Book review: Bargaining with multinationals: the investment of Siemens and Nissan in North-East England

The experience of the Northeast of England has been at the forefront of many debates in economic geography for at least the past 30 years. Often cited as an exemplar of a branch plant economy, more recent debates have focused on the ways in which multinationals exploit the knowledge assets of regions to maintain competitiveness. Global companies, so theory tells us, no longer simply exploit low labor costs in peripheral regions; they also embed themselves in regional labor markets and local and regional institutional structures to increase their responsiveness to changes in the global market. In Part 1 of the book, the author sets the scene in terms of current debates on the impact of globalization on corporate organization, the effects of these changes on the character of investment in regions, and the relative significance of different location factors and investment incentives. Theoretical approaches to these issues are also reviewed, such as reference to regulation theory, flexible specialization, agglomeration, clusters, tacit knowledge, learning, networks, and lean production, to name but a few.