Hewitt-Dundas N., Andreosso-O'Callaghan B., Crone M., Murray J. and Roper S. (2005) Selling global, buying local? What determines the sourcing patterns of multinational plants in Ireland?, Regional Studies 39 , 225-239. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have played an important, if not crucial,...

Knowledge and local learning are central to current debates about regional economic development. Using data provided by multinational plants, this paper provides new evidence on the geography of knowledge, emphasizing the proximity of Northern Ireland-based multinational plants to global best...

New empirical evidence on local sourcing by multinational enterprise plants in two UK regions (Yorkshire and The Humber and Northern Ireland) is presented and compared with evidence from other UK regions. The proportion of material inputs sourced locally is generally quite low in both regions...

An examination of the factors influencing the extent of regional sourcing by multinational manufacturing firms using data collected by interview from 50 foreign- and UK-owned plants in Yorkshire and Humberside. The evidence shows that higher levels of regional sourcing are observed where certain...

ROPER S., YOUTIE J., SHAPIRA P. and FERNANDEZ-RIBAS A. Knowledge, capabilities and manufacturing innovation: a USA-Europe comparison, Regional Studies. This paper presents a comparative analysis of factors contributing to the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in Georgia (USA), Wales...

In England, publicly supported advice to small firms is organized primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Using the programme theory underlying this business support, we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3000 English SMEs. We find...