Financial and business services (FABS) as intermediaries play a significant role in global production networks (GPNs). Yet the mechanisms through which they influence the activities of lead and supplier firms in GPNs have received little in-depth attention. The paper addresses this shortcoming...

Sassen's identification of global cities as “strategic places” is explored through world city network analysis. This involves searching out advanced producer service (APS) firms that constitute “strategic networks,” from whose activities strategic places can be defined. Twenty-five out...

Through a historical case study of the internationalization of large English law firms in Italy, this paper uses Scott’s three pillars approach (2005) to look at how local institutions constrain and mediate the strategies and practices of professional services firms (PSFs). In doing so, it...

For geographers, debates surrounding the knowledge economy have reinvigorated interest in the geographies of learning and knowledge production. Particularly topical are discussions of the possibility of spatially stretched (global) learning, something especially relevant to professional service...

This paper highlights the effects of heterogeneous institutional contexts on transnational professional service firms, a relatively understudied issue. Specifically the paper provides empirical analysis of how the specificities of the Italian institutional context affect the activities of...