Neil Martin Coe

Verified

Neil verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Neil verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• Professor at The University of Sydney

In the past decade, China's food retail market has undergone significant restructuring driven by platform firms, enhancing omni-channel capabilities across the sector, and bolstering the resilience of domestic retailers. These shifts have contributed to the exit of numerous international food retailers. Despite this transformation, there remains a...

This paper conceptualises the industrial and institutional co-evolution of the Chinese import cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) industry, led by digital platform firms, over the decade 2012-2022. By drawing on empirical interview data and extensive secondary material from industry and government sources, and applying Gong and Hassink’s (2019a) framewo...

Ever since labour geography first started demonstrating workers’ ability to shape geographies, geographers have problematised the agency of labour. This article responds to a recent intervention by Strauss (2020a; Progress in Human Geography 44[1]:150–159), challenging the sub‐discipline to reflect on who counts as a worker and what counts as work....

This article critically evaluates the burgeoning work on labour agency in human geography over the past decade. We review efforts to distinguish varied forms of labour agency and locate them in different social contexts. In so doing, we identify certain disjunctures in the cross-case conceptualisation of labour agency and propose a morphogenetic ap...

It is increasingly recognised that for clusters to evolve and initiate new developmental paths, they need to bring in various external resources, especially external human capital. However, external talent often has imperfect knowledge regarding distant places; hence, a key challenge for clusters is to overcome this lack of knowledge and unfamiliar...

Economic geographers exploring the globalisation of food retailing have argued that retail TNCs might secure a foothold in host markets by deepening their territorial embeddedness in regional logistics and supply networks, consumer markets and cultures, and property markets. Yet, over the past decade in China, hitherto one of the most prominent foc...

Extra-local linkages are increasingly understood as key drivers of cluster development. The literature, however, tends to be overwhelmingly concerned with global production and knowledge linkages, paying insufficient attention to extra-local market linkages. To address this research lacuna, through a case study of the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in...

There has been a recent resurgence in interest in the theorization of labour regimes in various disciplines. This has taken the form of a concern to understand the role that labour regimes play in the structuring, organization and dynamics of global systems of production and reproduction. The concept has a long heritage that can be traced back to t...

This article seeks to develop the concept of labor regimes as a tool for understanding the uneven labor outcomes of global production networks (GPNs). Existing work on labor regimes tends to give primacy to the control of labor, thereby analyzing labor regimes largely from a governance perspective. The agency of labor, however, is deeply embedded i...

Although online retailing has expanded dramatically over the past decade, research on the topic by economic geographers remains sparse. One recent hitherto unstudied trend has seen online retailers establishing physical grocery store networks in the Chinese market. This paper utilizes a case study of Alibaba’s Hema grocery store chain to identify a...

This paper explores the intersections and overlaps between state capitalism and global production networks. A key feature of the so-called new state capitalism is the combination of state ownership and corporatisation, which creates a system that can be characterised as a hybrid of public–private governance in both corporate and network terms. More...

Geographical debates surrounding labour have hitherto tended to sideline its discursivity – that is its ongoing construction as a category of the economy – and the politics of the discourses of labour involved in this process. To address this lacuna, this paper engages with three bodies of scholarship in the social sciences which explicitly foregro...

In this brief afterword, I reflect on the contributions to the Area special section on the “Geographies of Labour in a Changing Climate”. I argue that there is an urgent need to develop a research agenda under this theme and that, with its focus on multi‐scalar dynamics and the constrained agency of workers, labour geography already has a toolkit t...

2021 sees the Journal of Economic Geography (JEG) enter its third decade of publication, offering an apposite moment to briefly reflect upon its evolution and trajectory. Since the first issue appeared in January 2001, JEG has been on a journey encompassing 92 regular issues, 20 special issues, 731 papers, 13 debates and commentaries pieces, 153 bo...

Despite growing interest in logistics across the social sciences, there is still a persistent gap in relation to work that explores the organizational and competitive dynamics of the independent logistics industry, a sector worth almost US$1tn a year. This paper explores the nature, causes and consequences of commoditization in the third-party logi...

Although logistics are fundamentally geographical and of critical importance to contemporary society, it is only relatively recently that human geographers and cognate social scientists have started to meaningfully engage with the topic. This paper explores this recent growth of interest, which encompasses the work of transport geographers, economi...

https://www.wiley.com/en-sg/Economic+Geography%3A+A+Contemporary+Introduction%2C+3rd+Edition-p-9781119389552

In this framing paper for the special issue, we map significant research on global production networks during the past decade in economic geography and adjacent fields. In line with the core aim of the special issue to push for new conceptual advances, the paper focuses on the central elements of GPN theory to showcase recent rethinking related to...

In recent years, various academics, consultants, companies and NGOs have advocated a move towards more cooperative approaches to private sustainability standards to address the widely identified shortcomings of the compliance paradigm. However, is it possible to address these limitations by moving towards stakeholder inclusion and capacity building...

Global retail expansion involves dynamic relations between retailers and variegated institutional, competitive and consumer-based demands across different spatial scales. Economic geographers have framed these processes through the inter-related concepts of territorial, network and societal embeddedness of store-based retailers, but with a neglect...

The last two decades have seen a major wave of retail globalization that has driven the transformation of retail markets in the emerging economies of Southeast Asia and beyond. This article provides a systematic analysis of the divergent pathways of retail market transformation in Malaysia and Thailand through exploring the interface of foreign ret...

The internationalisation of the firm is a highly dynamic process, in which periods of investment and expansion intermingle with periods of divestment and retrenchment. Academic research to date has focused on identifying the reasons for and the processes of divestment. Empirical studies either evidence generic pressures or provide case studies of s...

FULL EGRG REPORT (ACCOMPANIES SHORTER EPA COMMENTARY)

This Exchanges commentary is concerned with the health of Economic Geography as a sub-discipline, and economic geography (as a wider community of practice) in one of its historical heartlands, the UK. Against a backdrop of prior achievement, recent years have witnessed a noticeable migration of economic geographers in the UK from Departments of Geo...

This paper presents the first economic geography study of Singapore's temporary staffing industry. Drawing on secondary data and semi-structured interviews with trade association representatives and senior executives from temporary staffing agencies, it examines the structure and characteristics of Singapore's industry and, more specifically, how i...

In recent years, collaborative multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) between private sector companies and civil society organizations have sought to find common solutions to sustainability challenges related to cotton, timber, and other raw materials, as well as hazardous work conditions in industries such as garments, textiles, and leather producti...

In this article, we critically analyse UK retailer, Tesco’s September 2015 decision to sell its highly profitable South Korean subsidiary Homeplus to private investors. For over a decade since market entry in 1999, Homeplus had grown steadily to achieve a market-leading position through a process of strategic localization in which Tesco’s global bu...

Since the mid-to-late 1990s, retail globalization has intensified, and a growing multidisciplinary literature profiles these dynamics. This chapter provides a snapshot of current levels of retail globalization, before briefly reviewing the literature on the drivers and dynamics of retail globalization from the late 1990s onwards. The analysis then...

This paper seeks to compare the processes of supply network transformation in China resulting from the market entry of retail transnational corporations (TNCs) across two food products, fresh milk and edible oil. The analysis demonstrates significant variations in both retailer management practices and strategic responses by suppliers between the t...

Situated within geographical scholarship on policy mobilities, this article aims to direct attention to the state and corporate dimensions of corporate policy mobilizations as terrains that require further conceptual development. It argues that doing so is important for two reasons. First, it shows that national states should not be seen merely as...

This article provides an in-depth study of leading transnational food retailer Tesco plc to explore how its financial management and relations with the investment community—notably its reputation for capital discipline—underpinned successful expansion. Informed by close dialogue with equity analysts, we investigate how this model deteriorated since...

Global production networks (GPN) are organizational platforms through which actors in different regional and national economies compete and cooperate for a greater share of value creation, transformation, and capture through geographically dispersed economic activity. Existing conceptual frameworks on global value chains (GVC) and what we term GPN...

Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization, termed global production networks (GPNs) in this book, h...

In this article we mobilize a variegated capitalism approach to understand the development of the Norwegian temporary staffing industry. From this perspective, national temporary staffing industries are understood as contested multi-actor and multi-scalar institutional fields. The analysis explores the key actors and regulatory conditions that have...

This special issue explores multi-dimensional retail transitions in Southeast Asia against the backdrop of the ongoing globalization of retail capital. As an introduction to the special issue, this paper does three things. First, it introduces the rationale for, and wider context to, the special issue. Second, it offers a contemporary snapshot of t...

This paper revisits the ‘firm in the region’ and the ‘region in the firm’ dichotomy through the case of Tesco's retail expansion in Asia. It focuses on the tension between the transference of proven key capabilities to the host economies Tesco has entered, and strategic localization, primarily for customer-facing, corporate culture, regulatory and...

This article seeks to argue that logistics services, and the independent logistics industry in particular, should be afforded much more attention within political economy approaches to the global economy. Widespread outsourcing processes and the increased sophistication of logistics provisions mean that the industry has arguably evolved beyond bein...

For all its success in ‘globalizing’ regional development, the Global Production Network (GPN) approach has arguably failed to account for the role of finance in the dynamics of the global economy and regional development. This lacuna is significant as finance is arguably even more globalised and networked than production. To address this gap the p...

In this final report I offer a review of recent work in labour geography (broadly defined), a blossoming and increasingly mature subfield of economic geography. The review covers three areas: theoretical work on the nature and constitution of labour agency; research into issues of precarity, migration and intermediation in contemporary labour marke...

This article examines the circumstances under which corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives facilitate and/or constrain labour agency in global production networks (GPNs). Using a case study of Nike’s CSR approach in the football manufacturing industry of Pakistan, we explore the extent to which the measures advocated in a new, emerging p...

This theme issue introduction profiles the small but growing body of research that explores the connections between global production networks, labour and development. It does so in three stages. First, it outlines key ongoing global trends relating to the functional and spatial fragmentation of production and consumption processes. Second, it cons...

Contemporary economic globalization as a highly dynamic process has seen substantial changes in its organization, governance, geographies and impacts. These global shifts can be characterized by – among other aspects – increased functional and geographical fragmentation of production processes, various waves of outsourcing and off-shoring, changing...

This critical review debates the issues raised in Mark Whitehead’s 2009 book, “State, Science and the Skies: Governmentalities of the British atmosphere”. After a short introduction that positions the book, four commentators draw on their own work in political geography, the sociology of science, atmospheric science and cultural geography, respecti...

In this report, I use the organizing device of the A–Z to present a critical review of recent work under the banner of global production networks (GPN). The report positions GPN analysis in its broader intellectual context, profiles its distinctive contributions, and details a range of challenges that remain to effective economic-geographical theor...

This impressive new book uniquely focuses on the phenomenon of media clusters and is designed to inform policy makers, scholars, and media practitioners about the underlying challenges of media firm agglomerations, their potential, and their effects.

COE N. M., JOHNS J. and WARD K. Transforming the Japanese labour market: deregulation and the rise of temporary staffing, Regional Studies. The Japanese employment system has undergone significant structural change since the early 1990s. Widespread deregulation and industrial restructuring have increased the number of non-regular workers in Japan,...

Recent changes to employment legislation have combined with shifting macro-economic conditions to drive dramatic growth in Japan's temporary staffing industry. Leading transnational staffing agencies have sought to capitalize on this growth as part of their wider globalization strategies but have faced substantial challenges both in entering the ma...

Manufacturing Possibilities examines adjustment dynamics in the steel, automobile and machinery industries in Germany, the U.S., and Japan since World War II. As national industrial actors in each sector try to compete in global markets, the book argues that they recompose firm and industry boundaries, stakeholder identities and interests and gover...

This article offers a sympathetic critique of recent attempts to forge a dialogue between Global Commodity Chain (GCC) and World City Network (WCN) approaches to global economic change. While broadly supportive of the endeavour, we make three observations about this ongoing project. First, we question the utility of emphasizing the common roots of...

This article seeks to contribute to our understanding of the internationalization processes of business service sectors through an analysis of the 20 leading TNCs in the temporary staffing industry. While these TNCs broadly conform to a loosely coordinated decentralized or multinational organisational model, there is significant firm-to-firm, spati...

This paper offers a critical review of the existing literatures on temporary staffing. It argues that while research on both client firm rationales and the experiences and characteristics of temporary agency workers are relatively well advanced, work that explores the temporary staffing industry and its own strategies and expansionary logics is sti...

This article critically evaluates the concept of labour agency. First, we briefly reprise structure/agency debates in human geography in order to distil how agency is best conceived. Second, we propose a more discerning approach to labour agency that unpacks its many spatial and temporal dimensions. Third, we develop a ‘re-embedded’ notion of labou...

This paper introduces and details an innovative mode of fieldcourse assessment in which students take on the role of tour guides to offer their lecturer and peers a themed, theoretically informed journey through the urban landscape of Havana, Cuba. Informed by notions of student-centred learning and mobile methods, the tour offers an enjoyable, cha...

This report profiles the recent upsurge of interest in evolutionary approaches within economic geography. It seeks to do four things: (1) provide evidence of the growing interest in evolutionary economic geography; (2) explore the roots and theoretical underpinnings of the approach; (3) review the main strands of evolutionary economic geography res...

Core concerns, peripheral visionsLimiting essentialismsUnpacking relationality: actors, governance and methodsConclusion NotesReferences

Coda: The UK economy in an era of globalisation To draw together the major themes that emerge from the different aspects of the UK's economic development covered in this book To consider how key processes affecting the UK economy continue to produce uneven economic development To highlight the key challenges faced by policy makers in the next decad...

This text offers the first systematic and comprehensive overview of the economic geography of the UK for two decades. With contributions by many of the leading academics in the field, it offers a powerful case for exploring the UK economy from a geographical perspective. Key Features: Investigates a single aspect of the UK economy within each chapt...

This article applies a global production networks (GPN) perspective to the trans-border investments of Taiwanese personal computer (PC) companies in the Northern Taiwan, Greater Suzhou and Greater Dongguan regions. The findings of extensive field research are used to illustrate two conceptual arguments. First, we show the on-the-ground complexity o...

This article presents a study of the Australian temporary staffing industry. It explores how temporary staffing markets are manufactured through the interactions between industrial relations and regulatory systems, on the one hand, and the structures and strategies of domestic and transnational temporary staffing agencies on the other. The article...

This article provides an account of the temporary staffing industry outside its two largest markets, the UK and the US. It argues that there is greater national variation in industry characteristics than has generally been acknowledged, using the example of Sweden to illustrate the importance of understanding staffing industries in relation to the...

Since the 1990s the largest transnational temporary staffing agencies have progressively expanded the geographical extent of their operations. Moving beyond the established Dutch, French, UK, and US markets in which the majority are headquartered, and encouraged by supportive supranational and national reregulation, they have entered a number of co...

Since the 1990s the largest transnational temporary staffing agencies have progressively expanded the geographical extent of their operations. Moving beyond the established Dutch, French, UK and US markets in which the majority are headquartered, and encouraged by supportive supra-national and national re-regulation, they have entered a number of c...

Understanding and conceptualizing the complexities of the contemporary global economy is a challenging but vitally important task. In this article, we critically evaluate the potential of one interpretive framework—the global production networks (GPN) perspective—for analysing the global economy and its impacts on territorial development. After sit...