Networks and RegionalCompetitiveness: Towards a Transaction Cost Approach of Small-Scale Cooperation

A preoccupation with competition often dominates the study of governance. A focus on competition often unnecessarily precludes the possibility that regional institutions can suspend competition in certain areas and facilitate cooperation among potential rivals, thereby potentially contributing to their mutual success. In many ways companies cooperating through these types of networks have a greater degree of flexibility than firms which are forced to rely solely on hierarchies or markets for solutions to their problems. In order to fully understand how such networks work, this article first parses out differences in definitions of networks in order to understand how the type of network mentioned above actually differs from other uses of this term. Then it develops a theory of governance that goes beyond hierarchies and markets by demonstrating how this type of network can lead to reductions in transaction costs. This claim is illustrated on hand from examples of alternative forms of organization in Germany and Italy.

Glocalización: Nuevos Enfoques Teóricos Sobre el Desarrollo Regional (Sub Nacional) en el Contexto de la Integración Económica y de la Globalización

El autor aborda en este artículo cuestiones atinentes al espacio, la geografía y la organización del territorio a partir del tema del desarrollo. Para fundamentar su tesis según la cual varios de los factores que impulsan la globalización tienen una base territorial, como el comercio internacional de bienes y servicios, el cambio tecnológico o los flujos internacionales, apela a las categorías del desarrollo social y las sitúa en dos dimensiones. En una primera instancia, el autor toma en cuenta la lógica intranacional de despliegue de los factores políticos, ambientales y comerciales; en un segundo momento destaca el papel de las regiones y las localidades en la reconstrucción del sistema económico mundial para concluir que en un contexto todavía incierto se destaca la configuración de regiones megapolitanas que funcionan como motores regionales en la nueva economía global.---The author handles this article with questions that regard space,geography and territorial organisation based on the topic of development. To support his thesis that refers to the way in which various factors that give an impulse to globalisation have a territorial base, such as the international commerce of goods and services, technological change or international networks, the author utilises social development categories and places them in two dimensions. Initially, the author takes into account the international logic of the development of commercial, environment and political factors. Secondly, he emphasizes the role of regions and localities in the reconstruction of the global economic system to conclude that in a present uncertain context it is worth pointing out the configuration of megapolitanregions that function as regional motors in a new global economy.