Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
This research project followed up a previous Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project (grant number R000223210, data not currently held at the UK Data Archive) that empirically described the world city network in 2000. This later project created a similar set of data for 2004, to describe changes since 2000. Following the pioneering work of S. Sassen (1991/2001 and 1994), world/global cities were interpreted through their production and consumption of advanced producer services. Sassen's ideas were taken further, using these services to define inter-city relations and consequently a world city network of 'global service centres'. The world city network is modelled as an interlocking network wherein advanced producer service firms 'inter-link' cities through their office networks. Under conditions of contemporary globalisation, the firms' projects for clients will typically involve several offices, bringing in different professional, creative, and geographical knowledge. The model's basic premise is that intra-firm flows of information, knowledge, instruction, plans, advice, personnel, ideas, etc., generated by a given office, are proportional to the size and importance of the office. The latter is termed the 'service value' of a city to a firm in the conduct of its everyday business. Therefore the flow between any pair of offices is the product of their service values. Aggregating such products for large numbers of firms produces estimates of inter-city flows and therefore describes the world city network. This project used measures of the world city network in 2004 to compare to 2000 and thereby derive changes from 2000 to 2004. Such change data based upon a specific process are conspicuous by their absence in the debates about globalisation. Here, a new dynamic geography of contemporary globalisation may be created. By the time of the later project, some of the original firms no longer existed, and there were data compatibility problems, so that for 2004, data are presented for 80 firms. In all other respects the data collection was the same as for 2000. Further information about the project, including publications, may be found on the ESRC World City Network Formation: Global Connections Audit and Analysis grant award web page.
Main Topics:
Data collection methodology consisted of using firms' web sites and recording information on their office networks. Therefore, two types of topic information were recorded: office size (e.g. number of law partners) and 'extra-locational' responsibilities (e.g. regional office). Because all web sites are different, the range of information obtained required codifying into a common metric. Service values were coded 0 (no office in a city) through to 5 (headquarter city) with other scores depending on the size and extra-locational functions of offices in cities. In the 2000 project, the office networks of 100 'global service firms' were described across 315 cities. The services covered were accountancy, advertising, banking/finance, insurance, law, and management consultancy.
Purposive selection/case studies
Compilation or synthesis of existing material
