The brokerage role of small states and territories in global corporate networks

Global economic activity is networked through cross‐national linkages between firm headquarters, branches, and subsidiaries. Brokerage emerges as a key territorial function of this network, with some places acting as gateways or intermediaries for flows of global knowledge, information, or trade. This function is particularly salient for small states and territories leveraging the benefits of borrowed size by offering global professional services, warehousing, logistics, shipping, and finance to wealthy nations or high net individuals. Nonetheless, to date our understanding of how small states and territories facilitate wealth accumulation is limited to broad concepts of their role as “gateways” or “brokers.” Drawing on a typology of brokerage and a network analysis applied to the ties between approximately 700,000 firm headquarter and subsidiary locations of 13 of the world's largest stock exchanges, we explore the brokerage role of small states and territories through case studies of Luxembourg, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Panama. Brokerage is found to play an important role in the economy of all four. We argue that each of these small states and territories is uniquely positioned as a broker in global corporate networks, but that this role differs according to geo‐economic and political positionality

The role of tax havens and offshore financial centres in shaping corporate geographies: an industry sector perspective

This paper investigates the role of tax havens and offshore financial centres (THOFC) in the global economy. Network analysis of 24 industry sectors suggests that THOFC feature prominently in knowledge-intensive activities such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and semiconductors, and are least significant in industrial activities such as automobiles and consumer durables, and place-bound activities such as real estate and retailing. Contrasting with the notion that most THOFC are ‘rogue’ offshore territories, the most significant are either continental nation-states or British territorial dependencies. It is concluded that global firm networks often mimic the geographies of taxation more than actual production or consumption activities

Classification techniques in complex spatial databases. On the assessment of a network of world cities.

In linking the power centers of the world-economy, a network of world cities provides the spatial outline for the reproduction of society as a capitalist world-system. An exploratory analysis of this global urban system is necessary to attain insight in its functioning, but specifications and analyses based on the use of classic data analysis techniques are hampered by the fact that they cannot assess the various sources of vagueness in this complex network of world cities. It is argued that by replacing the premises of the classic two-valued framework of conventional mathematics by a fuzzy set-theoretical approach where degrees of membership are computed rather than a mere assessment of crisp memberships in clusters, the inherent vagueness of possible classifications of world cities can be taken into account. This assertion is tested by comparing the results of some mainstream data analysis techniques (principal component analysis, crisp c-means clustering) to the results of a classification based on the premises of fuzzy set theory (fuzzy c-means clustering).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60285/1/derudder.pd

How to cope with mobility expectations in academia: individual travel strategies of tenured academics at Ghent University, Flanders

The production and exchange of knowledge are inextricably linked to different compulsions to corporeal proximity and therefore travel. As primary producers and transferors of knowledge, academics are no exception to this rule, and their compulsions seem to be further propelled by institutional discourses regarding the alleged virtues of “internationalization.” Tenured academics, moreover, have a high degree of independence and can therefore easily choose how to cope with compulsions and constraints to internationalize. However, the business-travel literature has paid scant attention to academics and their individual contexts. In an effort to rectify this situation, this paper explores a travel dataset of tenure-track academics (N=870) working at Ghent University. The insights emerging from this analysis are then contextualized by complementing them with in-depth interviews of tenured academics (N=23) at the same institution. This paper argues, first, that varying compulsions and constraints at home and abroad lead to distinct non-travel and travel-intensive academic roles. And second, that academics who have difficulties coping, try to rationalize their corporeal travel behaviour and their mobility behaviour to meet the needs and expectations to internationalize. These strategies give an indication of how travel-related working practices can become more efficient and sustainable in the future

Global-local dynamics in the transformation of the Jakarta Metropolitan Area into a global city-region

This paper investigates the way in which factors at the global and local level interact in the emergence and development of “global city-regions”, which are deemed to be the contemporary growth machines of the global economy. To this end, this paper takes the Jakarta metropolitan area (JMA) as a case to investigate its evolution in the context of the intertwined dynamics of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow and state intervention over the past three decades. The findings indicate that from a macro-level perspective the JMA has maintained its position as the country’s hotspot for manufacturing investment embedded in East Asian production networks. In addition, we find that the national state has continuously privileged the JMA as the main grounds for national economic development in spite of the country’s shifting political system. We reveal how the nexus between “global” forces (incoming FDI) and “local” conditions (the state’s strategic intervention) has led to the development and restructuring of the JMA as a global city-region

Extensive and intensive globalizations: explicating the low connectivity puzzle of U.S. cities using a city-dyad analysis

This article reports an experiment in world city network analysis focusing on city-dyads. Results are derived from an unusual principal components analysis of 27,966 city-dyads across 5 advanced producer service sectors. A 2-component solution is found that identifies different forms of globalization: extensive and intensive. The latter is characterized by very high component scores and describes the more important city-dyads focused upon London-New York (NYLON). The extensive globalization component heavily features London and New York but with each linked to less important cities. U.S. cities score relatively high on the intensive globalization component and we use this finding to explain the low connectivities of U.S. cities in previous studies of the world city network. The two components are tentatively interpreted in world-systems terms: intensive globalization is the process of core-making through city-dyads; extensive globalization is the process of linking core with non-core through city-dyads

miR-142 favors naïve B cell residence in peripheral lymph nodes

B lymphocyte development proceeds through a well-ordered sequence of steps, leading to the formation of a sizeable mature B population recognizing a diversity of antigens. These latter cells are ultimately responsible for the production of antibodies upon immune challenges. The detection of threats to the organism is facilitated by the ability of naïve follicular B cells, the main subset of mature B cells in mice, to circulate between lymphoid tissues in search of their cognate antigens. miRNA-mediated fine-tuning of mRNA stability and translation participates in the optimal expression of genetic programs. This regulatory mechanism has been shown to contribute to B cell biology, although the role of individual miRNAs remains understudied. Here, we selectively inactivated the miR-142 locus in B cells. As a consequence, the mature B compartment was visibly perturbed, in agreement with work in miR-142 knockout mice. However, our strategy allowed us to identify roles for the miR-142 locus in B cell physiology obscured by the complexity of the immune phenotype in the null mutant mice. Thus, these miRNAs are necessary for the proper formation of the pre-B cell compartment during development. More remarkably, naïve follicular B cells demonstrated altered migratory properties upon conditional inactivation of the miR-142 locus. The latter mutant cells expressed reduced levels of the homing molecule CD62L. They also migrated more efficiently towards sphingosine-1-phosphate in vitro and displayed an increased abundance of the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1, compatible with improved lymphocyte egress in vivo. In line with these observations, the ablation of the miR-142 locus in B cells caused a paucity of B cells in the lymph nodes. Mutant B cell accumulation in the latter tissues was also compromised upon transfer into a wild-type environment. These changes coincided with suboptimal levels of FOXO1, a positive regulator of CD62L transcription, in mutant B cells. Overall, our findings indicate contributions for the miR-142 locus in various aspects of the B cell life cycle. Notably, this locus appears to favor the establishment of the migratory behavior required for naïve follicular B cell patrolling activity

‘Gatekeepers’ of Islamic financial circuits: Analysing urban geographies of the global Shari’a elite

This paper analyses the importance of 'Shari'a scholars' in the Islamic Financial Services (IFS) sector, which has been a growing global practice since the 1970s. Based on Shari'a Law, IFS firms provide banking, finance and insurance respecting faith-based prohibitions on interest, speculation and risk taking. Although IFS firms operate across a variety of scales and involve a range of actors, this paper focuses on the transnational capacities of Shari'a experts employed by IFS firms. These scholars use their extensive knowledge of Shari'a Law to assess the 'Islamic' character of a firm's operations, and assist the development of Shari'a-compliant products. As they embody necessary entry-points into Islamic circuits of knowledge and authority, members of what we dub the 'global Shari'a elite' can be regarded as 'gatekeepers' of Islamic financial circuits. Drawing on a comprehensive data source we present a geographical analysis of Shari'a board membership, nationality and educational background of 253 Shari'a scholars. The results show that the global Shari'a elite connects a limited number of IFS hubs (e. g. Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Manama, and London) to knowledge and authority networks falling outside 'mainstream' business and service spheres

Urban Systems Between National and Global: Recent Reconfiguration Through Transnational Networks

Because the whole book’s issue assumes the uneven integrations of national/continental urban systems inside the global economy, this chapter evaluates the rates and qualitative modes of integration of the national urban systems by the economic networks that are dominated by multinational firms. The empirical study encompasses the largest 1250 cities of the world delineated in a comparative way according to common definitions of large urban regions (LURs). The position of LURs in multinational firms’ ownership networks in 2 years, 2010 and 2013, corresponds to the deepest period of the crisis and the following recovery, respectively. Thus, we checked that the fast reorganization of multinational firms facing this crisis between 2010 and 2013 did not fundamentally transform their strong urban organization but rather introduced some minor changes, particularly due to the simultaneous breakthrough of emergent countries’ companies (especially the Chinese ones). Synthetic network clustering methods partitioning cities of the world offer clear visions of the structure of the multipolar urban networks. They reveal “regions” of integration of cities for all kinds of multinational companies but also distinguishing companies according to their skill levels either in industry or in services. A special attention is given to some highly integrated cities appearing with properties of “city-states,” i.e., without a strong national urban system