Publications

November 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Background Note

Location Choice for New Ventures: Choices within Cities

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Keywords: Business Startups; Urban Scope; Geographic Location

June 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Majid Al Futtaim Retail Geographic Expansion: Brick or Click?

By: Juan Alcácer and Alpana Thapar

This case illustrates the challenges that retailers face when they aggressively pursue geographical growth by expanding both their physical store network and their online presence. It features Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Retail, a franchisee of Carrefour hypermarkets in the... View Details

Keywords: Stores; Ecommerce; Strategy; Expansion; Geographic Location; Decision Making; Internet and the Web; Digital Transformation; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Middle East

summer 1994
Article

The New Dynamics of Global Manufacturing Site Location

By: A. D. MacCormack, L. J. Newman III and D. B. Rosenfield

Keywords: Global Range; Geographic Location

11 Sep 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Spatial Organization of Firms: Internal and External Agglomeration Economies and Location Choices Through the Value Chain

Keywords: by Juan Alcácer & Mercedes Delgado

December 2002
Article

Knowledge Seeking and Location Choice of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States

By: Juan Alcacer and Wilbur Chung

To what extent do firms go abroad to access technology available in other locations? This paper examines whether and when state technical capabilities attract foreign investment in manufacturing from 1987-1993. We find that on average state R&D intensity does not... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Acquisition; Foreign Direct Investment; Research and Development; Information Technology; Production; Geographic Location; United States

2021
Working Paper

Housing Consumption and the Cost of Remote Work

By: Christopher Stanton and Pratyush Tiwari

This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same... View Details

Keywords: Remote Work; Geographic Mobility; Housing; Cost; Geographic Location; Income

2025
Working Paper

When Where Watt: Harnessing the Value of Time and Location for Renewable Electricity Generation

By: Vishrut Rana, Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine

Problem definition: Investments in renewable energy have surged worldwide in recent years, with over $2 trillion spent globally on clean energy. This surge was driven by growing policy support, concerns about energy security, and, most importantly, the cost... View Details

Keywords: Wind Power; Electricity Distribution; Renewable Energy; Profit; Investment Return; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Geographic Location; Revenue; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry

2002
Chapter

Bridging Knowledge Gaps: Learning in Geographically Dispersed Cross-Functional Development Teams

By: D. Sole and A. Edmondson

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Acquisition; Learning; Groups and Teams; Geographic Location; Organizational Structure

February 2020
Article

Effects of a Tournament Incentive Plan Incorporating Managerial Discretion in a Geographically Dispersed Organization

By: Carolyn Deller and Tatiana Sandino

Using retail chain data, we study the effects of a tournament incentive plan based primarily on objective performance, but incorporating managerial discretion in the selection of winners. In principle, such plans could motivate employees to perform both at a high... View Details

Keywords: Tournaments; Subjectivity; Motivation and Incentives; Fairness; Performance Improvement; Geographic Location

1983
Article

Equilibrium Store Locations When Consumers Minimize Travel Time Plus Waiting Time

By: Elon Kohlberg

Keywords: Geographic Location; Customers

2020
Working Paper

Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Ohchan Kwon

Using a natural experiment and field interviews, this paper studies how social attachment to place imposes psychic costs on workers who experience geographic mobility. This is especially salient when workers are assigned to locations far from their hometown, which may... View Details

Keywords: Distance From Hometown; Social Attachment To Place; Psychic Costs; Worker Performance; Natural Experiment; Geographic Location; Familiarity; Employees; Performance; India

January 2014
Case

Emirates Airline: Connecting the Unconnected

By: Juan Alcacer and John Clayton

Narrates the story of Emirates, an airline founded in 1985 in Dubai that by 2013 was among the three largest commercial airlines in the world. The case emphasizes how Emirates capitalized on its location—a small city–state strategically located to reach ¾ of the world... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Competitive Advantage; Airlines; Multinational; Location Strategies; Geographic Location; Multinational Firms and Management; Air Transportation; Competitive Advantage; Business Strategy; Air Transportation Industry; Middle East; Dubai

2008
Chapter

Where is the Pharmacy to the World? Pharmaceutical Industry Location and International Regulatory Variation

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

A consumer-oriented model for drug development and use has attracted attention in recent years as an alternative to the much-maligned approach of mass-marketing blockbuster drugs. In a parallel development, patients and disease-based organizations have assumed greater... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Testing and Trials; Demand and Consumers; Pharmaceutical Industry; European Union; Germany; United States

Article

Extending the Role of Headquarters Beyond the Firm Boundary: Entrepreneurial Alliance Innovation

By: Jaeho Kim and Andy Wu

Prior research on corporate headquarters (CHQ) characteristics identifies the impact of CHQ location and composition on the innovation outcomes of internal subsidiaries. However, given that external strategic alliances with high-tech entrepreneurial firms represent a... View Details

Keywords: Alliance; Innovation; Corporate Headquarters; Geographic Proximity; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Alliances; Joint Ventures; Innovation and Invention; Business Headquarters; Geographic Location

2018
Working Paper

It is Easy to be Brave From a Safe Distance: Proximity to the SEC and Insider Trading

By: Trung Nguyen and Quoc H. Nguyen

We use hand-collected data from SEC’s litigation releases for insider trading violations to examine the effect of geographic distance on its enforcement activities and insider trading activities. First, we find that the SEC is more likely to investigate companies that... View Details

Keywords: SEC; Enforcement; Financial Misconduct; Insider Trading; Geographic Proximity; Governance Compliance; Law Enforcement; Geographic Location; Finance; Crime and Corruption

2012
Book

All Business is Local: Why Place Matters More Than Ever in a Global, Virtual World

By: John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz

Keywords: Marketing Planning; Location Strategies; Geographic Location; Marketing; Global Strategy

2021
Working Paper

The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time

By: Jasmina Chauvin, Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tommy Pan Fang

Cross-border communication costs have plummeted and enabled the global distribution of work, but frictions attributable to distance persist. We estimate the causal effects of temporal distance, i.e., time zone separation between employees, on intra-firm communication,... View Details

Keywords: Communication Patterns; Time Zones; Geographic Frictions; Knowledge Workers; Multinational Companies; Communication; Multinational Firms and Management; Geographic Location

January 2023
Article

Firm-Induced Migration Paths and Strategic Human-Capital Outcomes

By: Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Victoria Sevcenko

Firm-induced migration typically entails firms relocating workers to fill value-creating positions at destination locations. But such relocated workers are often exposed to external employment opportunities at their destinations, possibly triggering turnover. We... View Details

Keywords: Worker Relocation; Turnover; Firm-induced Migration; Smaller Towns; Employee Mobility; Geographic Mobility; Migration; Clusters; Employees; Geographic Location; Performance; Opportunities; Retention; Human Capital; Talent and Talent Management

May 1993 (Revised December 1994)
Background Note

Geography of Competition and Strategy, The

Addresses the role of geographic scope in competition and strategy. Makes distinctions between the geographic scope of competition (or the effective area over which firms compete), the geographic scope of competitive advantage (or the geographic area from which a firm... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Geographic Scope