Transitional Governance Trajectories: Organization, Place, and Space

Alliances often turn into acquisitions (i.e., one alliance partner is acquired by the other). In these transitional governance trajectories, geography-related factors can play a crucial role. Factors like location and distance can notably influence the decision to acquire the alliance partner, as well as the performance implications of such a transition. However, existing studies on transitional governance tend to underemphasize the geographic dimension of the phenomenon. In this chapter, we take a first step toward connecting the field of transitional governance and the discipline of economic geography, which does emphasize location and distance as critical determinants of economic activities. We discuss how economic geography can inform the field of transitional governance and propose some promising avenues for future studies linking organization, place, and space in transitional governance trajectories.