Financial and business services (FABS) as intermediaries play a significant role in global production networks (GPNs). Yet the mechanisms through which they influence the activities of lead and supplier firms in GPNs have received little in-depth attention. The paper addresses this shortcoming...

Sassen's identification of global cities as “strategic places” is explored through world city network analysis. This involves searching out advanced producer service (APS) firms that constitute “strategic networks,” from whose activities strategic places can be defined. Twenty-five out...

In this paper we use the case of the internationalization of English law firms into Italy, and the refocusing of their operations on the city of Milan, to make a number of contributions to existing literatures on responses to institutional complexity. Firstly, we contribute to the literature on...

The emergence of global architecture firms and their role in the production of city architectures raises a number of questions for social scientists. For example, how - indeed do - global architects ensure the buildings they design are ‘in place’ and appropriate for the urban cultural,...

Understanding the internationalization of professional services like advertising, architecture, accounting, consulting and legal services continues to attract considerable attention in academic and policy circles. Research in geography and management studies has emphasised the different...

For geographers, debates surrounding the knowledge economy have reinvigorated interest in the geographies of learning and knowledge production. Particularly topical are discussions of the possibility of spatially stretched (global) learning, something especially relevant to professional service...

It is surprising that despite widespread interest in the cultural industries, few questions have been asked about the geographies of learning and innovation in architecture. Particularly relevant to global architects are debates about the way stretched relational spaces and "global" communities...