This timely volume provides a thorough analysis of current trends in location and relocation of economic activity globally, regionally and locally. Using robust empirical material this book offers a multidisciplinary, comprehensive overview, critique and extension of long-established theories underpinning patterns of firm (re)location. It explores dominant trends in the mobility and relocation of industries and firms, examines the factors guiding such trends and evaluates their consequences in both developed and emerging economies in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
This book will be appreciated by diverse audiences. Geography and regional science researchers of ‘economic activity location’ can engage with the critical appraisal of key theoretical concepts and an analysis of recent empirical data. Students of human and economic geography, planning, regional development, and global supply chain management in senior years of undergraduate programmes and completing postgraduate degrees will appreciate the accessible language, multiple examples and graphical illustrations of theoretical frameworks underpinning location and relocation of firms and industries, and its consequences. Practitioners, including local and regional policy makers and location consultants will enjoy the comparative discussion of solutions and practices adopted in localities, regions and countries as diverse as China, Brazil, The Netherlands and Poland.
Dr Pawel Capik lectures in international business at Keele University (UK). His research explores interdependencies between international business strategies and operations and regional development theory and practice, particularly in the context of emerging and transition economies. Paweł’s research areas include inward investment attraction and place marketing, sourcing and shoring strategies, large and small firms' internationalization and location motivations and their impacts on regional and local economies.
Dr Magdalena Dej is a geography researcher at the National Institute for Spatial Policy and Housing (Poland). She received her PhD from Jagiellonian Univeristy and specializes in economic local and regional development, particularly the development of rural areas. She authored and coauthored several books, numerous reports and research papers on the impacts of large companies on local communities as well as on rural areas and their relationship with major metropolitan areas and labor markets. Magdalena led and participated in several international research projects financed by the European Union Interreg IVC, International Visegrad Fund, Polish-German Foundation for Science and National Science Centre, Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
