Forthcoming Events
We are organizing an international symposium at the 2025 AJG Spring Meeting in order to promote our agenda of Management Geography. Ritsumeikan University invited research group members from overseas. International exchange will be conducted first during our ManGeo pre-conference at Ritsumeikan OIC on March 17, 2025. Here, we encourage young scholars to contribute with their research work as well. During the pre-conference we have a variety of topics spanning from theory building to empirical research about diverse managerial problems. Nevertheless, we like to focus on the EU’s Green Economy and VUCA thinking together about a ManGeo joint research project. Find attached the detailed program.
ManGeo pre-conference at Ritsumeikan OIC (campus map)
Find the Collection of Abstracts as PDF uploaded here.
ManGeo Symposium at the 2025 AJG Spring Meeting
Previous Event
2023 Research Group Meeting
Management Geography (ManGeo/国際経済経営地理学研究会) organized hybrid event entitled Embedding MNEs in Poland and Japan – Inward investment promotion of multinational manufacturing companies at RITSUMEIKAN UNIVERSITY Osaka Ibaraki Campus (OIC) on June 23, 2023. Overseas research group members and interested domestic scholars and students were invited discussing options for joint research projects on 1. Manufacturing companies and investment promotion / MNEs local and regional aspects in the context of Poland & Japan; 2. Poland’s role in Ukraine’s post-war economic recovery; 3. Economic globalization and local industrial clusters. This hybrid event is sponsored by Ritsumeikan University Management Association 60th Anniversary of Faculty Founding (立命館大学経営学会 学部創⽴60周年記念). Dr. Rolf D. Schlunze featured following speakers: Professor Dr. hab. Tomasz Dorożyński (Department of International Trade, University of Lodz, Poland), Professor emeritus Hiroshi Tanaka Ph.D. (College of Economics, Ritsumeikan University), Professor Dr. Atsushi Taira (Faculty of Education, Kagawa University), and as discussant Professor Dr. Patrik Ström (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden) was invited to comment by ZOOM. Find below more details and the abstracts of the speakers.
1. Tomasz Dorożyński presented about Incentives for attracting investors to Poland: The case study of manufacturing companies.* Abstract: Internationalization is surely one of the major processes observed in contemporary global economy. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are looking for optimum locations in almost all countries and regions across the world which are politically and economically safe. A foreign investor is interested, above all, in finding a concrete location where he would be able to bring the project to a successful end. With this knowledge in mind, authorities (at different levels) try to attract foreign investors using public resources for this purpose. Incentive schemes offered to potential investors continue to stir heated debates amongst economists, IB researchers and experts. Most governments actively compete for FDIs offering them, e.g., fiscal, financial, regulatory, technical and information tools. However, using incentives to attract MNEs cannot be a priori considered economically justified, as it is connected with incurring costs which, is some circumstances, may exceed expected returns. Such operations may raise doubts not only because economic operators are being subsidized, which means that a government interferes with the market, but because of the selective nature of granted aid. Research studies conducted globally to date, but also in Poland, do not let to unambiguously evaluate the effectiveness of incentives in attracting foreign investors. Most of their results, however, entitle to draw a conclusion that incentives, compared to other (fundamental) factors, played a secondary role in making location choices. Ambiguous and sometimes even contradictory conclusions are, in my opinion, the main reason why in-depth studies on the effects of incentives targeting foreign investors, especially at regional and local levels, should be conducted. Special attention was given to investments in special economic zones (SEZs). SEZs have become a popular investment policy tool especially in emerging economies. Growing popularity of zones among the governments seems to confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of the instrument. More skeptical assessments can be heard from researchers aware that we are dealing with the second best solution, i.e., the one which may, but does not have to, be beneficial to the economy and may also generate loses. Hence the principal scientific goal of the study is to evaluate the economic rationale behind using investment incentives and their impact on location choices made by enterprises with foreign capital. Author used the case of manufacturing companies, including Japanese ones operating in Poland. The primary and secondary data from several sources were analyzed, e.g. from special economic zones in Poland, Polish investment zone program, primary data collected within direct questionnaire studies among foreign investors and other secondary sources. Statistical methods were employed. Keywords: Multinational enterprises, foreign direct investment, location, investment incentives, special economic zones
2. Hiroshi Tanaka presented about The automotive EVisation in the EU and the transformation of the German – cored global value chain. Abstract: This study reveals the EVisation and de-Russianisation of the car industry in Europe in terms of the formation and development of integration capacities that guarantee the transition from high-speed, long-distance mobile durable goods to engine-powered car and then EV vehicles. The formation and development of such integration capacities is a combination of 1) the development of indigenous technologies, 2) changes in the product/production architecture of car manufacturing, and 3) the creation of institutional networks. The final conclusions summarise the imperial way of life, Germany’s geopolitical superpower status, the influence of China and the trend towards de-Russianisation. Keywords: Automotive EVisation, Germany, GVC
3. Atsushi Taira presented about Economic globalization and local industrial clusters: A case study of Glocal production and management strategies of the glove-related industry in Shikoku, Japan. Abstract: Economic globalization has brought severe competitive environment to local industries in the world. Especially, local mundane ‘low-tech’ industries in the developed countries have been facing continuous challenges to survive in the market. The glove-related industry in Eastern Kagawa in Shikoku, Japan, is a good example. The various concepts on the industrial cluster have provided critical tools to explain its formation and development. And the Global Value Chains (GVC) and Global Production Networks (GPN) concepts have contributed to understand processes and configuration of globalization of firms’ operations. Relational perspectives, which suggests an alternative point of view about space and place of firms’ operations, are recently attracting increasing attentions of researchers. This paper argues survival strategies of local industries and firms introducing relational concepts of pipelines and buzz. Keywords: industrial cluster, glocal, relational, pipeline, buzz, Japan
* Note for research group members the speech was up-loaded to the secured internal area of the ManGeo research group homepage.
