A structural overview of the new field of management geography including globalization, embeddedness of MNEs, networking, hybridization, regional economies, technology, acculturation, internationalization, IHRM and implications for management and government.

In recent years an extensive range of new research has been revisiting the topic of the location of international business activities, from a variety of different perspectives and background interests. This work has been inspired in part by two apparently quite different but actually related contemporary trends: on the one hand, an emergence or revitalization of clusters of activities co-located in or around selected global city regions or fast growing metropolitan areas; and on the other hand, an increased global dispersion of activities conducted within the value chains managed or coordinated by many large multinational enterprises and their business partners. The former trend has given rise to discussions of how the elite of the cultural-cognitive economy of the 21st century (in Allen Scott's terminology) or the creative class (Richard Florida's term) are now being drawn or brought back to major urban centers; while the latter trend is associated with debates over outsourcing, and the economic and social consequences of shifts in the ownership and location of distinct nodes of value chains once production systems become more fragmented and the component parts of such systems become more geographically dispersed. An increased interest in the subject of international business location has been shown by scholars in Strategic Management, in Economic Geography, and in Regional Science, as well as in our own interdisciplinary field of International Business Studies. However, as is often the case in academic research communities, these bodies of scholarship have tended to develop at something of a distance from one another, each conversing internally more than they have with one another. Location of International Business Activities aims to promote a greater conversation between those interested in the topic of Location from various different backgrounds or starting points. The articles are taken from a special issue on the theme of the Multinational in Geographic Space which was published by The Journal of International Business Studies in 2013.

Management geography explores the spatial characteristics of management-related issues, especially of firms. This book discusses management geography in Japan and other Asian countries from Asian perspectives. The field has made significant contributions to the global economy but has not been deeply investigated in English-language geographical literature to date. The book addresses the following critical questions: What kinds of challenges do multinational corporations in Japan and other Asian countries face? How are managerial actors in multinational enterprises (MNEs) embracing boundary-spanning activities in a global context? How do firms and related entities cultivate business pipelines and ‘buzz’ within and beyond local regions? How do actors in Japanese MNEs, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and related institutions embed various managerial processes at overseas locations? This book consists of two parts: Part I discusses the application and roles of Japanese and international managerial practices in the globalizing world. Part II examines changing business communities in the industrial and rural spaces of East Asia, focusing primarily on Japan and China. This work will interest readers in a wide range of fields, including geography, management studies, economics, urban planning and sociology. The book is also suitable for upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students in geography, management studies and related fields.

Asian Inward and Outward FDI brings together both works from researchers in international business and economic geography. The book is aimed for both scholars with interest in macro and micro economic impact of new flows of FDI.

This book explores the relationship between families, firms, and regions and the extent to which these relationships contribute to regional economic and social development. Although family business participation in economic activities has been a common phenomenon since pre-industrial societies, and its importance has evolved throughout time and across spatial contexts, the book suggests that these factors have often been neglected in family business and regional studies. Taking this research gap into account, the book aims to deepen our understanding of the role family firms play in the regional economy. In particular, it explores two seldom studied questions. Firstly, what role do family firms play in regional development? Secondly, how do formal and informal regional contexts shape family firm operations and performance? This book presents a model of "regional familiness" and uses themes such as productivity, networks and competitiveness to shed new light on family businesses. Moreover, it evaluates the juxtaposition and cross-fertilisation between family business and regional studies to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas, theories, and research methods between the two fields. Bringing together leading experts in entrepreneurship, regional economics and economic geography, this book will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers interested in family firms, regional studies and economic geography.

Culture studies in international business are passing through difficult times of scrutiny and critique. This is due to the fact that the paradigms, approaches, and methods used so far to study culture have been limited in their scope. For several decades now, approaches that consider national cultures and geo-ethnic origins of interacting individuals have dominated management literature. This book distinguishes itself from other books on Culture in International Business (CIB) studies in two important ways. First, it illustrates how Mary Douglas's Cultural Theory framework (referred to commonly as DCF) can be used to explore different aspects of international business. This sets the stage for future scholars to consider DCF as an alternative tool of cultural sense making as opposed to limiting themselves to categorical frameworks grounded in static notions of national and/or corporate culture. The second unique feature is that it focuses on the complexities of the applied side of culture (i.e., it takes a culture-in-practice perspective), while simultaneously emphasizing the dynamicity and diversity of culture. The book concludes by offering suggestions for the future of CIB studies. This domain, it predicts, may witness significant changes in the way culture is seen as influencing workplace relations. It also identifies other areas on which CIB scholars may need to focus attention in the future: culture in an increasingly digitalised world, culture and the organisation as a system, and culture and the intelligent/knowledgeable organisation. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of cross-cultural management, international business, human resource management.

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The Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets identifies key elements of the business systems and competition in emerging markets around the world and looks at competitive strategies of local and multinational companies going into and coming out of these countries. This book should serve both researchers and managers interested in knowing more about managing firms in emerging markets in general and in specific countries in particular. The essays highlight the tension between local and global knowledge as well as explore the role of local and international firms operating in emerging markets within global value chains or production networks.

The fields of Economic Geography and International Business share an interest in the same phenomena, whilst each provides both a differing perspective and different research methods in attempting to understand those phenomena. The Routledge Companion to the Geography of International Business explores the nature and scope of inter-disciplinary work between Economic Geography and International Business in explaining the central issues in the international economy. Contributions written by leading specialists in each field (including some chapters written by inter-disciplinary teams) focus on the nature of multinational firms and their strategies, where they choose to locate their activities, how they create and manage international networks and the key relationships between multinationals and the places where they place their operations. Topics covered include the internationalisation of service industries, the influence of location on the competitiveness of firms and the economic dynamism of regions and where economic activity takes place and how knowledge, goods and services flow between locations. The book examines the areas for fruitful inter-disciplinary work between International Business and Economic Geography and sets out a road map for future joint research, and is an essential resource for students and practitioners of International Business and Economic Development.

The last several decades have witnessed major restructurings--economic, political, and cultural--in the international arena. The depth and scope of these changes have prompted anthropologists to rethink many of their most basic assumptions, to problematize issues that have long gone unexamined, and to grapple with new and unique problems. Doing so has left the discipline profoundly unsettled. Existing standards of scholarship and research methodologies have come under attack, key conceptual categories have been called into question, and truths once considered secure have been subjected to severe scrutiny and even ridicule. Seizing upon the opportunity afforded by the contemporary conjuncture of disciplinary crisis and redefinition, this book raises questions about two interrelated aspects of historical process and academic production. The volume contributes to ongoing debates about the degree to which the developments of recent decades represent the advent of a new historical era, a rupture with the past that requires new conceptualizations and logics in order to be understood. In confronting this question, the contributors to this volume have assembled a range of materials that place the present period of reconstruction in the context of a broader history and geography of other, related restructurings. Locating Capitalism in Time and Space also raises questions about the degree to which the scholarship of recent decades represents a qualitative break with that of the past. At issue here is whether one understands the history of academic production as a linear process of intellectual growth punctuated by major breakthroughs in understanding, or as a political process structured by the same kinds of inequalities and struggles that characterize the social worlds that are the object of anthropological analysis.