Developmental and Quiescent Subsidiaries in the Asia Pacific: Evidence from Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney

Jessie P. H. Poon and Edmund R. Thompson

Economic Geography, 2003, vol. 79, issue 2, 195-214

Abstract: Examining “embedded” economic and social relations has become a popular theme among economic geographers who are interested in explaining the durability of place in supporting economic activities. This article explores the relationship between embeddedness and technology-oriented functions among three types of subsidiaries (regional headquarters, regional offices, and local offices) and for four cities: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney. Using survey data from firms, we show that quiescent or branch plant-like subsidiaries, rather than developmental firms, dominate the region. But among developmental subsidiaries, returns on embeddedness are not always obvious. Embeddedness and developmental subsidiaries are most significantly correlated with manufacturing regional headquarters. However, a small group of subsidiaries (local and regional offices) also perform developmental functions, despite their relative newness and lack of embed-dedness in the region.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1944-8287.2003.tb00208.x (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:recgxx:v:79:y:2003:i:2:p:195-214

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/recg20

DOI: 10.1111/j.1944-8287.2003.tb00208.x

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Geography is currently edited by James Murphy

More articles in Economic Geography from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().