanding both contractual inter-organizational relationships and the networks that sustain them. This article adopts a Realist position and draws on case study evidence in an attempt to contribute to the literature on this subject. It argues that considering inter-organizational exchange networks in terms of three inter-related causal forces provides a useful indication of the generative mechanisms that condition the outcomes observed. The causal forces considered are, first, the type of product exchanged; second, the culture of institutional practices within the context of the exchange; and finally, the level of resource dependency apparent amongst the organizations involved.

The Saga of the ‘Second industrial divide’ and the history of the ‘third Italy’: Evidence from export data

The idea of the Third Italy has achieved an iconic status in geography. It has come to represent one of the main geographical manifestations of the so‐called second industrial divide between Fordist mass production and flexible specialisation. Yet the idea has received limited critical attention since acquiring its elevated status. It deserves to do so, because it involves confusing a localised model of economic development with the economic character of a larger geographic region. Examining province level export data for the years 1985, 1991, 1995 and 1999 for both total exports and two key sectors using exploratory spatial data analysis, provincial rankings and LISAs (local indicators of spatial association) suggests that the export‐based homogeneity and dynamism of the Third Italy can be exaggerated. Italy's urban hierarchy, particularly the centrality of Milan, continues to play a significant role in the Italian economy. Common use of the term ‘Third Italy’ confuses an economic process with a specific geographical configuration.

Continuity and Change: Making Sense of the German Model

Over the past two decades the concept of a ‘German model’ of economic organization and production has been debated hotly. In the 1980s this model was, for the most part, viewed positively, largely because German export and labour market performance was significantly better than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average. For social democrats and trade unionists the model was particularly attractive because it seemed to demonstrate that strong unions and works councils, high wages and good working conditions were not incompatible with low unemployment and economic competitiveness. Even a number of mainstream economists and management consultants became enamoured of the German model and argued for its adoption in less-well performing countries. Most academic work attempting to understand the German model at that time attributed economic success to a particular linkage between institutions and a production system capable of creating products which were competitive with mass produced goods on world markets. For Piore & Sabel (1984), Germany’s regional economies such as Baden-Wurttemberg, which were dominated by small and medium-sized firms, proved fruitful ground for flexible specialization, a strategy based on intra-firm co-operation in the production of small batches of high quality goods. For Kern & Schumann (1986) the elaborate training system and co-operative industrial relations allowed for the introduction of new production concepts in traditional manufacturing sectors such as automobiles, machine tools and chemicals. These concepts, which involved a departure from the Taylorist principles underlying mass production, were based on exploiting the possibilities of new, flexible machinery by delegating more responsibilities to skilled manual workers. In a number of publications, Streeck (1989; 1992) and Sorge & Streeck (1988) have argued that high wages and dismissal protection create constraints which are beneficial for employers, in the sense that they are forced to focus on their long-term interests rather than to respond to short-term market shocks. These constraints have helped German firms such as Volkswagen shift away from mass production to diversified Quality Production (‘DQP’), which combines the use of modern machinery with a Competition & Change Vol. 8, No. 4, 331–337, December 2004

Newcastle Gateshead Quayside: Cultural investment and identities of resistance

The news that, in the aftermath of the bidding process for the UK's representative for the European Capital of Culture in 2008, the UR government is investing 15 million [pounds sterling] in the Urban Cultural programme, raises some key issues about the way we think about culture and, in particular, about urban culture, as a source of resistance to globalisation. There is always an overwhelming temptation to conceive of identity and resistance in a misleadingly fundamentalist way. But resistance is as much about the habitual and the symbolic as it is about the isolated, heroic act (Thrift, 1997). In what follows, I will suggest that the cultural developments in the NewcastleGateshead Quayside development can, counter-intuitively perhaps, provide a renewed focus and confidence for the revitalisation of regional cultural identifies that, in turn, amounts to a complex and contradictory form of symbolic resistance to the homogenisation of globalism. Many commentators felt that NewcastleGateshead would win the UK nomination to become a contender for the title of 2008 European Capital of Culture. The investment of millions of pounds in the Quayside--a former industrial site with no previously existing leisure or cultural facilities--and into developments such as the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, The Sage Gateshead Music Centre and the Millennium Bridge, on the back of the apparent success of Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North, certainly stimulated a degree of public confidence and regional pride. This much is indicated by ongoing longitudinal research into the social, cultural and economic impact of the Quayside, which illustrates not only increased cultural attendance at and awareness of such developments, but also that the Quayside is playing an increasingly significant role in the way the people of the region perceive themselves (Bailey et al., 2004). The regeneration of the Gateshead site, driven by iconic cultural projects, has somehow managed to complement the consumer-led Newcastle waterside economy, which encompasses restaurants, bars and an emerging retail sector. Unlike other reconfigured waterfront sites, NewcastleGateshead Quayside apparently retains its stubbornly democratic character, with its market and night-time crowds appearing to sit happily alongside the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts, which has itself far exceeded initial visitor targets. The fact that NewcastleGateshead won the 'popular' BBC television viewers' vote shortly before the official Capital of Culture announcement, certainly reinforced the view in many quarters that Newcastle-Gateshead 'deserved' the nomination. Cultural investment on the Quayside appeared to be contributing to a 'feel-good factor' in NewcastleGateshead and in the region beyond. In the end, however, the nomination was awarded to the city of Liverpool. But more interesting than the question of who won and why was the way the bidding process highlighted the increasingly high profile of culture, most notably on the urban regeneration agenda. This reflects a broader debate preoccupying the cultural sector and politicians alike; a debate typified, perhaps, by Richard Florida's work on the creative classes, in which he argues that, 'The combination of where we live and what we do has come to replace who we work for as a main element of identity' (Florida, 2002: 229). In Florida's version of events, we live in a world of less and less secure social ties, in which 'the city allows you to modulate the experience: to choose the mix, to turn the intensity level up or down as desired, and to have a hand in creating the experience rather than merely consuming it' (Florida, 2002: 232). On the surface, he appears to describe a highly-adaptable society underpinned by processes of flexible specialisation. The creative classes are shown as playing an increasingly important role in constructing identity for cities and their people. …

The networks producing television programmes in the Cologne media cluster: new firm foundation, flexible specialization and efficient decision‐making structures

Based on the example of the production network of television (TV) programmes in Cologne's media cluster, this article will examine two aspects in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how localized production networks arise and how they function. First of all, the role of the founding of new firms within a localized production network will be analysed in detail. As a second step, the decision structures within the production network will be discussed. In this context the question arises as to how the parts of a particular production chain are linked together and how a smooth production flow can be guaranteed. The theoretical findings will be verified by an empirical study of the networks producing TV programmes in Cologne.

Flexible specialization and the German toy industry, 1870-1914

Flexible specialization presents many attractions both as an analytical tool and as a model for industrial development. Efforts to theorize and historicize the concept, however, have sometimes assumed such central importance for social, cultural and political factors that economic concerns have been obscured. As a closer examination of the German toy industry reveals, there are a variety of largely economic factors that also play a substantial role in the development and success of decentralized networks of producers. In particular, the expectations of consumers, the nature of available production technology and the number of components available for subcontracting all play substantial roles in structuring the toy industry. Once these economic considerations are included a fuller, more persuasive account of the origin and success of flexible specialization emerges.

Steuerung lokalisierter Projektnetzwerke am Beispiel der Produktion von TV-Sendungen in den Medienclustern München und Köln

The production of television programmes in Germany is confined to a few specific locations. This study examines the organisational structures for producing TV programmes within interlinked production networks. Data about the two main centres, Munich and Cologne, was collected and analysed in detail. These networks feature a high degree of inter-company division of labour and flexible specialisation of the individual enterprises. A further feature is the project-specific composition of the value chain. The main aim of the study was to explore the mechanisms directing and controlling the local networks. The balance of power between the individual economic players is unequal and decision-making competencies are unevenly distributed. The study argues that this imbalance of power constitutes a functional element of the local networks by significantly expediting the decision-making process. This is demonstrated using an exemplary case study. The imbalance of power already becomes evident when looking at the process of selecting individual companies for a TV production. This selection process occurs within a centralised mechanism and is dominated by a few individuals occupying certain key positions. Selection criteria are ruled by socio-institutional relations such as personal contacts, previous successful cooperation, recommendations and reputation.

Project Time in Silicon Valley

This article explores the pace of work for highly skilled workers who are employed in the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley. I link the temporal experiences of these workers to systems of domination at work, and to the particular characteristics of flexible specialization in the region. I ask four questions: How can the temporal rhythms of work be described? What factors shape these rhythms? Why do workers comply? How does this pace of work impact on other aspects of individuals' lives? I focus on the organization of work through project cycles, the de-linking of workers and organizations, and the ideology of individualism that constructs workers as entrepreneurs of their own careers as key factors that shape the erratic and quickened pace of work in Silicon Valley. I also show how this pace of work negatively affects other temporal spheres that individuals negotiate, most notably “bodily time” and the “interaction time” of social relationships.

The changing role of the central business district in the digital era: the future of Singapore's new financial district

The functions of conventional central business districts are being deconstructed and restructured in content and role to meet the challenges of the digital era and era of globalizing trade relations. As a consequence of the dynamics and influence of great technological progress, urban economic spaces are becoming increasingly flexible spaces in the post-Fordist era marked by flexible specialization and knowledge-based production systems. Arguments on the future of urban morphology range from a speculated centreless urban form to one of centrality, in which headquarters are necessary for corporate command and control functions. In a state of rising uncertainty, spatial evolution in the highly institutionalized financial districts is rigidly market-sensitive and is characteristically reflected in the knowledge-based talents of human resources and high cost-structure processes (zone of highest land values), and investment in infrastructure. This article investigates the case of Singapore, and raises two fundamental questions: Will an extended CBD of Singapore, an emerging global city, be needed to cater for future financial district expansion? Or, is physical expansion of the CBD superfluous in an era of intensifying ICT usage? Because of the uneven and highly selective nature of multinational corporation investments worldwide, the success or failure of CBDs hinges on their attractiveness and quality of services as geographic centres. A strong CBD for Singapore will be represented by a ‘jump-space’ integration with the most advanced global economies, whereas a weak CBD will be an alternative route of retreat from the global front towards stronger regional integration.

From Mass Production to Flexible Specialization: The Sectoral and Geographical Extent of Contract Work in US Manufacturing, 1963-1997

E SSLETZBICHLER J. (2003) From mass production to flexible specialization: the sectoral and geographical extent of contract work in US manufacturing, 1963-1997, Reg. Studies 37 , 753-771. Over the last two decades much work in economic geography focused on a fundamental reorganization of capitalist production summarized as shift from Fordist mass production to flexible specialization. Complementing this shift to flexible forms of production is the revival of interest in Marshallian industrial districts characterized by geographically localized and tightly linked networks of small firms. Many a claim was based on anecdotal evidence in selected industries and regions. In order to strengthen the importance of these results, it is necessary to provide comprehensive empirical evidence across a broad range of sectors and regions. This paper traces the key developments in economic geography and examines empirically the extent of flexible specialization in US manufacturing. More specifically the paper focuses on one aspect of this shift and investigates the increase in contract work across all US manufacturing sectors and regions between 1963 and 1997. Employing plant level data for US manufacturing industries, this paper emphasizes the significance of the shift to flexible specialization supported by an increase in the use of contract work across a vast majority of manufacturing sectors, states and metropolitan areas. The paper also demonstrates that pronounced industrial differences prevail and that high contract work ratios explain metropolitan differences in productivity in some but not all sectors. E SSLETZBICHLER J. (2003) De la fabrication en série à la spécialisation flexible: les portées sectorielle et géographique de la prestation de service dans l'industrie aux E-U de 1963 à 1997, Reg. Studies 37 , 753- 771. Depuis deux décennies, la géographie économique a porté dans une large mesure sur une restructuration fondamentale du système capitalistique. En bref, il s'agissait d'un déplacement de la fabrication en série du type Fordiste à la spécialisation flexible. Allant de pair avec ce déplacement est un regain de l'intérêt pour les districts industriels selon Marshall et qui se caracté risent par des réseaux de petites entreprises localisées sur le plan géographique et bien reliés. On a affirmé de nombreuses choses selon des sources non confirmées provenant des industries et des régions sélectionnées. Afin de consolider l'importance de ces résultats, il faut fournir des preuves empiriques plus dé taillées à travers un éventail de secteurs et de régions large. Cet article cherche à esquisser les développements clés dans le domaine de la géographie économique et à examiner de façon empirique la portée de la spécialisation flexible dans l'industrie aux E-U. Plus particulièrement, cet article porte sur un aspect de ce déplacement et examine la croissance de la prestation de service à travers tous les secteurs industriels et toutes les régions aux E- U entre 1963 et 1997. A partir des données auprès des é tablissements industriels aux E-U, cet article souligne l'importance du déplacement pour la spécialisation flexible, soutenu par un accroissement de la prestation de service à travers la plupart des secteurs industriels, des états et des zones métropolitaines. Cet article démontre aussi que des écarts industriels non-négligeables persistent et que l'importance de la prestation de service explique les écarts de productivité métropolitains dans quelques-uns des secteurs. E SSLETZBICHLER J. (2003) Von Massenproduktion zu flexibler Spezialisierung: das sektorale und geographische Ausmaß von Kontraktarbeit in der herstellen Industrie der USA im Zeitraum 1963-1997, Reg. Studies 37 , 753-771. Im Laufe der letzten zwanzig Jahre haben sich in der Wirtschafts-geographie viele Arbeiten mit der grundlegenden Neuorganisation kapitalistischer Produktion beschäftigt, die unter dem Begriff der Umstellung von Fordscher Massenproduktion auf flexible Spezialisierung zusammengefaßt wird. Diese Umstellung auf flexible Formen der Produktion geht Hand in Hand mit einem wieder auflebenden Interesse an Marshallschen Industriegebieten, das hauptsächlich von geographisch begrenzten und eng vernetzten Kleinfirmen bestimmt wird. Viele der dafür erhobenen Ansprüche beruhten auf anekdotenhaften Beweisen in ausgewählten Industrien und Gebieten. Um die Bedeutung dieser Ergebnisse zu unterstreichen, ist es nötig, umfassende empirische Beweise eines weit gefächerten Bereichs von Sektoren und Regionen anzuführen. Dieser Aufsatz verfolgt die wichtigsten Entwicklungen in der Wirtschaftsgeographie und untersucht empirisch das Ausmaß flexibler Spezialisierung in der herstellenden Industrie der US. Der Aufsatz richtet sein Augenmerk ganz besonders auf einen bestimmten Aspekt dieser Umstellung, in dem er die Zunahme von Kontraktaufträgen in allen sektoren der herstellenden Industrie der US im Zeitraum 1963-1997 untersucht. Mit Hilfe von Daten auf Fabrikebene für herstellende Industrien in den USA betont der Aufsatz die Bedeutung der Umstellung auf flexible Spezialisierung, die durch Zunahme des Einsatzes von Kontraktarbeit in den meisten herstellenden Sektoren, Staaten und Großstadtgebieten bestätigt wird. Darüberhinaus zeigt der Aufsatz, daß ausgesprochene industrielle Unterschiede vorherrschen, und daß hohe Kontraktauftragsraten groß stadtisch Produktionsunterschiede in einigen, doch nicht allen Sektoren erklä ren.

Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance: The Case for Rigour and Policy Relevance in Critical Regional Studies

M ARKUSEN A. (2003) Fuzzy concepts, scanty evidence, policy distance: the case for rigour and policy relevance in critical regional studies , Reg. Studies 37 , 701-717. Regional analysis is increasingly populated by fuzzy concepts that lack clarity and are difficult to test or operationalize: flexible specialization, windows of opportunity, resurgent regions, world cities, cooperative competition. Many analyses rely on anecdote or singular case studies, while contrarian cases and more comprehensive and comparative inquiries are ignored. Methodology is often not discussed adequately. This trend has been accompanied by an increasing detachment from political and policy advocacy. In this paper, I define fuzzy concepts and relate their proliferation to an emphasis on process rather than institutions, agents and behaviour. To demonstrate my arguments, I review three highly acclaimed bodies of work - flexible specialization with its re-agglomeration thesis; world cities; and "cooperative competition' in industrial districts à la Silicon Valley. The paper makes the case for adherence to social science norms of conceptual coherence, causal theory (with both behavioural and structural components) and subjection of theory to the rigours of evidence, where the latter may encompass qualitative and quantitative techniques. Greater commitment to entering the policy debate and to making results accessible and informative to policymakers, regional planners and political activists would substantially strengthen this body of research and its usefulness. M ARKUSEN A. (2003) Des concepts confus, de maigres preuves, des politiques éloignées: les arguments en faveur de la rigueur et des politiques pertinentes dans les études régionales critiques, Reg. Studies 37 , 701-717. De plus en plus l'analyse régionale est peuplée de concepts confus qui manquent de la clarté et qui s' avèrent difficiles à tester et à mettre en oeuvre: la spé cialisation flexible, les nouvelles possibilités, les régions renaissantes, les grandes villes à l'échelle mondiale, la concurrence coopérative. Beaucoup des analyses reposent sur des études de cas anecdotiques ou exceptionnelles, tandis que l'on ne fait aucune attention ni aux études de cas opposées, ni aux enquêtes plus détaillées et comparatives. Souvent, la méthodologie n'est pas discutée convenablement. Cette tendance va de pair avec une séparation accrue du plaidoyer politique et de principe. Cet article cherche à définir des concepts confus et à rapporter leur prolifération à l' importance accordée au processus plutôt qu'aux institutions, aux agents ou au comportement. Afin de le démontrer, on fait la critique de trois faisceaux d'oeuvres qui recoivent un excellent accueil - la spécialisation flexible, avec sa thèse à propos de la notion de réagglomération; les grandes villes à l'échelle mondiale; et la notion de "concurrence compétitive' dans les districts industriels, à la manière de Silicon Valley. L'article prône en faveur de l'adhésion aux normes de la science sociale quant à la cohérence conceptuelle, à la théorie de la causalité (y compris des élements de comportement et de structure) et à l'assujettissement de la théorie aux rigueurs des preuves qui puissent embrasser des techniques qualitatives et quantitatives. Un engagement plus ferme à se lancer dans le débat sur la politique et à rendre les résultats plus accessibles et plus instructifs aux décideurs, aux aménageurs du territoire et aux activistes politiques renforcerait sensiblement ce faisceau de recherche et son utilité. M ARKUSEN A. (2003) Unklare Begriffe, dürftige Beweise, Grundsatzferne: Arguments für Strenge und Grunsatzrelevanz in kritischen Regionalstudien, Reg. Studies 37 , 701-717. Regionalanalysen werden zunehmend von verschwommenen Begriffen unterwandert, denen es an Klarheit fehlt, und die man nur schwer testen oder zum Einsatz bringen kann: flexible Spezialisierungen, Gelegenheiten, wieder auflebende Regionen, Weltstädte, kooperativer Wettbewerb. Viele Analysen stützen sich auf Anekdoten oder Einzelfallstudien, während ihnen zuwider laufende Fälle sowie umfassendere und vergleichende Studien unbeachtet bleiben. Methodik wird oft nicht genügend diskutiert. Diese Tendenz ist von einem vermehrten Abstandnehmen von Politik und Befü rwortung von Grundsatzbestrebungen begleitet worden. In diesem Aufsatz werden unklare Begriffe definiert, und ihr Umsichgreifen mit einer Betonung von Verfahren statt Institutionen, Ausführenden und Verhalten in Beziehung gesetzt. Zur Erläuterung der Argumente werden drei sehr positiv anerkannte Arbeiten: flexible Spezialisierung mit ihrer Ballungsthese, Weltstädte und kooperativer Wettbewerb in Industriegebieten vom Typ Silicon Valley besprechen. Der Aufsatz tritt für Beibehaltung der sozialwissenschaftlichen Normen der begrifflichen Kohärenz, der Kausaltheorie (einschließlich Verhaltens- und Strukturkomponenten) und dafür ein, Theorien strenger Beweisführung zu unterwerfen, wobei letztere qualitative und quantitative Techniken umfassen kö nnen. Stärkeres Engagement bei Teilnahme an Debatten zu Grundsatzfragen, sowie Anstrengungen, die Ergebnisse für Parteiideologen, Regionalplaner und politischen Aktivisten zugänglich und informativ zu gestalten, würden diese Forderungen und ihren Wert erheblich erhöher.

Disconnected Capitalism: Or Why Employers Can't Keep Their Side of the Bargain

Those who ply their trade by purveying ideas - academics, policy entrepreneurs, consultants and the like - have a vested interest in proclaiming the new. It is much harder to make a reputation or a splash in the ideas pool by arguing that nothing much has changed. Let's call this the continuity option. Since the early 1980s the big picture franchise has passed to and through a variety of paradigm break theories. We have moved from and through flexible specialization, new production concepts, lean production, post-Fordism, postmodernization, and lately the knowledge economy. While there have, of course, been variations in these perspectives, we can also observe a number of common themes. The argument of this article is that while model building necessarily tends to overstate system cohesiveness, there are powerful structural tendencies, driven by developments in capital markets, which are exacerbating disunity between these different domains. Within modern capitalism economic actors are finding it increasingly difficult to 'make connections' between objectives in the spheres of work and employment, and simultaneously employers are finding it harder to keep their side of any bargain with employees.

Golden Opportunities: Jewelry Making in Birmingham between Mass Production and Specialty

Narratives of flexible specialization as an alternative to mass production are largely absent from the industrial history of twentieth-century Britain. In this article, I challenge the notion that we should relegate small firms and industrial districts to a marginal place in the historiography of this period. Drawing from a range of sources, I explore the history of Birmingham's jewelry makers to show how they adapted the traditional productive system of the district to respond in a dynamic way to the challenges of rapid product market differentiation. As jewelry increasingly became a commodity for mass consumption, the firms in the Birmingham district used a combination of specialty and mass production as a strategy to both satisfy and create demand.