Spatial Structure Evolutionary Process and Mechanisms of Local Production Networks: A Case Study of Chaoshan Region in Southeast China
Received date: 2011-01-25
Request revised date: 2011-10-28
Online published: 2012-03-25
Copyright
Economic geographers have recently attempted to develop relational and evolutionary economic geographies. Production networks and network evolution are both popular in economic geographies. Local production network is a valuable tool by which we can have a better understanding of the global-local interaction. Now the research on local production networks is moving from relatively static analysis to historical and dynamic process study. But there is little writing about the evolution of local production network in the context of China. This article tries to full this gap and takes textile and apparel industry in Chaoshan Region as a case to explore the processes and dynamics of production networks in the context of China’s transition to market-oriented economy. Here social interview is employed as a research method, based on the Ucinet software data. The result indicates that the internal structure of production networks in Chaoshan’s textile and apparel industry has changed from the geographical concentration of enterprises to multi-clusters networks and then to cross-clusters production networks. This change can be well explained by the basic concepts of Evolutionary Economic Geography such as selection, retention, variation and path dependence and path creation. Network evolution is in nature relational evolution between enterprises which were influenced by external environments and different development phases. Some mechanisms including geographical proximity of spin-offs, aggregation economy of enterprise in related industries and relational dependence together make the whole local production network be relatively stable structure of the internal network, which can be called “retention”. However, market and institutional innovation and path destruction induce structural change, leading to the gradual formation of cross-clusters production networks, which can be called “variation”. Finally, this article strongly argues that the evolutionary thinking is helpful in explaining the evolution of local production networks and the evolutionary study of local production networks would offer insightful suggestions for policy-makers. Interaction of cross-border production networks and institutional innovation would be the important research topics of network evolution in the near future.
MA Hai-tao , LIU Zhi-gao . Spatial Structure Evolutionary Process and Mechanisms of Local Production Networks: A Case Study of Chaoshan Region in Southeast China[J]. SCIENTIA GEOGRAPHICA SINICA, 2012 , 32(3) : 308 -313 . DOI: 10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2012.03.308
Fig. 1 Sketch map of study area图1 研究案例区域 |
Fig.2 Total output value of textile and apparel industrial in Chaoshan region in 1993-2008图2 1993~2008年潮汕地区纺织服装行业产值 |
Fig.3 Status of textile and apparel industry in Chaoshan region and district entropy in Guangdong Province图3 潮汕纺织服装行业在所有行业中的比重及在广东省的区位商 |
Fig.4 Internal structure of production network of textile and apparel industry in Chaoshan region in the late of 1990s图4 1990年代末期潮汕纺织服装生产网络内部空间结构 |
Fig.5 Internal structure of production network of textile and apparel industry in Chaoshan region in the late of 2000s图5 2000年代末潮汕纺织服装生产网络内部结构 |
Fig.6 Evolutionary mechanism on internal structure of production networks图6 生产网络空间结构的演化机制 |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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