Knowledge-intensive firms, connectivity and spatial restructuring: dynamics and differences in Germany and Switzerland
Final Report Abstract
In this research project we aimed at studying firm networks, the spatial restructuring and growth in regions of the knowledge economy. Studies on the functional urban hierarchy are of high prominence in the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network as it seeks to understand regional development. Therefore, we have chosen the Interlocking Network Model as our main method to study firm networks in Germany. Further, this research project is a direct follow up to a previous DFG-funded research project that first studied the spatial structure of firm networks in the German knowledge economy in 2009. We used the data collected from this project at that time to understand, whether and how the economic crisis has altered urban systems in Germany since then. Due to a cumulation of various unforseen events, we did not achieve all research goals we had hoped for. Nevertheless, we were able to gain interesting scientific insights. First, we gathered a comprehensive dataset of firm locations in Germany. We used this dataset to gain significant insights, for example, into where firms open and maintain firm locations by using network analysis. Here, we found that firms are concentrating in only a small set of agglomerations, mainly those that host many other APS firms prior to relocating. We also studied whether knowledge-intensive firms networks have become more localized or globalized with a longitudinal approach. We further analyzed location preference of said firms in Germany by linking them with transportation and local infrastructures such as airports, railway stations or universities. Here, we found that the knowledge economy is more diverse in their location patterns than expected. For future research, we suggest using a more sophisticated categorization than APS and High-Tech. Lastly, we linked each firm location collected in this research project in Germany with official employment data to study how and where the knowledge economy evolved in space. Here, we found, for example that economically more powerful agglomerations shape their hinterlands. With these studies we contributed to the scientific debate around the discussion wether jobs-follow-people or people-follow-jobs. When we conceived the research project proposal in 2016, the 2008 financial crisis and its consquences strongly set our research framework. However, COVID-19 has eclipsed this crisis as the major crises of the last decade. The premises of the project had been challenged: Airports were closed, even though we argued that these are one of the most important drivers of the knowledge economy, New Work has increased exponentially, remote working and digital meetings instead of face-to-face contacts are now important components of the knowledge economy. All these effects made us question the timeliness of our reseach. Do firms still attract knowledge workers by location? How much office space is needed? How will firms adapt to this new norm of linking working-from-home and physical interaction? How attractive are airport regions after COVID-19? We are still experiencing the aftermath of this pandemic, which is why we are only at the beginning of answering these and many other questions. One thing remains for certain: it is important to try to distinguish between short-term changes of locational behaviour and long-term developments of spatial structures.
Publications
- (2018): The world city network: Evaluating top-down versus bottom-up approaches. In: Cities 72(Part B), 287-294
Lüthi, Stefan, Alain Thierstein and Michael Hoyler
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.09.006) - (2020): A Longitudinal Network Analysis of the German Knowledge Economy from 2009 to 2019: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics at the City–Firm Nexus In: Journal of Social Structure 21(1), 107-133
Zöllner, Silke, Stefan Lüthi and Alain Thierstein
(See online at https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2020-005) - (2020): Becoming more poly-centric: public transport and location choices in the Munich Metropolitan Area In: Urban Geography 42(1), 79-102
Bentlage, Michael, Christiane Müller and Alain Thierstein
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1826729)
