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Introduction: linking industries across the world - new challenges to the World economy, Claes G. Alvstam, and Eike W. Schamp. Making Sense Of Globalization: The World Of Value Chains And Standards: Building global institutions: the diffusion of management standards in the world economy - an institutional perspective, Boris Braun 'Fragmenting the Chain': economic and spatial differentiation in the post-liberalisation South African citrus export commodity chain, Charles Mather. Regional Systems And Global Networks: The Case of Innovation: Global networks as open gates for regional innovation systems, Ayda Eraydin Local and global networks of innovation, Sam Ock Park From technology transfer to knowledge transfer: an institutional transition, Norbert Buzas. The Firm In An Interlinked Territorial World: The World Of Production: Internal networking in the globalising firm: the case of r&d allocation in German automobile component supply companies, Martina Fuchs Transnational corporations and the post-socialist economy: learning the ropes and forging new relationships in contemporary Poland, Boleslaw Domanski From transfer to hybridisation? the changing organisation of Taiwanese PC investments in China, Jinn-yuh Hsu Contrasting experiences with business networking in a transition economy: the case of Poland, Tadeusz Stryjakiewicz. The Reorganization Of 'Local' Production Systems In A Globalized World Economy: Industrial clusters in China: embedded or disembedded?, Jici Wang and Xin Tong Cross-national ethnic networks in financial services: a case study of local banks in Singapore, Shuang Yann Wong 'The Region is Local': restructuring the clothing industry of Southern Africa, Christian M. Rogerson Index.

The European banking crisis and the subsequent euro crisis triggered considerable shocks in Germany’s financial world which fully revealed the weaknesses of the German banking sector. Changing regulation and the low-interest-rate policy from the European Central Bank put the bank’s business models into question. Furthermore, delays became apparent in the improvement of Frankfurt’s sector-specific infrastructure. Frankfurt’s resilience in the crises results from the entangled agency by various actors at local, national, and European levels. Employment in the financial sector at large remained rather stable. Frankfurt increased its role as a European centre in bank and insurance supervision and considerably improved its infrastructure in higher education and research as well as in the digital economy. Although still fragile in various aspects, Frankfurt may become a potential winner on the European continent from the forthcoming Brexit.

Globally, new forms of electromobility are challenging established transport technologies based on internal combustion engines. We explore how this transition is simultaneously unfolding in four countries, enabling us to shed some light on the dynamics and determinants of technological path creation. Our analysis covers two old industrialized countries (France and Germany) and two newly industrialized countries (China and India) with very different market conditions and policy frameworks. It reveals enormously different choices of technologies and business models and traces them back to four main drivers of divergence: technological capabilities, demand conditions, political priorities and economic governance.

Regional engagement of universities is a rather new issue. Africa has become a battlefield of conflicting notions of the role of universities and the meaning of their “third” mission. The author asserts that regional knowledge spillovers in Africa emerge differently than those on other continents, particularly when peripheral universities in a nonmetropolitan context are involved. Because empirical evidence on knowledge communication between the university and its regional economy is largely absent in Africa, this chapter presents a case study of three universities in the bilingual country of Cameroon. Given the weakness or absence of spillovers of codified communication—usually defined as “visible” measures of regional engagement reported in the international literature—the chapter offers anecdotal evidence of various kinds of almost “invisible” communication between the university and its region, predominantly through research. The author concludes that the African university still has much to do to improve its regional engagement.

Metropolregionen werden in der aktuellen Globalisierungsdebatte als Entscheidungs-, Kontroll- und Koordinationszentren von internationaler Bedeutung verstanden. Sie «bündeln» entsprechende Knoten (hubs), deren Verortung, funktionale Bedeutung und regionale Reichweite die Rolle und den Entwicklungspfad der Metropolregion bestimmen. Frankfurt/Rhein-Main ist erst in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten in diese Rolle hineingewachsen. Knotenfunktionen bestehen heute in drei Themenfeldern: dem Innovationszentrum, dem Finanzplatz und dem Markt(informations)platz. Im Entwicklungspfad der Metropolregion zeigt sich, daß sie zunächst in nationale Bedeutung hineinwachsen mußten, bevor sie internationale Bedeutung gewinnen konnten. Die Knotenfunktionen der Metropolregion Frankfurt/Rhein-Main in den drei genannten Feldern sind jedoch «ungesichert». Daher muß offen bleiben, ob der Aufstieg von Frankfurt/Rhein-Main zur europäischen Metropolregion Auswirkungen auf das weitere System von Metropolregionen in Europa hat.

Multinational Companies (MNCs) from the global North still are major players in globalization. In response to increased competition based on knowledge and innovation, MNCs are currently trying to implement new forms in ‘transnational’ knowledge and human resource (HR) management which are appropriate to the company's knowledge base. The paper focuses on the specifics of a synthetic knowledge base in the automobile sector, and presents an explorative analysis of new tools in global knowledge and HR management, using the example of three German companies. These tools refer both to skill enhancing on the shop floor and improvements in global knowledge sharing among engineers in R&D. The paper concludes by discussing the interplay of MNC management and national education and training policies in the shaping of globalization.

Financial crisis in the world economy - theory crisis in economic geography? A comment on current crisis research in economic geography. Although some economic geographers have responded quickly to the recent world financial crisis, this paper identifies some major weaknesses in current theoretical thinking in economic geography. It differentiates between the understanding of the causes of a crisis and empirical research on its consequences. Deficits in the analysis of causes relate to a systemic view of the coherence of territories in the world economy, the macroperspective necessary to understand the world economy, the interconnectedness of the financial and real economy, and, finally, different dimensions of historical time as seen by Braudel and Wallerstein. Three recent theoretical concepts are discussed which seem to offer some understanding of the historical processes leading to crisis, i.e., neoschumpeterian innovation theory, evolutionary economic geography, and regulation theory. Finally, the paper offers two options for the current economic geographical analysis of the crisis which are not necessarily mutually exclusive: Either focusing on a macro-perspective of the world economy with the concept of regulation theory and/or strengthening the “traditional” competences of economic geography in a deeper analysis of the impacts of the crisis.

The financial centre - a cluster? A multiscalar approach and evidence from a case study of Frankfurt/Main: The cluster approach has recently been applied in various studies of financial centres, for example of London or Frankfurt. Its current use in financial geography, however, seems to be more metaphorical than analytical. This paper firstly discusses specific sectoral characteristics which make it difficult to simply apply a concept which was developed for the industrial sector to the financial economy. Secondly, value networks in the production processes of financial products indicate that only certain parts of the production process, i.e. knowledge-based, non-repetitive transactions in the network, require local proximities. Following Gordon/McCann in their reasoning on industrial clusters, it is argued that the cluster approach to financial centres calls for a multi-scalar perspective combining the juridical national territory, the advantages of a large urban agglomeration, and, finally, the network externalities of a district within the urban agglomeration, i.e. the “financial district”. This is demonstrated using the example of the financial centre of Frankfurt/RhineMain, a term which stands for the larger urban agglomeration.

Looking at the emergence of knowledge and spaces in a time dependent, i.e., evolutionary perspective, could raise the question of how far both “coevolve”. Coevolution in the neo-schumpeterian perspective of evolutionary economics, however, is anarrow concept requiring precise preconditions. Knowledge and space are rather unclear, fuzzy concepts, neither self- evident on their own nor in their relationship to each other. The paper first introduces two different views on knowledge, i.e., knowledge as a resource and knowledge as practice. Then, different types of knowledge-intensive localities are discussed in order to understand whether these could be seen as coevolving with knowledge. Although the emergence of knowledge (and technologies) is the main focus in evolutionary economics, the idea of coevolving spaces has to be rejected.

Styles of scientific thought in German economic geography. Current changes since 1970. In the recent history of economic geography in Germany since 1970, there have been periods of heterogenous and competing styles of thought and one extended period characterised by a dominant style, i.e. a particularly German version of the spatial approach (Raumwirtschaftslehre). This paper begins with an attempt to view these shifts in the context of changes in society and the generations of scholars. Today, German economic geography is shaped by the increasingly dominant impact of ideas from sociology, although important stimuli for economic geography are also coming from the field of economics. The author argues in favour of retaining the economic aspects of economic geographical thought while remaining open to other styles of thought.

Among the variety of old industrial areas, districts involved in the production of light consumer goods are a special case. Taking the single still-surviving footwear-production district in Germany as an example, the author makes an attempt to reflect on the long-term decline of an industrial district and the resulting path dependency of regional development. An evolutionary approach is taken which starts from different institutional bases and reveals a complex mix of temporalities and spatialities in the development path of enterprises and the region. The major empirical findings contrast two dominant types of strategic response to decline: firms either stayed in the industry, but left the region; or stayed in the region, but left the industry. The author concludes by mapping implications for territorial development.

The competitiveness of firms and regions is increasingly dependent on their capabilities to organise knowledge processes that unfold between different knowledge providers. In this article it is argued that this knowledge management in networks is a cognitive process that uses different dimensions of proximity. As much of the knowledge required is 'tacit' in character, 'embedded' social interaction becomes crucial. There are, however, conflicts of interest in business networks. The organisation of knowledge processes thus becomes a complex governance task that depends to a large extent on the characteristics of the learning processes of the sectors involved. This paper offers some empirical evidence from the service sector with the case of M&A activities and from the manufacturing sector with the case of automobile design.

It is generally assumed that cities are focal points or hubs in processes of knowledge generation and diffusion, and, consequently, centres of regional innovation Systems. This paper questions the importance of local influences in current reorganisation processes of regional knowledge Systems by making use of the triplehelix concept on innovation processes. Using the example of four knowledge Systems in the major economic clusters of the region Frankfurt/Rhein- Main - i.e. chemical industries, automobile manufacturing, biotechnology and finance -, it is concluded that the specialisation process taking place among German metropolitan regions and the emergence of Frankfurt as a hub for market access is driven mainly by non-local forces.

Evolutionary economics provides an interesting and promising approach to an old problem of economic geography—explaining the interrelation between space-place and time. Together with the evolutiona...

In this paper we argue that the primary forces behind change in the European urban and regional system are those in the social organization of pro duction of goods and services. After reviewing on going transformations in the production system, we reflect on the legacy of Europe's earlier spatially frag mented order. Then we consider the significance of a changing regulatory environment and the strategies of large corporations for the geography of produc tion. Finally, we explore the likely economic and pol itical consequences of emergent patterns of European regional imbalance.

Herausforderungen der 90er Jahre an die deutsche « Automobilfilière ». — Am Ende einer langen Expansionsphase, die in einem gegebenen Standortsystem stattfand, stehen Autoproduzenten wie deren Zulieferer gleichzeitig vor stagnierenden traditionellen Märkten und neu erschlossenen Märkten, einer zunehmenden Konkurrenz durch japanische 'transplants' — sowohl in den USA als auch in Groäbritannien — sowie dem Aufkommen einer neuen Produktionsphilosophie. Die neuen Unternehmensstrategien, die sowohl interne und externe Flexibilisierung der Produktion als auch die Internationalisierung der Produktionskette in Europa anstreben, versuchen zugleich, die technische Kompetenz in Deutschland zu sichern. Daraus entsteht eine neue râumliche Arbeitsteilung, die erhebliche Auswirkungen auf solche Regionen haben wird, die bislang traditionell vom Fahrzeugbau bestimmt werden., The German automobile filière facing new challenges during the 1990s. — At the end of a long expansion phase which happened in a spatial production System of car manufacturing existant for long, car manufacturer in Germany as well as their suppliers face stagnating tradition al markets and the opening of new markets at the same time, increasing competition by Japanese transplants either located in the U.S. or U.K., and the emergence of a new philosophy of production. New strategies of enterprises both in search of internal and external flexibility and of internationalising the filière on the European level try to safeguard, at the same time, technical competence in Germany. Hence, a new spatial division of labour is emerging which will have major repercussions on those regions traditionally determined by automobile production., A la fin d'une longue phase d'expansion se déroulant dans un système spatial déjà ancien, les firmes automobiles allemandes ainsi que leurs fournisseurs font face à la stagnation des marchés traditionnels et à l'ouverture de marchés nouveaux, à la concurrence progressive des 'transplants' japonais localisés aux États-Unis ou en Angleterre, et enfin à l'apparition d'une nouvelle philosophie de la production. Des stratégies nouvelles se composant de la recherche d'une flexibilité interne et externe et d'une internationalisation de la filière au niveau de l'Europe essaient en même temps de conserver la compétence technologique en Allemagne. Donc, une nouvelle division spatiale du travail pourrait se développer, qui aura des effets importants sur les régions traditionnellement marquées par la production automobile., Schamp E.W. La filière automobile allemande face aux enjeux des années 1990. In: Revue Géographique de l'Est, tome 33, n°2,1993. Mutations technologiques en Allemagne. pp. 107-122.

Anfange: Unter A. versteht man die Nutzung groser landwirtschaftlicher Flachen bei intensiver Bodenbearbeitung zur Gewinnung von Pflanzenertragen fur Nahrung, Kleidung und Futtermittel. Er nimmt mit der Seshaftwerdung spatmesolithischer Kulturen seinen Anfang: Alteste Pflanzenreste, die auf A. schliesen lassen, sind in Vorderasien im Gebiet des ›Fruchtbaren Halbmondes‹ aus der Zeit 8000 bis 6000 v.Chr. gefunden worden. Spater verfugten die mesopotamischen und agyptischen Hochkulturen schon uber einen entwickelten und spezialisierten A. Im griechisch-romischen Bereich schlieslich wird die Einfuhrung des A. durch die Sage in die Vorgeschichte (Geschenk der Demeter o. a. Gotter) verlegt, ist aber wohl im 4. Jahrtausend v.Chr. erfolgt. Die ersten archaologischen Befunde fur A. im griechischen Raum stammen jedoch aus der minoisch-mykenischen Epoche. In historischer Zeit ist der A. schlieslich unbestritten die wichtigste Grundlage der antiken Wirtschaft.

Rather than adopting a summative or reflective stance, this postscript attempts to take stock of the experiences of Frankfurt and Tel Aviv with a view to looking forward. We attempt to generalize about the conditions under which node economies emerge in order to provide a conceptual infrastructure for understanding similar processes in other locations. Despite the glorification of the global city phenomena, most places will never attain or even aspire to that pinnacle. Notwithstanding massive public investment, global image creating events (Expos, Olympics, World Fairs), flagship regeneration and place-marketing, most locations will never be able to compete with historical accidents, time-honored business practices and human capital skills acquired over long periods. Thus the maximum aspiration for emerging nodes would seem to be selective engagement with the global economy and a passage of entry via particular global networks. Locations are likely to connect with other locations as nodes in a global market place and grounded in specialization: logistics nodes, high tech nodes, international finance nodes, cultural nodes and the like. The multiplicity of routes into the global economy is thus varied and fascinating. We attempt to synthesize the experience of Frankfurt and Tel Aviv in order to highlight this diversity. In addition, we draw out some dominant themes that arise from the different studies presented above. These are given cursory attention here but potentially provide a wide research agenda for understanding the role of nodes in the global economy.

Since the beginning of industrialization, the growth of most of Europe’s larger cities has been linked to the growth of industry. Cities have partially evolved into the cores of larger economic areas that prospered with industrial growth. Due to the simultaneous transition to the ‘second industrial divide’ (Piore and Sabel, 1985) and to a society that produces more income and employment from services than from manufacturing, the economic base of cities has changed. De-industrialization and tertiarization of cities have therefore become quasi ‘normal’ processes of European city-reconstruction in recent decades, and new city trajectories have emerged, based in part on cities’ historic (industrial) roots. Wherever economic actors rebind cities to the process of globalization or, as we will argue, the Europeanization of urban economic regions, the trajectory of these cities must be reinterpreted. This chapter will address the process of redefining the economic basis of the Frankfurt/RheinMain region in the age of globalization

Frankfurt’s airport is well known; it is the largest intercontinental airport in Germany and, measured by number of passengers, the second largest in Europe. Although the European global cities of London and Paris have more airports (Frankfurt has only one), the importance of Frankfurt as a transportation node in the pattern of global connections is reflected in this extent. Airports belong to the transportation infrastructure of every modern economy. As cities becoming increasingly embedded in international relationships they need the appropriate infrastructure for the transportation of people, goods, and information. The integration of the modern global system also touches upon the enormous possibilities available for frequent and distant travel, for either business or pleasure. These reasons highlight not only the importance of international and intercontinental air traffic, but also the importance attached to airports as transportation nodes. On a world-wide scale, air traffic has grown at an unbelievable rate over the past decades and many experts predict a continuation of this growth in the future.

The ‘global economy’ is increasingly perceived as a catch-all phrase. It evokes vastly divergent emotions ranging from resentment and anger over poverty and sustainability to pride and admiration over technological progress and human ingenuity. For all its fuzziness (Markusen, 1999), globalization does however convey two major shifts that pervade much of the economic and spatial change taking place in the world economy. The first relates to the notion of scale. Whether distance has died or simply been minimized (Cairncross, 1997), globalization has redrawn the limits on spatial interaction. The second relates to the seamlessness of the world economy. Globalization has led to the obliteration or neglect of borders. A truly global economy implies the unfettered flows of people, goods and services for whom regional or national boundaries are increasingly irrelevant.

Contributors. Tables. Figures. 1. Emerging Nodes in the Global Economy: An Introduction D. Felsenstein, et al. Section I: Metropolitan Structure and Restructuring. 2. From Industry to Services: The Changing Basis of the Frankfurt/Rhein-Main Metropolitan Economy E.W. Schamp. 3. Globalization Processes and their Impact on the Structure of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area A. Shachar, D. Felsenstein. Section II: 'Growth Engines' of the Node Economy. 4. Investing in an Emerging Node: Foreign-Owned Companies in the Tel Aviv Economy D. Felsenstein, Y. Ergas. 5. Frankfurt - An Emerging International Financial Center M.H. Grote. 6. Tel Aviv as a Global High Tech 'Hot Spot' - Seedbed or Enclave? D. Felsenstein, Y. Ergas. 7. From a Transport Node to a Global Player: The Changing Character of the Frankfurt Airport E.W. Schamp. Section III: Producer-Driven Activities. 8. The Tel-Aviv Producer Services Sector: Change in an Era of Globalization A. Mossek. 9. The Frankfurt Metropolitan Region as a Market Hub E.W. Schamp, U. Rachor-Hagelueken, A. Grimm. Section IV: Consumer-Driven Activities. 10. Global Trends in the Tel-Aviv Tourism Sector N. Shoval. 11. International Tourism in the Frankfurt/Rhein-Main Region H. Rudolph, R. Steinert. 12. Identifying Globalization Trends in the Cultural Industries of Tel Aviv D. Felsenstein, H. Barkai. Section V: Conclusions. 13. Emerging Nodes in a Global Economy: A Postscript E.W. Schamp, D. Felsenstein, A. Shachar. Index.

Urban marketplaces and their market regions seem to have become topics of the past. The traditional symbiosis of the urban marketplace and its ‘own’ market area has been challenged by many factors, including the following three. First, modern information and communication technologies appear to have made the urban marketplace obsolete, most notably through the new distribution path of e-commerce. The internet serves as a virtual marketplace not only for consumer goods, but increasingly for intermediary products as well (business-to-business, or B2B, solutions). Second, traditional regional markets are being undermined by the integration of national business areas into larger business regions, as well as by the growing interrelation of global business flows. A new business region was created in 1993 with the establishment of the European domestic market, which is the largest in the world in terms of population and economic power. Third, the global division of labor continues to develop, and this results not only in the extension of many value chains through new intermediary production phases, but also in a disproportionate increase in intermediary products and services that can be traded on markets. Virtually all publications on the subject of globalization note that worldwide trade has increased more over the past decades than world production (Dicken, 1998), and that it continues to grow.

The European automobile industry has never before manufactured as many cars as it does today1. Equally, private households in western Europe have never possessed as many cars as they currently do, whether measured absolutely or relatively (in automobiles per thousand inhabitants). In 1991, in terms of the number of registrations, the European Community market was almost comparable in size to that of the USA, with 140 and 145 million registrations, respectively. But the market in the larger European Union will greatly exceed that in the USA and dwarf the smaller Japanese market. With 37 million registrations in 1991, the Japanese market was approximately the same size as that in West Germany alone. Future prospects look good in view of the rapidly emerging east European markets. It would clearly seem that the earlier economic shocks of the 1970s have been splendidly overcome during the 1980s in Europe.

The preceding chapters have drawn an iridescent picture of different automobile production systems in varying states of change and dissolution in a variety of locations in Europe. There is ample evidence both of continuing fragmentation of markets and production and of integration on a broader European scale taking place simultaneously. In the introductory chapter of this book, the broader production system approach was suggested as a promising framework for gaining an understanding of the ongoing changes in the spatial organisation of automobile production of Europe. Although this approach has been used more implicitly than explicitly in several of the subsequent chapters, the analyses in these chapters have placed particular emphasis upon the basic changes currently at work in the transformation and regulation spheres of production (see Fig. 1.3). In this chapter, we will attempt to tie together, albeit imperfectly, the different strands of the story in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary changes in the spatial organisation of the emergent European automobile production system.

For several decades the automobile industry was a key sector in the German economy, substantially determining its rate of growth. More than 20 per cent of domestic value added stemmed from this and related sectors at the beginning of the 1990s. As will be verified many times in this chapter, the automobile production system historically has emerged as a national system which still matters today. This above all else justifies dealing with a particular ‘German’ case. This production system has been extremely successful during the 1980s both on domestic and foreign markets, compared to its European neighbours, mainly a result of qualitative rather than quantitative growth due to shifts into higher valued automobiles. In what follows, some of the factors determining the growth and international competitiveness of the German automobile production system will be considered. The chapter will use Porter’s (1990) diamond of international competitiveness as a starting point as it stresses the combined effects of different factors for its production and reproduction. These factors are: first, the challenging demand on the domestic market, both by number of customers as the German market by far is the largest in Europe and by clients’ preferences as customers were prepared to buy larger, better equipped and higher valued automobiles. Second, the long-term competition among five large independent firms in the automobile sector, mainly sustained by technical competences.

This wide-ranging Handbook is the first major compilation of the theoretical and empirical research that is forging the new and exciting paradigm of evolutionary economic geography.