Nomadic Firms in a Globalizing Economy: A Comparative Analysis and Policy Perspectives

The location behaviour of modern multinational multi-plant firms appears to exhibit increasingly a flexible mobility pattern with a strong tendency towards footlooseness. The spatial-economic dynamics - often across the border - of such firms is sometimes encapsulated in the term 'nomadic firms'. This paper addresses the issue of nomadic behaviour of firms against the background of globalisation trends. After a critical discussion of globalisation phenomena and a review of the literature on nomadic entrepreneurial behaviour, the paper sets out to formulate a series of relevant hypotheses of spatial relocation behaviour of international firms in a globalising network economy.The analytical framework is tested by means of empirical data originating from a field study among actual or potential nomadic firms, in both The Netherlands and abroad. Infrastructure quality and geographical accessibility appear to play an important role in spatial relocation decisions, but also opportunity seeking behaviour of multinational firms has a prominent place in nomadic behaviour. The results of the structured interview rounds among various international firms are next more rigorously analysed by using a recently developed method for qualitative classification and explanation, viz. rough set analysis. The results from the latter method confirm to a large extent our previous findings. The paper concludes with lessons for infrastructure policy.