Economic Geography: 207
Final Review Sheet
Chapters 7-10
Terms and concepts
Models of Competition: Perfect Competition, Oligopoly, Monopoly and everything in between
Different models of the segmented economy:
Taylor and Thrift, Birch’s Thundercloud, Freeman’s characterization based on
Technology, Characteristics of different firm types, Evidence in concentration ratios,
Porter’s value chain: primary vs. support activities
Business Environment- objective vs. behavioral environment
Game theory solutions
Hagerstrands conception
Product life cycle
Business Decisions: Corporate strategy vs. Competitive strategy
Corporate:
Strategic
Operating
Administrative
Ansoff’s Box
Porter’s Competitive strategy:
Relationship between Strategy (Chap 8) and Structure (Chap 7)
Chandler model “Structure Follows Strategy”
Locational Structure
Capitalism
Capitalist mode of production
Social relations of production
Labor theory of value
Surplus value
Fordism
Post-Fordism
Flexible specialization
Short waves (business cycles) and long waves (Kondratiev waves)
Relationships
What are the advantages to the large business organization? Does this discount the advantages to
smaller, less complex organizations? Explain.
Outline Porter’s three types of competitive strategy.
Elaborate Ansoff’s classification of business decisions.
What is Ansoff’s model of strategic directions?
What are the methods of implementation of corporate strategies?
How might the location requirements of large business organizations shift in a highly
competitive, oligopolistic environment?
Explain how organizational structure is impacted by a firm’s competitive strategy?
Building upon the knowledge acquired in chapter seven, how are inter-firm or spatial linkages
constituted?
What factor does Christopher Freeman use to segment the market? What are the six types of firms?
Consider the uncertain and volatile business environment. How is the domain environment of a
business organization different from its task environment?
Review the game theory example from lecture. What are some of the different strategies a firm can
use to make decisions in an uncertain environment?
What are some of the advantages of large business organizations? Does this discount the advantages
of smaller, less complex organizations?
What are the different types of competitive strategy identified by Michael Porter?
According to Ansoff, what are the strategic directions that a firm can take?
How does a firm’s competitive strategy affect its organizational structure?
What are some trends in the geography of corporate control? Of corporate R&D? Of production
units?
What does Marxist theory lend to our understanding of economic geography? How is it different
from the neoclassical framework we’ve been embedded in thus far?
How is surplus value extracted from labor in commodity production?
Explain the dynamics of capitalist production (think about the circulation of capital and capital
accumulation).
What does a “new regime of accumulation” refer to?
What is the difference between Fordism and post-Fordism?