INTERNET, INDUSTRY CLUSTERS AND GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS: THE NEW ICTs' EFFECTS ON INDUSTRIAL SPACE ORGANIZATION
WANG Ming-feng1,2, LI Jian2
1. Center for Modern Chinese City Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China;
2. Department of Human Geography, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China;
3. Center for Urban and Regional Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai 200062, China
Abstract The role of new information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs)in the economic development is reflected not only in the creation of a new industrial sector, but more importantly on the spread promotion of knowledge, application and innovation, presenting two intertwined and coexisted models of the process of enterprises' learning and innovation in the information age:the transnational enterprise networks operating at the global level and the industrial cluster networks evolving at the local level. From the perspective of information and knowledge, this paper explores the geographic features of regions in the information age and the ICTs' effects on the industrial spatial organization, which focus on the process of information and knowledge in both global production networks (GPNs)and local industrial clusters, and the role of internet technology. GPNs have emerged as a major organizational innovation in global operations since 1990s. ICTs is one of the most important forces driving the shift in industrial organization from multinational corporations to GPNs. GPNs typically combine a sharp speed of geographic dispersion with spatial concentration. Besides, GPNs also act as powerful carriers of knowledge economy. Recent studies of new ICTs tend to suggest that engagement with the e-business technology is sequential and progressive, giving high hopes that the Internet and ICTs provide geographical clusters with new development opportunities. Finally, the paper suggests that both centralizing and dispersing dynamics exist in the spatial process of the changing organization driven by new ICTs. However, the combination of these two opposing forces and their roles are different at different scales and from different sectors.
2009, Vol. 24 
