Martina Fuchs – författare

Recently, the international division of labour in industrial production has grown increasingly more volatile. The separation between ''high-end'' tasks undertaken in the traditional core economies and ''low-end'' tasks undertaken in newly emerging economies has become increasingly blurred. The new dynamics and unpredictability of actor and process configurations in internationalized production bring new challenges for research in economic geography, regional economics and management sciences. The allocation of R&D and production mandates within or between enterprises, the setting up, closing down, purchase or sale of subsidiaries at different localities, the shifting patterns of collaborative innovation, together with newly evolving forms of capitalism, all appear to interact in ways not seen before. It appears we have entered a new era termed ''industrial transition''. This book forms the first approach toward conceptualising the term and compiling illustrative empirical underpinnings. Contributions by an international set of renowned economic geographers highlight the major features and case studies of ''industrial transition'' and address various questions that matter for the future of our global economy: How are regions and localities affected by the shift of product mandates? In which ways do changes differ between industrial sectors and economic regions? How can regions and localities adequately prepare for or react to foreseeable changes; and how can regional resilience and response capacities be built and enhanced?

Recently, the international division of labour in industrial production has grown increasingly more volatile. The separation between ''high-end'' tasks undertaken in the traditional core economies and ''low-end'' tasks undertaken in newly emerging economies has become increasingly blurred. The new dynamics and unpredictability of actor and process configurations in internationalized production bring new challenges for research in economic geography, regional economics and management sciences. The allocation of R&D and production mandates within or between enterprises, the setting up, closing down, purchase or sale of subsidiaries at different localities, the shifting patterns of collaborative innovation, together with newly evolving forms of capitalism, all appear to interact in ways not seen before. It appears we have entered a new era termed ''industrial transition''. This book forms the first approach toward conceptualising the term and compiling illustrative empirical underpinnings. Contributions by an international set of renowned economic geographers highlight the major features and case studies of ''industrial transition'' and address various questions that matter for the future of our global economy: How are regions and localities affected by the shift of product mandates? In which ways do changes differ between industrial sectors and economic regions? How can regions and localities adequately prepare for or react to foreseeable changes; and how can regional resilience and response capacities be built and enhanced?

This book focuses on the dialectics between spatio-organisational gaps and local contexts that characterise cross-border investments. "Interspatial" investments – be it mergers & acquisitions (M&A) or greenfield investments – are usually characterised by what is referred to as "otherness", i.e. organisational and cultural distances of the firms involved in relation to their regional contexts.

At the same time, economic, political and socio-cultural linkages are decisive for attracting cross-border investments to regions and for providing firms with conditions supportive of their market success. As a consequence of being locked into complex structures of proximities, cross-border investments are situated in contested terrain. This terrain triggers learning processes in both regional actors and investors, which can result in the convergence of mindsets and organisational issues.

This book is unique in that it combines interspace (defined as the distance between the new owner and the cross-border venture), place (the target region), interpretation (perception and understanding of the investment by the actors involved) and context (institutions, actor networks and interaction), thus offering better understanding of recent processes of globalisation. Crossing disciplinary boundaries by integrating economic geography and management studies, the volume adopts an innovative and spatially informed perspective on foreign direct investments (FDI).

This perspective will be of great value to scholars, students and practitioners. The volume is inventive in its approach in that it offers fresh readings from interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and combines these with valuable empirical insights from developed as well as Emerging Economies.

Der Sammelband führt die verschiedenen Facetten der Transferforschung der international vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung zusammen. Dabei werden sowohl Befunde aus Projekten und länderbasierten Studien diskutiert als auch theoretische sowie pragmatische Ansätze referiert. Das Werk bietet somit einen umfassenden Überblick über die aktuellen Erkenntnisse und greift dabei auch historische Entwicklungen sowie interdisziplinäre Ansätze auf.