MNCs, and with 20 governance actors, of which 12 are in the field of economic development, and 8 are in the skills/employment sector. As the economic and political situation has changed substantially in the course of our research, for more recent interviews in England we have amended the interview somewhat, to allow for comments on emerging (or in some cases anticipated) institutional arrangements as well as reflection on the status quo ante. What do/did regional actors do? Clearly, research which seeks to investigate the sub-national embeddedness of MNC units has to take account of a wide variety of potential factors. As Figure 1 below reflects, these include factors related to the MNC - the nature and specificity of skills and knowledge (Foss and Pedersen 2000), the nature of the value chain (Phelps and Fuller 2001), parent orientation (as possibly shaped by country of origin business systems, cf. Morgan and Kristensen 2006) – as well as those related to the host national business system and degree (and nature) of national business system autonomy. Our MNC interviews cover a range of companies which, in any given set of sub-national institutions, would be expected to have different levels of material interest in establishing active links, given their differences in terms of skills needs, value chain nature and degree of real mobility. Figure 1: Summary of factors affecting sub-national host embeddedness Skills and knowledge Value chain Parent orientation MNC need to access Need and possibility for Ability of MNC to engage with geographically-specific subsidiary unit to bid for new trust’ relations with local ‘high combinations of skills and investment in higher positions firm and governance actors knowledge. within global value chains (shaped by dominant conventions of trust within MNC) ↓ MODIFIED BY
MNCs, and with 20 governance actors, of which 12 are in the field of economic development, and 8 are in the skills/employment sector. As the economic and political situation has changed substantially in the course of our research, for more recent interviews in England we have amended the interview somewhat, to allow for comments on emerging (or in some cases anticipated) institutional arrangements as well as reflection on the status quo ante. What do/did regional actors do? Clearly, research which seeks to investigate the sub-national embeddedness of MNC units has to take account of a wide variety of potential factors. As Figure 1 below reflects, these include factors related to the MNC - the nature and specificity of skills and knowledge (Foss and Pedersen 2000), the nature of the value chain (Phelps and Fuller 2001), parent orientation (as possibly shaped by country of origin business systems, cf. Morgan and Kristensen 2006) – as well as those related to the host national business system and degree (and nature) of business system autonomy. Our MNC interviews cover a range of companies which, in any given set of sub-national institutions, would be expected to have different levels of material interest in establishing active links, given their differences in terms of skills needs, value chain nature and degree of real mobility. Figure 1: Summary of factors affecting sub-national host embeddedness Skills and knowledge MNC need to access geographically-specific combinations of skills and knowledge. Value chain Need and possibility for subsidiary unit to bid for new investment in higher positions within global value chains Parent orientation Ability of MNC to engage with ‘high trust’ relations with local firm and governance actors (shaped by dominant conventions of trust within MNC) ↓ MODIFIED BY national
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