Table 7 - uploaded by Philip Cooke
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COOKE P. and WELLS P. (1991) Uneasy alliances: the spatial development of computing and communication markets, Reg. Studies 25, 345--354. This paper explores the role of geographical space as a dynamizing element in the economic development process. It builds on the insight that space makes a significant difference to business activity by virtue of...
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... first threat to IBM's de facto dominance of hierarchal computer systems with incompatible operating systems came from D E C with its VMS operating system common to the entire range of DEC machines. Now the open system specialists (of which Sun Microsystems is the prime example) are rapidly eroding the hold of pro- prietary operating systems on the market, as Table 7 shows. ...
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... As a result, while past decentralization strategies used to be limited to small support labs, many TNCs are now establishing fairly advanced R&D facilities worldwide, taking advantage of a wider knowledge base at a lower average cost (Mytelka, 1987;Davidson and de la Torre, 1989). The two levels of regionalization related to TNC activity --one based on an integrated global strategy, the other with the primary goal of reaching fragmented markets and bringing products to market quickly --are converging to shape the global organization of production (Cooke and Wells, 1991). ...
The contemporary world economy is characterized by an extensive realignment of international patterns of competition, trade and production, as well as increased regional economic integration and global interdependency. A series of unsettling circumstances underlies this process: market instability and fragmentation, intensified competition and relentless technological advances. Despite a resulting climate of extreme uncertainty, institutionalized multilateral agreements have been ineffective to generate either significant stability or investment risk reduction. In the absence of alternative measures, firms are resorting not only to international investments that give them access to multiple markets, but also to alliances with local firms and governments, in an attempt to overcome the volatility of trade rules, exchange rates and market demand, and the high costs associated with technological change. The latter actions represent a concerted trade-off and belief that it is preferable to adjust to costs derived from governmental "rules" where risks can be reasonably assessed than to operate under conditions where risks are unpredictable. The changing investment strategies by transnational corporations in turn generate a growing decentralization and externalization of productive activities, and increased international trade. The resulting tendency toward regionalization is reinforced by state policies. Recent GATT negotiations over intellectual property rights reveal considerable concern by governments that the characteristics of international trade and investment impinge upon national sovereignty. Under current conditions of intensified competition, market advantage depends more than ever on scientific and technological competence, with the result that state control over intellectual
... Alliances therefore bring together partners that may be horizontally (Ohmae, 1989;Cooke and Wells, 1991) or vertically (Burdett, 1991;Collins and Doorley, 1991;Rothwell, 1992) related to each other, or may not be related to each other at all (Contractor and Lorange, 1988;Harrigan, 1988;Powell, 1990). They are often formed in an ad hoc fashion (Yoshino and Rangan, 1995) and can be concerned with concept generation, product development or product introduction (Gatewood et al, 1995). ...
... While they are evident in, and indeed between, many industrial sectors, alliances have tended to be concentrated in high technology industries and sectors that use more sophisticated technologies (Mariti and Smiley, 1983;Powell, 1987;Contractor and Lorange, 1988;Cooke, 1988;Pisano et al, 1988;Gordon, 1991;Bahrami, 1992;Teece, 1992;Dodgson, 1993;Grabher, 1993;Gugler and Dunning, 1993). These include micro-electronics, semi-conductors (Gugler, 1992), computers (Wells and Cooke, 1992;Benassi, 1993), aeronautics, biotechnology, robotics, telecommunications (Devlin and Bleackley, 1988;Cooke and Wells, 1991;Morgan, 1991;Brown and Pattinson, 1995), automobiles (Devlin and Bleackley, 1988) and pharmaceuticals (Hergert and Morris, 1988;Lawton Smith et al, 1991;Lorange and Roos, 1992;Dodgson, 1993;Gugler and Dunning, 1993). Different industries tend to be associated with different forms of collaboration; for example, in the telecommunications and robotics sectors the focus of collaboration is typically product development; in automobiles it is the production process; and in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals it is marketing and distribution (Dodgson, 1993). ...
... Much of the literature which addresses large firm-small firm strategic partnerships, and indeed all forms of collaboration, has tended to ignore the spatial dimension of alliance formation (Cooke and Wells, 1991). However, some commentators (eg: Anderson, 1993;Curran and Blackburn, 1994) have recognised that partnerships 24 have an influential role to play in reconfiguring the spatial organisation of industries. ...
p>Since the beginning of the 1980s there has been a significant increase in the number and forms of collaborative inter-firm relationships. Various theories have attempted to account for both the formation and the spatial organisation of these alliances. However, the majority of academic studies have taken a generalist stance, considering collaboration per se. It is argued that in the light of the complexity surrounding inter-firm relationships, there is a need for the research emphasis to become more focused on individual alliance forms, and specifically large firm-small firm linkages which have tended to be ignored in previous research. This thesis therefore considers one form of inter-firm collaboration between large and small companies that has been particularly neglected in the literature, namely corporate venture capital (CVC) investment. CVC investrnents involve large non-financial companies taking minority equity stakes in small unquoted firms. They can take two main forms: indirect investments made via externally-managed funds, and direct investments managed by the investing company itself. The potential benefits of CVC for investing companies, investee firms (particularly those in technology sectors) and independent fund managers are identified through a comprehensive literature review. However, despite these benefits, the levels of CVC are reportedly very low in the U. K., particularly in comparison with the U. S. A.. This thesis addresses the lack of academic and practical research into CVC by examining the role of this activity as both a form of large firm-small firm collaboration and an alternative source of equity finance for small firms and the venture capital funds which invest in them. These issues are explored through surveys of 39 independent fund managers, 73 corporate executives and 48 technology-based firm directors. The research involves semi-structured questionnaires administered via face-to-face and telephone interviews. The research finds the levels of CVC in the U. K. to be modest but far from non- existent. Investments as a whole tend to be made for strategic purposes, although financial gain, social responsibility and learning about the venture capital process are also important motivations. Investee firms are typically seeking financial and non-financial resources. However, the findings identify important distinctions between indirect and direct investment forms in terms of the objectives of participating companies. These differences have, in turn, affected the nature of investments and post-investment experiences. Overall, the thesis identifies the role of CVC in helping large and small companies to capitalise upon their complementary assets via collaboration. It recognises CVC as a valuable source of equity finance for small, and particularly early stage technology-based, firms as well as the funds which specialise in investing in such ventures. The thesis concludes by considering both the broader implications of the findings and avenues for further research.</p
In this brief chapter, the second section outlines many of the weaknesses of the regime of neoliberalist ideology over the past thirty years since the Thatcher-Reagan onslaught on the 'mixed economy' that had accompanied economic and democratic recovery after the second World War. In this, three important, albeit nowadays creaking pillars of the neoliberal edifice are described. First a discussion with narrative case material is offered on deregulation and its free market 'entrepreneurial' expression, execution effects ranging from corruption to inept implementation, to eventual but unwilling demise. Second, outsourcing and its discontents, ranging from employee suicide, toxic pollution and collusive boundary blurring, are anatomised and found wanting. Finally, globalisation itself is subject to scrutiny for its social depredations and yawning polarisation of wealth and impoversihment that has led belatedly to a sad populist punctuation point in its brief interregnum. Next, the second section focuses on entrepreneurship insouciance, what is wrong with it and why entrepreneurs are voting with their feet such is the profile of entrepreneurship decline registered in the 'business dynamics' of many countries. Brief discussion and conclusions follow.
A vibrant debate has raged in geography and other social sciences over the past several years, concerning the nature and extent of changes to contemporary capitalism that might be identified as more flexible. This paper critically surveys the recent work on this theme, identifying areas of consensus, continuing disagreement, and important but still neglected questions. Some consensus appears to have emerged over the types of new practices that firms are pursuing in their production systems, about the nature of contemporary competition, and about the continuing importance of politics and social relations in production. Disagreement remains evident on empirical questions concerning the pervasiveness and significance of flexible practices, on the characteristics of a 'true' industrial district, and on the role and importance of large versus small firms. Theoretical debates continue over how to interpret local cases of success or failure, as well as the motive forces underlying contemporary economic change. As for neglected issues, there is a pressing need for more systematic and comparative analysis cutting across a wider range of local experiences. There is also a need to redress the relative lack of attention directed toward declining regions, service industries, and gender relations in the economy. Nor have the continuing importance of nation-states, nor the geographical determinants of forces of production, yet received their due. The paper concludes by highlighting new dilemmas facing geographers as the theory of flexible industrialization is translated increasingly into practice.
In Japan, the information service industry has recorded a sharp increase in sales since the 1980s, which has produced great demand for IT engineers. Firms located in metropolitan areas have been trying to meet the demand by employing IT engineers who have nonmetropolitan origins. However, they tend to expect to return to live in their hometowns. Therefore firms, especially large computer makers, locate their subsidiaries or branch offices outside metropolitan areas to hire returned migrants and hometown-oriented engineers. In this paper, the author examines the labor market for IT engineers and their work careers based on a questionnaire survey of IT engineers working in information service firms located in the Kyushu region. IT engineers often move between firms and between regions. Sixty percent of respondents had experienced a change in their employment and 36% had previously worked outside the Kyushu region. Among respondents, aged 35 years or older, engineers who had previously worked outside the Kyushu region were in the majority. Thus return migrants play an important role in the labor market for IT engineers in the Kyushu region. As they advance in age, the occupations of IT engineers shift from programmer to systems engineer, and then some are promoted to manager. These occupational changes occur with both transfers and moves between firms. The annual wage level of engineers increases in relation to age. Moving between firms does not lower the annual wage level of those who are experienced if the move is within the Kyushu region. Return migrants usually worked at larger firms before they came back to the Kyushu region and appear to acquire a fairly high skill level. The annual wage level is negatively affected if they move from firms located outside the Kyushu region to firms in Kyushu. This indicates that there is a mismatch between jobs and applicants when return migrants seek jobs. Return migrants must collect information about jobs far away from the orgins and have difficulty making contact with employers. To reduce the disadvantages of return migrants and make the most of the skills they have, an interactive job search information system should be provided.
Much of Western European and North American industry has been restructuring its supplier relations, introducing innovations such as JIT delivery, increased outsourcing and collaborative buyer-supplier relations. There is now a growing literature on the extent and general spatial implications of changing buyer-supplier relations in the U.K. There is less evidence of the extent and form of collaborative inter-firm relations in the U.K. This paper provides some initial findings of the extent and form of collaborative buyer-supplier relations on processes of technology transfer. It draws on the results of surveys of electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and firms in their main supply industries in two contrasting study areas. The research findings suggest that there is, as yet, an absence of real depth in collaborative buyer-supplier relations. Furthermore, there are signs that the collaboration which is taking place appears to be concentrated between OEMs and suppliers with superior functional capabilities.
‘The social and political power of the verity that there are no such things as economies, only economic geographies demands an analysis of the complex flows and relations implied by it. At last, here is a book - the book - which addresses the questions central to the critical understanding of economies and their formative geographies. This is a highly creative and transformative contribution’ Roger Lee, Professor of Geography, Queen Mary, University of LondonHow do we conceptualise the production and re-production of social life? What are the most appropriate ways to conceptualise capitalist economies and their geographies? Economic Geographies integrates ideas of structure, agency, and practice to provide:· a detailed overview of recent key debates in economic geography: from political-economy and Marxism to post-structuralism an explanation of the of relations between production, retail and consumption, governance and regulation a discussion of the economy in terms of circuits, flows, and spaces that systematically relates the material to the culturalEconomic Geographies is a systematic audit of related developments in economic geography and the social sciences: these include consumption; economy and nature; and culture. The text will be required reading for upper-level undergraduates on courses in economic geography.
Despite an expanding critique, the idea of the linear model of R & D (and the inequalities implicit within it) still holds sway in what Rosenberg (Science and Public Policy, 1991, 18, 335–346) has termed “our roadmap of the science/technology relationship”. In constructing a new map, we must first recognize R & D as having a social and spatial, as well as a technical, content. In the paper this approach is used to analyse four case studies of the R & D process. In each case, the company conceptualises the R & D process in terms of linearity but it doesn't work quite like that in practice. The variations are not major, but neither are they insignificant. Moreover, they do seem to be associated with social and spatial modifications of the inequalities inherent, or potentially present, in the pure linear model. Maybe if these companies could think less in terms of the linear model, and stop measuring their actual, complex practice against it and thereby conceiving of that complexity as in some way a deficiency, then further positive moves away from the linear model could be made.
This paper has two foci. Firstly, it profiles the evolving internationalisation and diversification strategies of leading computer service providers since 1990, and secondly, it considers how such dynamics are affecting the spatial networks of these transnational firms through the window of the U.K. industry. Nine of the top twelve computer service providers in the U.K. market are used as case studies. In response to the demands of multinational clients and increasingly open and competitive markets, it appears that nationally oriented subsidiaries are being superseded by more responsive, internationally oriented structures. In particular, R&D and marketing operations are increasingly being co-ordinated at the continental or global scale. Simultaneously, firms are diversifying into new computer service markets in order to offer a wider variety of services. However, the exact nature of the restructuring undertaken and its spatial outcome varies both between different types of computer service firms and different growth strategies. A key distinction is that firms actively seeking growth in the IT outsourcing market appear to be undergoing more spatially extensive growth, while the remaining firms are consolidating their operations in core regions.
