Clark University | Economic Geography Journal

Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers, edited by Helga Leitner, Jamie Peck, and Eric S. Sheppard
Neil Smith, Page 359
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Entrepreneurship, Investment and Spatial Dynamics: Lessons and Implications for an Enlarged EU, edited by Peter Nijkamp, Ronald L. Moomaw, and Iulia Traistaru Siedschlag
Bert van der Knaap, Page 363
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Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast, edited by Martin V. Melosi and Joseph H. Pratt
Martin J. Pasqualetti, Page 365
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Industrial Agglomeration and New Technologies: A Global Perspective, edited by Masatsugu Tsuji, Emanuele Giovannetti, and Mitsuhiro Kagami
Simona Iammarino, Page 367
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Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles, by Ivan Light
Mark Ellis, Page 369
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The Handbook of Service Industries, edited by John R. Bryson and Peter W. Daniels
Proinnsias Breathnach, Page 371
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Money and Liberation: The Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements, by Peter North
Angus Cameron, Page 373
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World City, by Doreen Massey
Jamie Peck, Page 375
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The Neglected King: The Customer in the New Knowledge Ecology of Innovation, by Gernot Grabher, Oliver Ibert, and Saskia Flohr

Abstract: Despite the universal mantra that "the customer is king," the role of the customer has so far seemed to have been confined to a passive recipient of products. Recently, however, this traditional perception has been challenged. On the one hand, users are increasingly appreciated as reflexive actors who are actively involved in the evaluation, modification, and configuration of products. On the other hand, beyond the established repertoire to access external knowledge through interorganizational networks, firms increasingly attempt to harness user knowledge. These two concurrent shifts do not result in a smooth convergence. Rather, they open up a highly contested terrain in which habitual distinctions between the producer and user are blurred. In this article, we map the evolving terrain of user-producer interaction in innovation processes. Specifically, we contrast more traditional approaches to incorporate customer knowledge with an emerging class of innovative user-producer relationships, provisionally dubbed "codevelopment." We then propose a typology of different modes of codevelopment that is organized along two dimensions: the degree of user involvement and the prevailing locus of knowledge production. This typology seeks to capture the heterogeneity of codevelopment approaches and to provide a conceptual template for further empirical research on user involvement in innovation.

Key words: knowledge creation, user-led innovation, communities of practice, epistemic communities, geographies of virtual interaction.

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Governing Finance: Global Imperatives and the Challenge of Reconciling Community Representation with Expertise, by Gordon L. Clark

Abstract: Although the regulation of financial institutions and global markets has been subject to extensive research and policy practice, regulation often comes second to governance: regulation cleans up failures of governance in the management and performance of private financial institutions and markets. There are two theories of the nature and practice of governance; one emphasizes its functional performance, whereas the other emphasizes its political foundations. In this article, I suggest that best practice seeks to reconcile functionalism with community representation and that representation is a virtue in its own right and need not be seen as antithetical to functional efficiency. To sustain these arguments, I note the distinctive characteristics of financial decision making under risk and uncertainty, using simple examples to underscore the benefits of good governance. I then present criteria for well-governed financial institutions, specifically public and private pension funds, with implications for best practice as illustrated by four case studies of funds from Canada, Europe, and the United States. The final section considers the lessons of these case studies for the design of sovereign wealth funds and raises questions as to whether there are limits to reconciliation, given the acceleration of global financial integration.

Key words: finance, governance, path dependence, community sentiments.

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Placing Progress: Contextual Inequality and Immigrant Incorporation in the United States, by Jamie Goodwin-White

Abstract: This article contributes to the growing body of research on the economic incorporation of immigrants by considering the relative wages of immigrants, the adult children of immigrants, and the U.S.-born children of U.S. parentage. By disaggregating these three groups racially, comparing entire wage distributions, and comparing the immigrant cities of New York and Los Angeles with the United States overall, it presents a perspective on the complicated contexts of the intergenerational progress of immigrants. In addition to comparing the groups' relative positions in 1990 and 2000, the article decomposes relative wages such that differences in the educational composition of groups can be isolated from residual wage inequality. This research is of interest because consideration of the U.S.-born or educated children of immigrants invokes questions of social mobility and the persistence of ethnic inequality more generally. The article also contributes to a theoretical debate over place and immigrants' progress by examining the second generation, for whom residence in immigrant cities is often theorized as detrimental to economic incorporation. Finally, it introduces a substantial analysis of local wage structures to questions of immigrants' intergenerational economic progress to a much greater extent than has previously been the case. The results suggest that prospects for immigrants' economic incorporation are geographically specific and should be assessed across multiple generations as a result of the continuing contexts of racial wage inequality.

Key words: 1.5 generation, immigrant economic incorporation, spatial assimilation, labor market contexts, immigrant cities.

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Hybrid Branch Plants: Japanese Lean Production in Poland's Automobile Industry, by Tomasz Majek and Roger Hayter

Abstract: This article examines hybrid branch plants created by an interaction of the routines and conventions of the parent company with those of local institutions. We argue that hybridization is a search for an appropriate mix of practices that ensure viability in local circumstances, rather than necessarily the transfer of established "best" (parent-company) practices. Conceptually, hybridization is interpreted as learning-based (and bargaining) processes that are inherent in the evolution (internationalization) of firms in which alternative trajectories are possible. Empirically, the article examines the recent transfer of lean production to Poland's automobile industry and comparatively and qualitatively analyzes four hybrid branch plants in terms of six dimensions of shop-floor and factory management. Given the explosion of Japanese foreign direct investment in recent decades, its competitive strengths, and the importance that Japanese firms attach to learning processes, lean production is an important case study for hybridization. The four cases illustrate different types of hybrid behavior with different consequences for corporate and local performance.

Key words: hybrid plants, evolutionary firm, lean production, automobile industry.

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