Bas Karreman

Extant cluster policy research has largely ignored the particular role that cluster organizations play in reifying cluster policies in practice. Based on a survey of 163 cluster organizations in the European life sciences sector, this study explores the heterogeneity of cluster organizations in geographic space and examines whether and where revealed competition – defined as the combined overlap in service offerings, sub-sectoral focus and funding sources – between life science cluster organizations within European regions is most apparent. The findings indicate that the degree of functional and sectoral substitutability of cluster organizations differs substantially across Europe, though some regions, particularly in Spain, Denmark, France and Estonia, are more prone to revealed competition.

Overseas Chinese communities are an important determinant in the location choice of greenfield investments made by mainland Chinese multinational enterprises across European regions. Conceptually embedded in a relational approach, this effect is shown through an empirical analysis of an exhaustive set of investment projects across NUTS-1 regions in twenty-six European countries for the period 2003–2010. When controlling for endogeneity bias and the embeddedness of existing Chinese economic activity, we find that the importance of overseas communities in the location choices of Chinese firms is based on increased access to strategic information. Our results confirm that the relationship between the size of an overseas Chinese community and the probability of Chinese investment is stronger for communities hosting newer generations of Chinese migrants; in addition, they partially corroborate that this relationship is stronger when the education level of the community’s Chinese migrants is higher. Our findings are particularly robust in the context of knowledge-intensive sectors and high value-added functions.

This study examines whether regional upgrading has affected the traditional division of labour between Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, as exemplified in the ‘front shop–back factory’ model. The location choices and investment characteristics of foreign multinational enterprises are used to derive the current status of sectoral and functional specialisation across the region and to explore the alleged competition over foreign direct investments in service functions. The results show that the complementary roles of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, in terms of sectoral and functional specialisation, remain largely intact. However, Guangzhou and Shenzhen appear to compete with Hong Kong by advancing their own distinctive roles as attractive locations for low-end service functions.

In this paper, we analyse the sectoral and functional division of labour in Central and Eastern European (CEE) regions within the convergence debate. By analysing the investment decisions of multinational corporations in 49 NUTS 2 regions across six European CEE countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria), we show that capital city regions not only receive more greenfield FDI but also attract a larger variety of investments in terms of sectors and functions. Capital cities are more likely to host higher‐end sectors and functions, which provides an explanation for the existing regional disparities within CEE countries. These results highlight the importance of functional and sectoral divisions of labour in the view of regional profiling and contribute to the recent EU Cohesion Policy debate.

This study examines the changing competitiveness of financial centres in mainland China and Hong Kong based on the geography of equity listing of mainland Chinese firms. Pre-listing firm characteristics are used to explore firms’ motives for listing on a particular exchange and whether these motives have changed over time. The results show that Hong Kong’s prominence as an international financial centre is attracting the largest and, recently, also the best performing mainland Chinese state-owned enterprises to go public. Less differentiation exists between the competitiveness of Shanghai and Shenzhen, although the renewed strategy of the Shenzhen stock exchange to attract smaller firms appears to be successful.