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PLACING AND SPACING SERVICES: TOWARDS A BALANCED ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY OF FIRMS, CLUSTERS, SOCIAL NETWORKS, CONTRACTS AND THE GEOGRAPHIES OF ENTERPRISE
Author(s) -
RUSTEN GRETE,
BRYSON JOHN R.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9663.2009.00584.x
Subject(s) - space (punctuation) , economic geography , production (economics) , service (business) , business , industrial organization , regional science , sociology , economics , marketing , computer science , macroeconomics , operating system
This paper introduces a special dossier that explores the changing economic geographies of service firms and functions. The emphasis is on exploring recent developments in the theory of the firm and what this means for understanding how complex production systems are organised in time and space. There are three important building blocks: exploring interactions between the literatures of economic geography and international business; exploring the global sourcing of services and a critical analysis of clusters. This introduction addresses some of the tensions that exist between research that emphasises the importance of social networks in production systems and the contractual and legal structures that constrain the activities of firms.