CALL FOR PAPERS

International Geographical Union Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Spaces and Regional Science Association International

Mini conference

“Globalisation and New Patterns of Services Sector Driven Growth”

June 19-20, 2014
Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research
University of Amsterdam

Organizers: Niels Beerepoot, Bart Lambregts, and Jana Kleibert (University of Amsterdam)

Conference Overview
The IGU Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Spaces is partnering with the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) for a joint scientific event aimed at extending international research and scholarship in geography, promoting international collaboration in research activity and the dissemination of research findings, and facilitating the transfer of knowledge, experience and expertise between countries and institutions (http://uac.utoledo.edu/igu_commission/ ). Via the organisation of mini conferences the IGU committee and RSAI aims to bring together small groups of scholars for in-depth discussion on some of the latest issues in the field of economic geography.

The 2014 Amsterdam IGU/RSAI mini conference aims to stimulate discussions on how recent changes in the ways business processes are organized have been reshaping the international division of labour. After drastic shifts in the (spatial) organization of the production of goods, increasingly fierce competition forces firms look critically at how the production of services is organized. Digitization and advances in information and communication technologies enable firms to unbundle service business processes, and the increased global availability of sufficiently skilled labour allows for the relocation of particular business processes around the globe, leading to a new geography of services production. As a result, various Southern cities now command a prominent role as service delivery hubs for the global market. A growing, export-oriented service sector here is commonly understood to generate new employment opportunities for an increasingly well-educated labour force. It is also associated with the formation of a new middle class. Learning fast, multinational services producing enterprises from the global South rapidly expand their global presence, thereby presenting new competition to their Western peers. Simultaneously, patterns are further complicated by the tendency towards regionalization of value chains with production moving back to the firms’ regions of origin.

This conference welcomes contributions that deal with the drivers and the local outcomes (both in the global North and South) of the international reconfiguration of services production. More in particular we invite papers that address the following issues in different empirical and geographical contexts:
• Service sector growth and regional development
• Global production networks in service delivery
• New geographies of service work
• Local labour market impacts of the globalization of services production
• Emergence of Southern cities as hubs for service delivery
• Service work and the rise of a new middle class in developing countries
• The rise of non-Western multinationals in service delivery
• Service outsourcing and offshoring (and re-shoring)
• Linkages and comparisons between the globalization of manufacturing and services production

Abstracts
Abstracts (300 words max.) should be submitted by January 31 2014 to Niels Beerepoot: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Papers
Written papers submitted in advance will be circulated among the participants and considered for publication in an edited volume or special issue.

Registration
Deadline for registration is April 1, 2014.

Conference Package
Includes conference dinner, one lunch and conference materials: 75 euro.
A limited number of travel subsidies (of $250,- and $500,-) are available for PhD researchers. Please indicate your interest when submitting your abstract.

Location
This seminar is organised by the Geographies of Globalisation research group of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research and will take place in one of the venues of the University of Amsterdam in the historic centre of Amsterdam.