Uneven Geographies of Capital and Labour: The Lessons of European Works Councils

This contribution explores the ways in which trade unions have sought to organise workers in transnational corporations (TNCs) before looking at the pitfalls and possibilities of European Works Councils in more detail. The EWC directive covers an estimated 1400 companies across Europe, employing at least 15 million workers, and there are now more than 500 EWCs in existence. These new institutions are designed to allow employee representatives from across Europe to meet together for the purposes of information exchange and consultation with the senior managers from the TNC concerned. EWCs thus provide new horizontal networks of employee representatives across Europe and create new opportunities for information exchange, the formulation of transnational trade union responses and strategy and even active solidarity across national divides. This contribution draws upon original empirical evidence that highlights the difficulties of making EWCs work in this way. It is argued that there are at least four areas in which trade union intervention would make a difference to the operation of EWCs: (1) building active networks within and beyond any EWC; (2) sharing corporate intelligence; (3) formulating strategy at the level of the EWC; and (4) fostering identification with colleagues in other parts of the corporate network.     

Constituting Corporate Europe: A Study of Elite Social Organization

Abstract: This article explores the emerging shape and form of the European corporate community since 1996. We examine the cohesion of corporate Europe through the network of interlocking corporate directorates and memberships in the European Round Table of Industrialists. We focus on the unequal structure of representation; the interplay of national and transnational aspects of the network; the role of finance capitalists as a signpost of a regime of internationalized finance capital; and the embeddedness of corporate Europe in the global corporate network. Although the transnational European network gained in strength while national networks eroded, expansion of the European network did not negate a structure of representation favoring the northwest. Bankers became less dominant, yet industrialists with financial connections formed the core of the European corporate community, signaling a departure from national corporate communities centered upon banks. At the threshold of the current economic crisis, corporate Europe comprised the most integrated segment of the global corporate elite.     

Integration Processes in European Research and Development: A Comparative Spatial Interaction Approach Using Project Based Research and Development Networks,Co‐Patent Networks and Co‐Publication Networks

This study focuses on integration processes in European Research and Development (R&D) by analyzing the spatiotemporal dimension of three different R&D collaboration networks across Europe. The studied networks cover different types of knowledge creation, namely project‐based R&D networks within the European Union (EU) Framework Programmes (FPs), co‐patent networks, and co‐publication networks. Integration in European R&D—one of the main pillars of the EU Science Technology and Innovation policy—refers to the harmonization of fragmented national research systems across Europe and to the free movement of knowledge and researchers. The objective is to describe and compare spatiotemporal patterns at a regional level and to estimate the evolution of separation effects over the time period 1999–2006 that influence the probability of cross‐region collaborations in the distinct networks under consideration. The study adopts a spatial interaction modeling perspective, econometrically specifying a panel generalized linear model relationship, taking into account spatial autocorrelation among flows using eigenfunction spatial filtering methods. The results show that geographical factors are a lower hurdle for R&D collaborations in the FP networks than in co‐patent networks and co‐publication networks. Furthermore, it is shown that the geographical integration is higher in the FP network.     

Regional Efficiency in the European Union

This paper examines existing disparities in technical efficiency levels across the European regions over the period 1986–2002. The results reveal that technical efficiency is not randomly distributed across space in the European setting. On the contrary, the different tests performed highlight the presence of positive spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity in the distribution under consideration. In fact, we have detected several regional clusters characterized by similar efficiency levels distinguishing them from the rest of the sample. Nevertheless, the estimates carried out show the existence of a process of regional convergence in terms of technical efficiency during the study period. Our findings also reveal that factors such as the regional stock of capital per worker or the patterns of productive specialization are relevant in explaining the changes in technical efficiency experienced by the European regions between 1986 and 2002.     

Canadian foreign direct investment in the United States by type: mergers and acquisitions, greenfield, real estate, joint ventures and investment increases

This paper provides an overview of Canadian foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States by type. Mergers and acquisitions (M&As), greenfield investments, joint ventures, real estate purchases and increases to existing investments are compared spatially, through time (using a data set that consists of transactions from 1977 to 1994) and by industrial classification. Over this study's time-frame, direct investors from Canada were most likely to perform a real estate or M&A transaction in the United States (and least likely to be involved in a joint venture). The most consequential years for real estate purchases were the 1970s and early 1980s; whereas M&A and greenfield transactions have gained in proportionate importance through time. M&As, greenfield and investment increases were most often enumerated as manufacturing transactions, but mining and consumer and business services were also very common. A series of bivariate regression models established that growing state economies significantly increased M&A, real estate, greenfield and investment increase activity from Canada. Relative regional specializations (as given by location quotients) provided additional spatial information. M&As formed a pattern of specialization that emphasized the Great Lakes region and also the central portion of the US (roughly following the Mississippi River). Greenfield and investment increase transactions favoured states along the east coast and those adjacent to the Canada-US border. Real estate investors were most attracted to the US south and extreme west.     

Regional Innovation Policies in the Czech Republic and the Case of Prague: An Emerging Role of a Regional Level?

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the development of Czech innovation policy which started to get its shape in the first years of the 21st century. The article traces its origins to a number of interlinked factors—the introduction of European regional policy in the Czech Republic, the increased inflow of foreign direct investment into R&D-intensive sectors and also the devolution of power to Czech regions that were established in 2001 and gave a new, regional dimension to research and innovation policy. It pays particular attention to the process through which the regionally-based innovation policy advocated by the European Union (EU) has been translated and adapted in the context of a new EU member state. As an illustration of the efforts at the regional level to make a better use of the potential of R&D and innovation in the regional development, a case study of a regional innovation strategy of the City of Prague is analysed. The City of Prague was selected for a critical analysis of an innovation system and innovation policy due to the fact that it is a region with significant but until now not fully exploited innovation potential and, in addition, its first innovation strategy has been recently adopted. The innovation strategy is closely scrutinized and the process of its elaboration is critically examined within the European and especially national context. The authors demonstrate that there is a lot of conceptual ambiguity and confusion associated with the process of transferring the experiences of Western European regions to the Czech Republic. The authors believe that at least some of their observations and analysis of weaknesses of the process through which the regional innovation strategy (RIS) has been carried out will have relevance for other Czech regions and even for other regions in the new EU member states.     

Regional Competitiveness in Central European Countries: In Search of a Useful Conceptual Framework

The goal of this discussion paper is to examine the relevance of selected influential theoretical and conceptual approaches to regional competitiveness for specific geographical and institutional contexts of Central European (CE) regions. We argue that strategic documents and policies (both nation- and region-wide) in CE countries are based on un-critical applications of a few popular concepts of competitiveness that were originally proposed and mainly applied in Western European and US regions. Existing empirical evidence documents a strong role of exogenous factors of competitiveness in CE regions, the in-house character of firm innovations and weak demand for innovations, and other impediments of R&D collaboration. We suggest that these (and other factors) limit the applicability of concepts such as regional innovation systems and Porterian clusters in the context of many CE regions. On the other hand, we argue that some other concepts such as the global production networks perspective or related variety and economic complexity can provide some relevant and inspiring frameworks for analysing regional competitiveness in CE countries.     

The ripple effects of large-scale transport infrastructure investment

We analyze the general equilibrium effects of an asymmetric decrease in transport costs, combining a large-scale spatial dynamic general equilibrium model for 267 European NUTS-2 regions with a detailed transport model at the level of individual road segments. As a case study, we consider the impact of the road infrastructure investments in Central and Eastern Europe of the European Cohesion Policy. Our analysis suggests that the decrease in transportation costs benefits the targeted regions via substantial increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and welfare compared to the baseline, and a small increase in population. The geographic information embedded in the transport model leads to relatively large predicted benefits in peripheral countries such as Greece and Finland, which hardly receive funds, but whose trade links cross Central and Eastern Europe, generating profit from the investments there. The richer, Western European nontargeted regions also enjoy a higher GDP after the investment in the East, but these effects are smaller. Thus, the policy reduces interregional disparities. There are rippled patterns in the predicted policy spillovers. In nontargeted countries, regions trading more intensely with regions where the investment is taking place on average benefit more compared to other regions within the same country, but also compared to neighboring regions across an international border. We uncover that regions importing goods from Central and Eastern Europe enjoy the largest spillovers. These regions become more competitive and expand exports, to the detriment of other regions in the same country.     

Planning Cultures and Histories: Influences on the Evolution of Planning Systems and Spatial Development Patterns

Abstract

This special issue addresses the influences of planning cultures and histories on the evolution of planning systems and spatial development. As well as providing an international comparative perspective on these issues, the collection of articles also engages in a search for new conceptual frameworks and alternative points of view to better understand and explain these differences. The articles focus on three main aspects: the change in planning systems and its impact on spatial development patterns; the interrelationship between planning cultures and histories from a path-dependency perspective; and the variations in physical development patterns resulting from different planning cultures and histories. Papers from different parts of the European continent present evidence at different scales to illustrate these aspects. In all cases, the specific combinations of political, ideological, social, economic and technological factors are important in determining urban and regional planning trajectories as well as spatial development patterns.     

The fractal geometry of ancient Maya settlement

Ancient Maya settlement patterns exhibit fractal geometry both within communities and across regions. Fractals are self-similar sets of fractional dimension. In this paper, we show how Maya settlement patterns are logically and statistically self-similar. We demonstrate how to measure the fractal dimensions (or Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimensions) of several data sets. We describe nonlinear dynamical processes, such as chaotic and self-organized critical systems, that generate fractal patterns. As an illustration, we show that the fractal dimensions calculated for some Maya settlement patterns are similar to those produced by warfare, supporting recent claims that warfare is a significant factor in Maya settlement patterning.     

“You can make it here!”: Producing Europe’s mobile borders in the New Gambia

European border externalization to “sending states” throughout Africa is a well-documented phenomenon. Less clear, however, is the role that African governments and implementing organizations play in border externalization, nor the precise mechanisms by which European borders are “mobilized” (Szary & Giraut, 2015) and projected into everyday spaces in “sending states”. Drawing on a case study of three different European border enforcement projects in The Gambia, I argue that a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, and the Gambian government makes Gambians themselves agents of the European border. Drawing upon Szary and Giraut's notion of “borderities” (2015), I illustrate how the border is projected into The Gambia through an articulation of humanitarian borderwork with developmental approaches intended to solve the “root causes of migration” (Zaun & Nantermoz, 2021). Furthermore, I argue that the Gambian government is not passive in the process of border externalization, but actively involved in interpreting and rearticulating European policies and narratives about migration. Following Adamson and Tsourapas' (2020) reworking of the “migration state” concept, I demonstrate the Gambian government's active interests in bordering its own citizens: simultaneously encouraging emigration for the sake of national “development” while immobilizing young Gambians as part of a broader strategy to cooperate with European states. This research illustrates both the immense value of a “borderities” approach to studying contemporary migration management, and the close association between borderwork and nationhood in African post-colonial states.     

Sectoral Resilience: Conceptualizing Industry-Specific Spatial Patterns of Interactive Crisis Adjustment

While the regional resilience approach stresses major place-specific factors of adaptability to economic crises, industry-sector-specific mechanisms of shock response, which often cross-regional boundaries, still require conceptualization relating to aspects of resilience. This paper proposes the concept of sectoral resilience, which acknowledges that the actors who constitute the value chains and production systems of an industry sector, when struck by a major global crisis, collectively and interactively form a sector-specific pattern of response and adaptation. As these actors often strategically use assets at different locations, industry-specific spatial patterns of adaptation emerge that affect various regions in differing ways. After defining the suggested concept and related terminology, its geographical logics are outlined. Then major conceptual pillars of sectoral resilience are depicted, relating to six major, partly interdependent process fields. For each of them, mechanisms of shock adaptation of an industry sector and major factors of inter-sectoral distinctions of resilience patterns are pointed out, briefly illustrated by the examples of the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors. The approach helps us better understand industry-specific features of crisis adaptation and intersections of regional and corporate logics of resilience.     

Penicillin and the European response to post-war American hegemony: the case of Leo-penicillin

In post-war years, penicillin played a fundamental role in radically changing the system of pharmaceutical research and production, with US firms and research centres taking the lead. As with other areas of science and technology it also became a domain in which European actors sought to adapt to and counter US policies and practices of hegemony, becoming part of a broader pattern of US–European relationships during the Cold War. Three European companies succeeded in catching up with the Anglo-American companies and became large antibiotics producers. This paper reconstructs the story of one of them, Løvens Kemiske Fabrik (now Leo Pharma), and of its Leo-penicillin, focusing on previously unexplored material from Leo Pharma corporate archives and on other archival sources. Løven’s case is particularly interesting, because the Danish firm had no substantial pre-war expertise in fermentation, the key technical skill required in penicillin production. More specifically, the argument is that the choices of pharmaceutical companies played a major role in the European answer to the invasion of American penicillin, finding market, rather than state-sponsored, methods to counter US hegemony. This response, though, also highlighted the limits of European capabilities in the 1940s and the early 1950s.     

The territorial dynamics of innovation: a Europe United States comparative analysis

The United States and European Union differ significantly interms of their innovative capacity: the former have been ableto gain and maintain world leadership in innovation and technologywhile the latter continues to lag. Notwithstanding the magnitudeof this innovation gap and the political emphasis placed uponit on both sides of the Atlantic, very little systematic comparativeanalysis has been carried out on its causes. The empirical literaturehas emphasized the structural differences between the two continentsin the quantity and quality of the major ‘inputs’to innovation: R&D investments and human capital. The verydifferent spatial organization of innovative activities in theEU and the US—as suggested by a variety of contributionsin the field of economic geography—could also influenceinnovative output. This article analyses and compares a wideset of territorial processes that influence innovation in Europeand the United States. The higher mobility of capital, populationand knowledge in the US not only promotes the agglomerationof research activity in specific areas of the country but alsoenables a variety of territorial mechanisms to fully exploitlocal innovative activities and (informational) synergies. Inthe European Union, in contrast, imperfect market integrationand institutional and cultural barriers across the continentprevent innovative agents from maximizing the benefits fromexternal economies and localized interactions, but compensatoryforms of geographical process may be emerging in concert withfurther European integration.     

Fuelwood collection as daily practice: a wood charcoal study for the colonial period North Carolina Piedmont

ABSTRACT

European colonization brought innumerable changes and choices to Native groups across the Southeast. Scholars continue to examine the various ways communities navigated these disruptions. Studying the remains of daily practice offers a window into how communities negotiated continuity and change. Wood charcoal, representing the remains of daily fires, provides an important, but underutilized, method for examining people’s daily routines and interactions with their surrounding landscapes. This paper examines wood charcoal assemblages from several sites in the North Carolina Piedmont that span the precontact to early colonial periods (AD 1400–1705). Fuelwood collection models are used to consider the environments, practices, and preferences that influenced the composition of wood charcoal assemblages. Comparison of these datasets shows a consistent significant pattern of high-quality fuelwood selection with additional patterns potentially related to long-term use of the same environment and factors related to colonialism. Altogether, these patterns suggest continuity of some daily practices despite disruptions to other aspects of life.     

Dimensions of proximity in knowledge-based networks: The cases of investment banking and automobile design

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.     

Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.     

Context and the role of policies to attract foreign R&D in Europe

This paper explores the effectiveness of policies ‘in’ attracting the foreign research and development (R&D) of multinational enterprises (MNEs) to specific countries in Europe. We develop a macroeconomic investigation covering 29 European countries during the period between 1990 and 2012 in order to address: (a) whether the provision of direct financial support for business R&D is effective for the attraction of foreign R&D; (b) whether direct support is more effective than indirect support for this purpose and (c) whether the link between direct financial support for business R&D and the foreign R&D of MNEs is conditioned by the context within which the support is provided. The results of the analysis show that, first, the provision of direct financial support is generally effective for the attraction of foreign R&D by MNEs. Second, direct support for business R&D is more effective for this purpose than indirect support. Third, the provision of direct financial support for business R&D yields greater returns in contexts that are more socio-economically suitable for knowledge-intensive, innovative activity.     

Do Regions Make a Difference? Regional Innovation Systems and Global Innovation Networks in the ICT Industry

Access to global innovation networks (GINs) has been unequal across the regions of the world. While certain regions are considered knowledge hubs in GINs, others still remain marginalized; this points to the role of regional innovation systems (RISs) in the emergence and development of GINs. Using firm-level data collected through a survey and case studies in 2009–2010, this paper systematically compares the patterns of global networks in the information and communications technology industry in a selection of European, Chinese and Indian regions. The results show that GINs are more common in regions which are not organizationally and institutionally thick, suggesting that GINs may be a compensatory mechanism for weaknesses in the RIS.     

Cross-border corporate ownership and capital market integration in Europe: evidence from portfolio and industrial holdings

The level and determinants of cross-border holdings are evaluatedusing data on the ownership structures of 711 MSCI index companiesin 16 European countries. The level of foreign ownership inthe 16 countries is significant, but spread unevenly, with USfinancial institutions controlling the majority of foreign stakes.Countries' borders, rather than company size ranges are themain lines of discrimination between high and low levels offoreign corporate ownership. Major factors influencing the intensityof cross-border links include the proximity of investors tothe destination of capital, and corporate governance. From theperspective of international corporate ownership, the levelof capital market integration in Europe is low and the conceptof the pan-European company remains a long way from being realised.Implications are drawn for future research and integration policy.