- Geography, Environmental History, Economic History, Economic Geography, Environmental Studies, History of Science and Technology, and 10 morePolitical Economy, Political Ecology, Qualitative methodology, History of Science, Environmental Sustainability, Urban History, Medieval Military History, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, and Medieval urban historyedit
- I am an economic geographer turning into an environmental historian, living in an engineering school and working with... moreI am an economic geographer turning into an environmental historian, living in an engineering school and working with a lot of engineering students, undergraduate and graduate. This is more interesting than you might imagine. My early work concerned the investment strategies of multinational corporations in technologically advanced industries, especially cross-investment among advanced industrial countries. Then I worked on the question of why corporations make bad decisions even when they know what they should do. Now I'm working on why we generally make bad decisions about the environment even when we know what we should do.edit
... The cultural crisis of the firm. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Schoenberger, Erica J. PUBLISHER: Blackwell Publishers (Cambridge, Mass.). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1997. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 1557866376 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES... more
... The cultural crisis of the firm. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Schoenberger, Erica J. PUBLISHER: Blackwell Publishers (Cambridge, Mass.). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1997. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 1557866376 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): ...
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Reviews: The London Employment Problem, the Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, the Spatial Organisation of Multinational Corporations, Rural Resource Management, Housing and Young Families in East London, Urban Affairs Annual Review, 28: High Technology, Space and So...more
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To address the deep contradictions in social and economic life that motivated Keynes, I propose a combination of “environmental Keynesianism” and “deep democracy.” Massive state investment in infrastructure and environmental remediation... more
To address the deep contradictions in social and economic life that motivated Keynes, I propose a combination of “environmental Keynesianism” and “deep democracy.” Massive state investment in infrastructure and environmental remediation would be an excellent way of soaking up capital in the ground, thus responding to the overaccumulation crisis feared by Keynes. Deep democracy, proposed by Iris Marion Young, proposes a sustained political engagement at different scales with different interlocutors on different issues. This is a kind of politics that, she suggests, requires people to pay attention to each other’s circumstances, needs and beliefs and thereby arrive at outcomes perceived as fair and fairly arrived at.
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ABSTRACT
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The new international division of labor model assigns a major role to the multinational corporation as the orchestrator of a global reallocation of manufacturing away from core industrial countries towards the periphery. Here it is argued... more
The new international division of labor model assigns a major role to the multinational corporation as the orchestrator of a global reallocation of manufacturing away from core industrial countries towards the periphery. Here it is argued that the new international division of labor thesis construes too narrowly the relationship between technological and organizational change in production, cost competitiveness, and corporate location strategies. Further, understanding the role of the multinational corporation depends also on an analysis of the nature of output markets and the competitive strategies of firms. Evidence concerning the distribution of U.S. manufacturing investment abroad is presented, followed by a discussion of changes in production processes, markets, and competitive strategies as they influence international location choice.
Research Interests: Business, Human Geography, Economics, Industrial Organization, Organizational Change, and 13 moreRegional Science, Foreign Direct Investment, Division of labor, Urban And Regional Planning, Competitive advantage, Competitive strategy, Production economics, Production Process, Division of Labour, MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION, Corporation, Location Choice, and Production Cost
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The conversation between economic geographers and political economists has not made much progress. The former focus on exchange, markets and efficiency, as can be seen in work on urban economies. We want the field to pay more attention to... more
The conversation between economic geographers and political economists has not made much progress. The former focus on exchange, markets and efficiency, as can be seen in work on urban economies. We want the field to pay more attention to two processes crucial to the growth of cities often lying outside market exchange and agglomeration economies: how resources are managed across time and space and how the urban environment creates challenges demanding collective responses. We first make the case for the two processes using historical examples and then argue for the importance of similar processes today. We do not propose to make a definitive argument, but rather to challenge economic geographers with an expanded research agenda for the future.
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The paper proposes a social history of the value of gold that stresses its connection to the acquisition, use and defense of social power. Gold’s natural scarcity has continually been reinforced by an artificial scarcity arising from how... more
The paper proposes a social history of the value of gold that stresses its connection to the acquisition, use and defense of social power. Gold’s natural scarcity has continually been reinforced by an artificial scarcity arising from how powerful groups have used it, but the ruling class monopoly of control has alternated with periods of more widespread social access. In one period, gold is very closely held by a small number of very high-status people, followed by a time, often related to war, when the distribution of gold is significantly expanded socially. Then gold is drawn back in to the center and is closely held once more. This pattern is evident in Antiquity and, surprisingly, the 20th century. The paper explores the way in which the value of things established under one social order may continue to inflect the perception of value in later periods.
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My thought on finishing this book was that this was a book that needed to be written, although I didn’t know that before I read it. It is original and more than thought-provoking: it really makes you think hard about what you think you... more
My thought on finishing this book was that this was a book that needed to be written, although I didn’t know that before I read it. It is original and more than thought-provoking: it really makes you think hard about what you think you know and why. Because The Great Leveler so ably occupies the high ground of theory and big-picture history, it is difficult to find a singular avenue of approach to analyzing it. What follows, then, is a collection of comments on different elements of the book. An important point, and one that the text doesn’t really announce, is that this is an intellectual as well as an economic history. The intellectual history has a dual focus. It traces mainstream theories and perceptions of monopoly and competition in the economies of the US and the UK as these bear on the thinking of the political establishment and the judiciary. This is critical for understanding why legislation and courtroom judgment viewed ‘excess’ industrial concentration or ‘excess’ competition as the greater threat to the stability of the system at any given moment. The second level of intellectual history traces the discussions within Marxism about the role of competition and monopoly in the functioning of the capitalist system and its tendency to crisis. Christophers retrieves an often-overlooked aspect of Marx’s analysis: against the notion that competition gives way eventually to monopoly capital in a linear historical trajectory (à la Baran and Sweezy), his central argument is that competition and monopoly are dialectically related. By this he means first that each calls forth the other: in the face of ‘excess’ competition that drives down the rate of profit, firms will begin to fail and others will be devoured until the industrial structure shifts towards monopoly, and in the face of ‘excess’ monopoly that raises prices and profits, new firms will spring up in competition. Christophers quotes Marx: ‘‘Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly.’’ Further, the stability of the system requires a balance between the two forces – a kind of equilibrium of monopolistic competition – even though maintaining such a balance is well nigh impossible. As a result, the system tends to veer excessively towards one or the other until crisis looms, when ways are found to rebalance it – always for the time being. In this, Christophers draws heavily on Harvey’s characteristic line of argument that seeks to understand the stability conditions of the system in order to better get at how crises work and how the system survives them.
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Research Interests: Business, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Environmental policy, Local Government, and 12 moreWaste Management, Nepal, Environmental Planning, Solid Waste Management, Medicine, Municipal Solid Waste, Enforcement, Legislation, Solid waste, Refuse disposal, Conservation of Natural Resources, and Sustainability
Research Interests: Geography, Human Geography, Library Science, Marxism, Development, and 5 moreIreland, Trade unions, Labour, Citation, and Antipode
This paper takes up the problem of how to structure a productive and genuine inter- disciplinary engagement from the standpoint of geography. It examines first what makes inter- disciplinarity difficult, focusing on the production of... more
This paper takes up the problem of how to structure a productive and genuine inter- disciplinary engagement from the standpoint of geography. It examines first what makes inter- disciplinarity difficult, focusing on the production of disciplinary cultures that define the material practices, social relations and epistemological commitments characteristic of a field of study. The paper then considers why interdisciplinarity seems to be in the ascendant and why and how geography has been used in this project. It cautions against a reductionist or imperialist style of interdisciplinary work and encourages geographers to develop their own approach to a productive engagement with other fields, in part through attending to the interdisciplinarity inherent in our own.
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Aspects of the transition from Fordism to what has been labeled a regime of flexible accumulation are analyzed. First the nature of the current crisis of Fordism is considered, with special emphasis on two elements of this crisis. The... more
Aspects of the transition from Fordism to what has been labeled a regime of flexible accumulation are analyzed. First the nature of the current crisis of Fordism is considered, with special emphasis on two elements of this crisis. The first has to do with the internationalization of Fordist production techniques without the corresponding elaboration of characteristically Fordist consumption patterns in the countries involved. The second has to do with the forms of competition that have arisen in conjunction with the Fordist regime of accumulation in the core countries. Both of these factors, it is argued, have played a significant role in the current predicament facing many advanced industrial nations. The shift to a regime of flexible accumulation is then considered with particular attention paid to the rise of new technologies and new ways of organizing production. These factors are related to changing competitive strategies and the spatial organization of production on an international scale.
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Research Interests: Business, Environmental Engineering, Mining Engineering, Environmental Science, Environmental Economics, and 10 moreEnvironmental Law, Environmental Studies, Environmental History, Environmental Management, Environmental Ethics, Environmental Policy and Governance, Mining, Environmental Sustainability, Tailings, and Resources Policy
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SCHOENBERGER E. (1987) Technological and organizational change in automobile production: spatial implications, Reg. Studies 21, 199--214. The origins and implications of recent technological and organizational changes in the automobile... more
SCHOENBERGER E. (1987) Technological and organizational change in automobile production: spatial implications, Reg. Studies 21, 199--214. The origins and implications of recent technological and organizational changes in the automobile industry are examined. The ...
Research Interests: Human Geography, Economics, Economic Geography, Organizational Change, Regional development, and 10 moreUrban And Regional Planning, Regional Studies, Applied Economics, National Science Foundation, Technological change, Competitive strategy, Production economics, Just in Time, Agglomeration Economies, and Automobile Industry
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Research Interests: Business, Human Geography, Economics, Industrial Organization, Foreign Direct Investment, and 8 moreCompetition, Multinational Corporations, Corporate Strategy, Internationalisation strategies of multinational enterprises, High Technology Market, Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI ), Oligopoly, and MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION
... Besides reducing labor content, ad-vanced automation also greatly reduces cy-cle times inproduction. ... decision to auto-mate in the face of associated costs and uncertainties: Automation has given ... the many financial factors that... more
... Besides reducing labor content, ad-vanced automation also greatly reduces cy-cle times inproduction. ... decision to auto-mate in the face of associated costs and uncertainties: Automation has given ... the many financial factors that can kill a company, I would rank inventory levels ...
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Research Interests: Business Ethics, Human Geography, Economics, Economic Geography, Corporate Social Responsibility, and 15 moreInternational Law, Human Rights, Narrative, Business History, Corporate Governance, Natural Law, Philosophy Of Law, Biography, Environmental Sustainability, Ethics and economics, International Strategy, Soft Law, IBM, Global Economic Governance, and Philosophy of Law
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Research Interests: Engineering and Routledge
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... for assistance at this time? Arthur C. Millspaugh, US financial advisor dur? ing Reza Shah's regime and the Allied Occupation, cites the previous corruption of French and Belgian advisors, the poli? tical dangers inherent... more
... for assistance at this time? Arthur C. Millspaugh, US financial advisor dur? ing Reza Shah's regime and the Allied Occupation, cites the previous corruption of French and Belgian advisors, the poli? tical dangers inherent in engaging ...
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Technology, Regions, and Policy Edited by John Rees Over the last decade, several regions within the United States have developed strong economies based on fast-growing, high-tech-nology companies. These companies have generated the new... more
Technology, Regions, and Policy Edited by John Rees Over the last decade, several regions within the United States have developed strong economies based on fast-growing, high-tech-nology companies. These companies have generated the new products, ...
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This paper considers the changing foundations of competition in the electronic components industry and their implications for production and location at the international level. Pressures in favor of the adoption of competitive strategies... more
This paper considers the changing foundations of competition in the electronic components industry and their implications for production and location at the international level. Pressures in favor of the adoption of competitive strategies based on product destandardization are described. As a consequence, it is argued, the industry's traditional spatial division of labor stands to be recomposed along different lines.
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... INTERNATIONAL LOCATION* ERICA SCHOENBERGER The Johns Hopkins University ... 'The author would like to thank Ann Markusen, Michael Teitz, Dick Walker, Flavia Martinelli, Bea-triz Nofal, and David Harvey for their valuable... more
... INTERNATIONAL LOCATION* ERICA SCHOENBERGER The Johns Hopkins University ... 'The author would like to thank Ann Markusen, Michael Teitz, Dick Walker, Flavia Martinelli, Bea-triz Nofal, and David Harvey for their valuable suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. ...
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In a recent article in this journal, Gertler criticizes the notion of flexibility, focusing on the issues of the empirical pervasiveness of flexible production methods and the social, economic and technical barriers to their spread.... more
In a recent article in this journal, Gertler criticizes the notion of flexibility, focusing on the issues of the empirical pervasiveness of flexible production methods and the social, economic and technical barriers to their spread. Emphasizing the labour control ...
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Research Interests: Science Policy, Biotechnology, Cancer, Environmental Health, Developing Countries, and 15 moreResponse, Public Health, Drinking Water Quality Standards, Space Science, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Population, Humans, Hygiene, PLoS one, Sanitation, Bottled Water, Drinking Water Quality, Open Defecation, and Predictor
Research Interests: Economic History, Anthropology, Medieval History, History of Economic Thought, Early Modern Europe, and 15 moreHistory of Capitalism, Early Modern economic and social history, History of Military Technology, Marxist political economy, Ancient Military History, Classical Greek Military History, Market economy, Barter, Medieval Economic and Social History, Historical Studies, History of Money and Banking, Control Management, Marxist Political Economy, Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece, and Commodity
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original and more than thought-provoking: it really makes you think hard about what you think you know and why. Because The Great Leveler so ably occupies the high ground of theory and big-picture history, it is difficult to find a... more
original and more than thought-provoking: it really makes you think hard about what you think you know and why. Because The Great Leveler so ably occupies the high ground of theory and big-picture history, it is difficult to find a singular avenue of approach to analyzing it. What follows, then, is a collection of comments on different elements of the book. An important point, and one that the text doesn't really announce, is that this is an intellectual as well as an economic history. The intellectual history has a dual focus. It traces mainstream theories and perceptions of monopoly and competition in the economies of the US and the UK as these bear on the thinking of the political establishment and the judiciary. This is critical for understanding why legislation and courtroom judgment viewed 'excess' industrial concentration or 'excess' competition as the greater threat to the stability of the system at any given moment. The second level of intellectual history traces the discussions within Marxism about the role of competition and monopoly in the functioning of the capitalist system and its tendency to crisis. Christophers retrieves an often-overlooked aspect of Marx's analysis: against the notion that competition gives way eventually to monopoly capital in a linear historical trajectory (a` la Baran and Sweezy), his central argument is that competition and monopoly are dialectically related. By this he means first that each calls forth the other: in the face of 'excess' competition that drives down the rate of profit, firms will begin to fail and others will be devoured until the industrial structure shifts towards monopoly, and in the face of 'excess' monopoly that raises prices and profits, new firms will spring up in competition. Christophers quotes Marx: ''Monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly.'' Further, the stability of the system requires a balance between the two forces – a kind of equilibrium of monopolistic competition – even though maintaining such a balance is well nigh impossible. As a result, the system tends to veer excessively towards one or the other until crisis looms, when ways are found to rebalance it – always for the time being. In this, Christophers draws heavily on Harvey's characteristic line of argument that seeks to understand the stability conditions of the system in order to better get at how crises work and how the system survives them.
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A review of my book by Trevor Barnes, University of British Columbia
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We are at an environmental impasse. Many blame our personal choices about the things we consume and the way we live. This is only part of the problem. Different forms of social power-political, economic and ideological-structure the... more
We are at an environmental impasse. Many blame our personal choices about the things we consume and the way we live. This is only part of the problem. Different forms of social power-political, economic and ideological-structure the choices we have available. This book analyzes how we make social and environmental history and why we end up where we do. Using case studies from different environmental domains-earth and water, air and fire-Nature, Choice and Social Power examines the form that social power takes and how it can harm the environment and hinder our efforts to act in our own best interests. The case studies challenge conventional wisdoms about why gold is valuable, why the internal combustion engine triumphed and when and why suburbs sprawled. The book shows how the power of individuals, the power of classes, the power of the market and the power of the state at different times and in different ways were critical to setting us on a path to environmental degradation. It also challenges conventional wisdoms about what we need to do now. Rather than reducing consumption and shrinking from outcomes we do not want, it proposes growing toward outcomes we do want. We have invested massive resources in creating our problems; it will take equally large investments to fix them. Written in a clear and engaging style, the book is underpinned with a political economy framework and addresses how we should understand our responsibility to the environment and to each other as individuals within a large and impersonal system.
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Companies often act against their own interests even when the know what they should do. This book shows how corporate culture, managerial identity and strategy are connected in ways that may throw even technologically progressive and... more
Companies often act against their own interests even when the know what they should do. This book shows how corporate culture, managerial identity and strategy are connected in ways that may throw even technologically progressive and powerful firms into crisis. The culture of a firm is not a set of traditions that block change. Rather, it shapes which kinds of change will be accepted and which will be rejected. Case studies include Lockheed Missiles and Space and Xerox. The book is old, but the case studies are still totally relevant.
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We are at an environmental impasse. Many blame our personal choices about the things we consume and the way we live. This is only part of the problem. Different forms of social power-political, economic and ideological-structure the... more
We are at an environmental impasse. Many blame our personal choices about the things we consume and the way we live. This is only part of the problem. Different forms of social power-political, economic and ideological-structure the choices we have available. This book analyzes how we make social and environmental history and why we end up where we do. Using case studies from different environmental domains-earth and water, air and fire-Nature, Choice and Social Power examines the form that social power takes and how it can harm the environment and hinder our efforts to act in our own best interests. The case studies challenge conventional wisdoms about why gold is valuable, why the internal combustion engine triumphed and when and why suburbs sprawled. The book shows how the power of individuals, the power of classes, the power of the market and the power of the state at different times and in different ways were critical to setting us on a path to environmental degradation. It also challenges conventional wisdoms about what we need to do now. Rather than reducing consumption and shrinking from outcomes we do not want, it proposes growing toward outcomes we do want. We have invested massive resources in creating our problems; it will take equally large investments to fix them. Written in a clear and engaging style, the book is underpinned with a political economy framework and addresses how we should understand our responsibility to the environment and to each other as individuals within a large and impersonal system.
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The paper reports on a two-year participant-observation study of a large, interdisciplinary, inter-institutional scientific and engineering collaboration. It focuses on key elements of building a productive collaboration, especially 1)... more
The paper reports on a two-year participant-observation study of a large, interdisciplinary, inter-institutional scientific and engineering collaboration. It focuses on key elements of building a productive collaboration, especially 1) the time it takes to build trust and scientific understanding and how to use that time; 2) the importance of teaching -- not just the facts of the matter, but how your discipline thinks: e.g., about what types of evidence it considers valid (mathematical proofs? statistics? the output of electron microscopes, linear accelerators or spectroscopes?) and how they can talk to each other; 3) recognizing under-the-radar frictions; and 4) and most generally, the importance of talk.
