Företag, regioner och internationell konkurrens : Om regionala resursers betydelse

Sammanfattning: The overall purpose of this thesis is to study regional variation in the international competitiveness (export capacity, market orientation and production aboard) of Swedish manufacturing industry, and to contribute to explaination of this variation. The explanation is sought for in differences in regional production milieu as well as in differences in localization of industrial sectors and claims upon production milieus. The approach that has been developed and tested in this thesis is an effort to treat within a common framework both localization theoretical aspects and aspects normally dealt with in international trade theory. The basic thought is that firms' localization and interplay with various conditions in a close geographic milieu (the regional home-base) does considerably affect the international competitiveness of manufacturing industry. In order better to understand aspects of competition as well as of localisation they must be investigated simultaneously in a relation of inter-dependence. The perhaps most important result of the comprehensive investigations is that they show how the home-base dependence in a highly manifest manner varies in strength and character depending on in which phase of the product life-cycle the products of a manufacturing industry sector are to be found. The results also reveal clear variations depending on whether the firms are large or small. Primarily this has to do with the strength of the home-base dependence, while the character of this dependence to a great extent is still reflected in the position in the product life-cycle.