Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 29 468– 484 2004 ISSN 0020 -2754 © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2004 Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. ‘Globalizing’ regional development: a global production networks perspective Neil M Coe*, Martin Hess*, Henry Wai-chung Yeung†, Peter Dicken* and Jeffrey Henderson‡ Recent literature concerning regional development has placed significant emphasis on local institutional structures and their capacity to ‘hold down’ the global. Conversely, work on inter-firm networks – such as the global commodity chain approach – has highlighted the significance of the organizational structures of global firms’ production systems and their relation to industrial upgrading. In this paper, drawing upon a global production networks perspective, we conceptualize the connections between ‘globalizing’ processes, as embodied in the production networks of transnational corporations, and regional development in specific territorial formations. We delimit the ‘strategic coupling’ of the global production networks of firms and regional economies which ultimately drives regional development through the processes of value creation, enhancement and capture. In doing so, we stress the multi-scalarity of the forces and processes underlying regional development, and thus do not privilege one particular geographical scale. By way of illustration, we introduce an example drawn from recent research into global production networks in East Asia and Europe. The example profiles the investments of car manufacturer BMW in Eastern Bavaria, Germany and Rayong, Thailand, and considers their implications for regional development. key words globalization global production networks regional development Asia Europe *School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL email: neil.coe@manchester.ac.uk †Department of Geography, National University of Singapore ‡Manchester Business School, and the School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester revised manuscript received 10 May 2004 Introduction and theoretical context One of the many paradoxes of the processes of ‘globalization’ is the continued significance of ‘regions’, in the sense of sub-national spaces as foci of economic activity. Systemic processes of rapid technological change, enhanced capital mobility and neoliberally inspired inter-regional competition for investment have focused attention on the need for regional-level interventions among a broad community of academics and policymakers. Two recent strands of work attempt to tackle the links between globalization dynamics and notions of ‘regional development’. One strand places particular emphasis on endogenous institutional structures and their capacity to ‘hold down’ global networks (for overviews see MacLeod 2001a; Scott 1998; Storper 1997). The other strand, focusing specifically on inter-firm networks and global commodity/value chains (GCCs/GVCs), considers the organizational structures of global firms’ production systems and explores how particular regions ‘slot into’ these networks with varying impacts on industrial upgrading (see Gereffi and Kaplinsky 2001; Gereffi 1994 1996). In their early formulations, both of these literatures could be criticized for their failure to effectively conceptualize regional economic development in