English report 2000

Rapport Anglais du RESER 2000 - John R.Bryson R � s e a u E u r o p � e n S e r v i c e s & E s p a c e

- SERVICES ET INTERNATIONALISATION -

Rapport de l'�quipe Anglaise.

By John R.Bryson

Table des mati�res

1 - The New Economic Geography
2 - Culture and the Economy
3 - Work and Hybrid Identities
4 - The Transformed Firm
5 - Consumption, Culture and Identity
6 - Conclusion
7 - References

The New Economic Geography

It has long been recognized that academic disciplines do not evolve in a steady, incremental and cumulative manner, or indeed according to any mechanistic pattern. RESER and its annual conference also highlights disparities between the research approaches and current salient questions that are central to the research agendas of academics living in each member country of the European Community. Like the evolution of an academic discipline there is no simple explanation for these differences except perhaps cultural differences, path dependency and the impact of intellectual suck capital. The historical evolution of a discipline involves periodic shifts and changes as new empirical events, theoretical movements, methodologies and new generations of academics promote the development of a new paradigm or research programme. It is during such times that a sense of intellectual excitement and challenge pervades the subject. Since the late 1980s, economic geography in the United Kingdom has been in the throes of such a wave of renewal and expansion. This period of reinvention of the discipline of economic geography is the consequence of the development of a �cultural turn� in the social sciences (Bryson et.al., 1999:13-17) that has produced what has become termed �the new economic geography�. Most economic geographers in the United Kingdom would accept that:

�this turn to culture is apparent in the framing of intellectual gazes both beyond the academy � suddenly culture and the cultural are absolutely everywhere � and within it � particularly through the emergence of cultural studies as a central interdisciplinary field� (Crang, 1997: 4).

The complexity of the impacts of the cultural turn in geography and in the sub-discipline of economic geography make it very difficult, at this point in time, to construct a detailed history of this movement. Suffice it to say the new economic geography embraces both theoretical and methodological developments that have, and are still altering, the types of economic geographies constructed in the United Kingdom. Methodologically the cultural turn has introduced economic geography to a new set of qualitative methodologies, for example textual analysis, iconography, semiotics, ethnography, participant observation and action research. It is also informed by the postmodern challenge as to how the world is theorized and represented. The postmodern turn encourages multiple voices and accounts, but it also compels an examination of the positionality and authority of knowledge claims. The consequence is that it has become commonly accepted that the texts of economic geography represent selective and partial readings of the relationship between the economy and space. The validity and partiality of metanarratives, for example the neoclassical approach, is constantly questioned and has been replaced by a concern with the construction of what is sometimes termed a �modest� geography (Law, 1994). This modest approach recognizes the positionality of the author and highlights the partial nature of the economic geography that has been constructed in a journal article or monograph. One consequence of this movement is the apparent fragmentation of economic geography into a discipline of multiple and sometimes conflicting approaches to understanding the geography of the economy. There is no doubt that this has produced an enlivened economic geography, but at the expense of the construction of knowledges that are considered by the policy-making community as suspect. It is difficult to inform policy by drawing upon the findings of research that is heavily informed by the cultural turn, the positionality debate and a multitude of complex but frequently considered by policy makers to be partial qualitative methodologies (Pollard, et.al, 2000).

The central role of culture in the current reconfiguration of economic geography in the United Kingdom makes it difficult to construct a review of the literature. It is possible to argue that all geography produced over the last five years has been informed by the cultural turn to a greater or lessor extent. There is a multitude of papers and debates to choose from. Without a doubt the best overall review of this movement is to be found in the collection edited by Lee and Wills (1997). Given the complexity of this debate and, of course, the positionality of the author this review will explore four aspects of the new economic geography: the relationship between culture and the economic, hybrid identities, culture and the firm and the increased importance of geographies of material culture.

I am aware that these four are a selection of material from a complex set of debates. Other topics that could be explored relate to the globalisation of culture (Featherstone, 1994). However, the decision to exclude this material is made on the assumption that this debate will be found in the other country reports.

Culture and the Economy

Since the early 1990s economic geographers have recognized that the �economic� and the �cultural� are �hybrid� categories (du Gay, 1997a: 2). This realization comes from drawing upon the literature of industrial sociology and especially the work of Marc Granovetter (1985) and Sharon Zukin and Paul DiMaggio (1990). To Zukin and DiMaggio

�[c]ulture sets limits to economic rationality: it prescribes or limits market exchange . . . [C]ulture may shape terms of trade . . . Culture . . . prescribes strategies of self-interested action . . . and defines the actors who may legitimately engage in them�.

Economic sociology draws attention to the embeddedness of economic activity, embedded in networks of social, political and cultural relationships. Thus, the economic cannot be conceptualized as distinct from the cultural, the political or the social; these four spheres of activity are part of a single system. It is important, however, that the cultural does not become an explanation of last resort; processes, organizations and geographies differ because of the impact of distinctive cultural systems. This type of explanation is meaningless as it undermines the requirement for social research since everything can be explained by cultural factors.

Paul du Gay uses the term cultural economy to highlight the conceptual shift away from a political economy that objectifies economic processes to one in which:

��[e]conomic� processes and practices � in all their plurality, whether we refer to management techniques for re-organizing the conduct of business, contemporary strategies for advertising goods and services, or everyday interactions between service employees and their customers � depend on meaning for their effects and have particular cultural �conditions of existence�(1997a: 3-4).

Meanings are constructed, reproduced and modified in particular spaces from the office, factory floor up to the level of a global city. Understanding the construction of such meanings and their geographies have become central to the geography project.

Some of the most important social science work that draws upon the insights provided by the cultural turn are found in the influential work of Scott Lash and John Urry (1994), in the growing geographical literature on global cities or service spaces, and in the new industrial spaces debate (Storper, 1995). Lash and Urry argue that economic and symbolic processes are interrelated or to use their language �interlaced� and that the economy is �increasingly culturally inflected and . . . culture is more and more economically inflected� (1994: 64). Their complex argument revolves around the growing importance and growth of cultural industries. The argument is based around the complex interplay between symbols (signs) and economic activities that range from various kinds of service economy to forms of post-industrial space. In this argument goods are increasingly emptied of material content and what are increasingly produced are signs that have cognitive or an aesthetic content, for example branded goods and identities constructed around the relationship between pop music and fashion or more precisely dress.

Some of the key papers working in this area explore the relationship between culture and work in the City of London, especially in financial services. One of the most cited papers is Nigel Thrift�s exploratory analysis of the social and cultural determinants of international financial centres (1994). The primary message of this work is that the centralized global financial centers will not disappear as this activity relies on information, expertise and contacts. Financial centres are centres for social interaction and face-to-face contact that are essential for the creation of trust and for the exchange of information and expertise. Thift explores these three processes in a detailed case study of the City of London highlighting this area�s distinctive social and cultural structures (See also Bryson, et.al. (1993) for the role of social networks in the relationship between consultants and their associates as well as the relationship between clients and consultants).

Thrift�s work has encouraged a significant body of work that draws upon the emphasis that he places on culture and the City of London. Two papers deserve further attention. First, Lash and Urry draw attention to the growing importance of image and identify in their new economy of signs and spaces. This emphasis is mirrored in a paper by Thrift and Leyshon that explores the ways in which an individual�s identity and the stage on which they project their image, can be manipulated to present the correct appearance (Thrift and Leyshon, 1992). Workers in the City of London can use their annual bonus payments and high salaries to purchase the right education for their children, buy houses in the right locations, etc.. The right education provides access to the right social networks and friends and will eventually lead to their children developing the right careers. The relationship between consumption, lifestyle and success is thus extremely important (Miller et. al., 1998). Image, and especially image articulated through consumption (education, accent, dress, cars, house etc.), determines to an extent the ability of an individual to obtain and retain well-paid employment. This work highlights the relation between wealth, and especially new wealth, and the ability for individuals to construct forms of cultural and social capital that can be used to access new forms of wealth, knowledge and power (see also Schoenberger, 1997).

Second, research into the relationship between clients and their use of knowledge-intensive producer service companies has highlighted both the importance of trust in these relationships as well as the social and cultural nature of both the relationship and the search process. The key finding is that in most cases the relationship is based on a set of social and cultural criteria that can be interpreted by drawing upon Granovetter�s concept of embeddedness (1985) and weak-tie hypothesis. For example, large client companies search for the best management consultancy advice, irrespective of location (Bryson, 1997), whilst significant proportions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) search locally. This restricted search process is both a product of cost, as well as the imperfect market that exists in the ways in which potential clients identify business service companies. The location of the consultant relative to the client influences the overall cost of the project with regard to the time and cost of the expert�s travel. A company searching for external expertise usually employs consultants of which they have some direct or indirect experience. Personal contacts and weak-ties with friends and business acquaintances are used by the majority of SMEs to identify external advisers, and for the SME owner-manager the majority of these weak- and strong-ties will be based in the local area. This research is closely related to Storper�s (1995) work on the regional economy as a network of untraded interdependencies and Amin and Thrift�s concept of institutional thickness (1994). Institutional thickness is defined as the combination of factors (shared languages, institutions � trade associations, etc., local cultures, etc) that stimulated entrepreneurship and consolidates the local embeddedness of industry. Untraded interactions and institutional thickness are usually socially and culturally constructed. A good example of such social constructions is the operation and activities of ethically based trade association that operate to ensure that their members maximize the business advantages provided by distinctive forms of ethnicity.

Work and Hybrid Identities

The nature of service work and employment has generated considerable interest in the UK and the USA. Much of this work is heavily influenced by Hochschild�s (1983) important book that addresses the commercialization of the body and feelings of flight attendants. There are two important developments of Hochschild�s work. First, John Allen and Paul du Gay (1994) explore service work as a hybrid identity. By this they mean that service work is a qualitatively different form of work. In this analysis the presentation, communication and display aspects of service work imply that it cannot be conceptualized solely as an economic performance, but should also be understood as �cultural�. In this sense culture refers to the production of meaning. Service work�s hybrid identity implies that the boundaries between the economic and cultural activities that are involved in service work are blurred. For example, in financial services information networks are global networks and these are essentially social networks in which success depends as much on a set of social and cultural factors as it does on economics. The work of Tyler and Abbott (1998) on the airline industry replicates much of Hochschild�s well-known argument concerning the ways in which airlines �make-up� their employees in terms of presentation that ranges from recruitment to weight policies. Another good example of the hybrid nature of service work is found in the work of Clark and Salaman (1998) who explore management consultancy as a dramatic art and act rather than as an economic relationship. Impression management is, thus, a key feature of the work of management consultants as is the ways in which they present themselves and interact with clients.

Second, the work of Linda McDowell on gender at work in the City of London draws upon the earlier of work of Thrift (1994), but develops it by exploring the gendered nature of workplace relations. Though case studies of three merchant banks McDowell investigates the embedded and embodied character of work in the financial services industries. One of the key findings of this work draws upon some of the insights provided by Hochschild. One of the issues involves the programming of an individual�s appearance that can be directly related to success or failure in employment. For example, Disney theme parks have stringent appearance criteria for staff - from a clean shave for men and �the maintenance of an appropriate weight and size� (McDowell, 1995: 77). At Disneyland, the self-proclaimed �Happiest Place on Earth�, the identities of new employees are �not so much dismantled as . . . set aside as employees are schooled in the use of new identities� as they learn the Disney codes of conduct (Van Maanen, 1991: 73). The work of McDowell (1997) on the embodiment of financial workers in the City of London emphasizes the importance of appearance in the workplace. Dress can be used to fit into a social situation or appearance can be manipulated to achieve a desired result. Women can play �on their femininity to achieve visibility� (McDowell and Court, 1994: 380). McDowell shows the way in which women can become more or less female, depending on the circumstances and the location. Thus, one female manager noted that her dress:

Depends who I�m going to be seeing. Sometimes I�ll choose the �executive bimbo� look; at other times, like today when I�ve got to make a cold call, it�s easiest if I�ll blend into the background. I think this [a plain but very smart tailored blue dress] looks tremendously, you know, professional. No statement about me at all. �Don�t look at me, look at these papers I�m talking to you about.� But I wear high heels too, so I�m six feet tall when I stand up. And I think that commands some small sense of �well, I�d probably better listen to her, at least for a little while�. I do dress quite consciously because you�re got to have some fun in life, and sometimes wearing a leather skirt to work is just fun because you know they can�t cope with it� (quoted in McDowell, 1997: 199).

The Transformed Firm

The complex interplay between culture and the organization, behaviour and competitiveness of business organizations or firms deserves to be explored in greater detail. Reference can be made to the influential work of Meric Gertler (1995) who highlights the importance of spatial context in determining the successful transfer of machine tools between countries. Operator�s of machine tools imported from Germany into Canada found them more difficult to operate than Canadian produced machines. The argument concerns the spatial distance between the users and producers of advanced technologies. In this case culture matters defined in terms of work practices, training cultures, educational systems and shared codes of communication or embeddedness. Gertler�s work needs to inform further research especially into identifying and understanding the influence of cultural factors that work to undermine the European Union�s political project towards greater economic, political, social and by inference cultural harmony amongst member states.

Some of the most interesting work on the transformation of the firm explores the relationships between recruitment practices and the development of a corporate culture. Hanlon�s (1994) analysis of the Irish accountancy profession reveals that a degree is not a real requirement, but that the requirement of a degree is used as a screening mechanism. The selection process tries to identify recruits that will be controllable and who will fit into the culture of the firm. The degree criteria provides largely middle class recruits and other social criteria are used to identify individuals that will conform. Culture in accountancy is closely related to

�presentation, the ability not to antagonize clients, capability to reach the right conclusions (there were set down by the management), ability to uphold the practice�s �good name� and so on� (Hanlon, 1994: 118).

Hanlon�s argument is part of the service class debate that is associated with growing social polarization that results from the growth of well-paid professional service jobs that are supported by low-paid contract-style insecure service jobs.

Consumption, Culture and Identity

The relationship between the economy and culture is played out in space and through social interaction. This relationship has been explored in three influential works. First, John Urry�s (1990) construction of a sociology of tourism argues that a �tourist gaze� exists or in other words that there a systematic ways of �seeing� what we as tourists look at. The tourist gaze juxtaposes constructed cultural symbols or stereotypes with observation. This:

The gaze is constructed through signs, and tourism involves the collection of signs. When tourists see two people kissing in Paris what they capture in the gaze is �timeless romantic Paris�. When a small village in England is seen, what they gaze upon is the �real olde England�. As Culler argues: �the tourist is interested in everything as a sign of itself . . . All over the world the unsung armies of semioticians, the tourists, are fanning out in search of the signs of Frenchness, typical Italian behaviour, exemplary Oriental scenes, typical Italian, American thruways, traditional English pubs�(1981:127) (Urry, 1990: 3).

Urry�s work explores working conditions under the tourist gaze drawing upon some of the well-known service debates concerning the service relationship. Thus the service relationship is infused with social characteristics � race, age, gender, educational background � and provides a range of intangible contacts. He draws upon Gabriel (1988) ethnographic study of working in catering. One of Gabriel�s case studies involves craft cooking in a gentleman�s club in which the members of staff provide more than just food, but an intangible ambience that would be lost if the catering was rationalized.

This last point leads on to the second set of literatures that need to be explored. C.White Mills classic study of white collar work (1951) highlights what Allen and du Gay (1994) would term the hybrid nature of service work. To Mills: �[a] new aristocracy is springing up in the world today, an aristocracy of personal charm� (1951: 187). Note the different language to Allen and du Gay, but the similarity of meaning. Mills notes that salesladies (sic) borrow prestige from customers as well as from working for high class stores (1951: 173), and that salesgirls frequently attempt to identify with customers but are often are frustrated. Mills drawing upon James B. Gales� unpublished observations of working life in big department stores constructs a sociology, or micro-geography, of work. This account is similar to Zola�s novel that describes working conditions in a late nineteenth century Parisian department store (1995 [1883]). Seven different types of sales technique are identified of which �the charmer� attracts customers with her [sic] modulated voice, artful attire and stance and notes that:

It�s really marvelous what you can do in this world with a streamlined torso and a brilliant smile. People do things for me, especially men when I give them that slow smile and look up through my lashes. I found that out long ago, so why should I bother about a variety of selling techniques when one technique will do the trick? I spend most of my salary on dresses which accentuate all my good points. After all, a girl should capitalize on what she has, shouldn�t she? And you�ll find the answer in my commission total each week� (Mills: 1951: 175).

Gales� work has been developed by Phil Crang (1994) in his detailed account of the micro-geography, or workplace geographies of display, in an American-themed restaurant. In this account the waitress or waiter plays a different part depending on whether they are servicing a stag party, hen night or family. The role played

�was not simply being a waitress or waiter . . . rather, it was about, quite consciously, being oneself being a waitress . . . [this performance] left no simple refuge for one�s �own self�, no simple division of workplace role and other Phil(s), no clear split of self, labour, and indeed product (service was the product, and �being yourself� was good service� (Crang, 1994: 696).

Crang�s analysis reveals the ways in which the staff buy into the culture of the restaurant as well as the way in which staff are recruited that possess the right type of cultural capital � informal, young, friendly and with the right sort of body and skills in presenting it in performance. Note the similarities to the recruitment of Hanlon�s (1994) Irish accountants and Hochschild (1983) flight attendants. To Crang service workers have to locate their customers in terms of a range of cultural categories and to adjust their performance to suit each situation.

The metaphors of performance and stage are becoming dominant analogies in geographical and sociological narratives. The growing dominance of the performative metaphor in geography is derived from the shift that has occurred in anthropology over the last fifteen years away from an emphasis on ritual to performance. In anthropology, as in geography, performance concerns actions rather than exploring texts. To Schieffelin �[p]erformance is . . . concerned with . . . the creation of presence� (1998: 194). It is also important to note that much of this work has been influenced by the work of Goffman (1959) and the belief that there is something fundamentally performative about the world that we inhabit and construct. It does not take much imagination to see how this work can be used to inform service research.

Drawing upon the concept of performance Rapport (1998) provides a deconstruction and self-reflexive account of the hard sell techniques that are used to persuade people to purchase time-share holiday apartments. This paper has to be read to be appreciated; it is a classic service experience and text in its own right. The description is of a standard sales technique with a programmed story line that convinces the recipient (Rapport) that sometimes he becomes part of the salesperson�s category of �conventional member of the public and their mindset� (1998: 185). The account is one of the playing out of a learnt commercial language game and attempts to target this text at potential customers. Rapport�s text provides an account of the experience of the attempt to sell him a timeshare in Lanzarote for �6,850, but along with this story of a service interaction comes an adjacent academic text.

The final set of texts that deserve attention explore the construction and consumption of shopping spaces. The space of consumption is as important as the physical activity of consumption. Where one shops is endowed with cultural meaning, for example Harrods versus M&S or Wal-Mart. All of these say something about the consumer. Thus, catalogue shopping provides a basic resource for social groups �precluded from mainstream, leisure imbued formal shopping� (Clarke, 1998: 98). Shoppers with limited budgets frequently use catalogues to avoid the trauma of ��shopping around� with a restricted income� (Clarke, 1998: 92). Spaces of consumption are either exclusive or inclusive. Exclusive spaces are designed to attract the wealthy and repel the not so wealthy. Designer boutiques, Saville Row tailors and expensive jewellers try to maintain an air of exclusivity to ensure that they only attract those that can afford to consume in such spaces. Inadvertent browsers may occasionally wander into such stores only to be shocked by the price tags or absence of price tags.

Inclusive spaces attempt to attract all types of consumer except those too poor to consume. Such spaces range from inner city department stores through to out-of-town shopping malls, charity shops and car boot sales. Each space of consumption is associated with a set of unwritten rules for the consumer. Thus the shopping mall is designed to encourage people to consume and to discourage window-shopping, conversation and anything which distracts from consumption. The shopping mall is the ultimate in designed spaces; designed on the basis of psychology and economics (Shields, 1989; Goss, 1993). They are spaces of consumption, but also spaces to be consumed (Philio and Kearns, 1994).

Large out-of-town shopping centres are created and designed to be marketed as special places. Places which contain a representative sample of all shops, and in some cases cultures and townscapes (for example West Edmonton Mall (WEM), Canada (Goss 1993); or the Metrocentre, Gateshead, UK). Some malls have become tourist attractions in their own right, as tourist come to �gaze upon or view a set of different scenes, of landscapes or townscapes� (Urry, 1990: 1). WEM is �a world where Spanish galleons sail up Main Street past Marks and Spencer to put in at �New Orleans�, where everything is tame and happy shoppers mingle with smiling dolphins� (Shields, 1989: 154). The Metrocentre (Gateshead, UK) contains 3 miles of shopping mall with over 350 shops, 50 restaurants, a 10-screen cinema, a bowling alley and a fantasyland of fairground rides and attractions. It also has four themed areas: a �Mediterranean Village� with bubbling fountains and pavement bistros, a �Roman Forum� with classical-styled Tavernetta, a �Garden Court� with luscious greenery and waterfalls and an �Antique Village� with a village pond and �olde worlde tea shop� with water wheel (Metrocentre Guide). Within the confines of the Metrocentre the tourist can gaze and consume a variety of different landscapes, entertainments and shops. Malls are spaces in which to be seen, and to be seen. The same is also true for particular shopping streets, for example Bond Street in London, or Faneuil Square, Boston (Zukin, 1991). This goes as far as involving the acquisition of the right set of shopping bags with the right brand images. It is these bags, as well as the costume of the consumer, that are read by others, including shop assistants.

The shopping mall is an extremely interesting type of space. The Metreocentre appears to be in no way dissimilar to the main shopping street of a large ed budgets frequently use catalogues to avoid the trauma of ��shopping around� with a restricted income� (Clarke, 1998: 92). Spaces of consumption are either exclusive or inclusive. Exclusive spaces are designed to attract the wealthy and repel the not so wealthy. Designer boutiques, Saville Row tailors and expensive jewellers try to maintain an air of exclusivity to ensure that they only attract those that can afford to consume in such spaces. Inadvertent browsers may occasionally wander into such stores only to be shocked by the price tags or absence of price tags.

Inclusive spaces attempt to attract all types of consumer except those too poor to consume. Such spaces range from inner city department stores through to out-of-town shopping malls, charity shops and car boot sales. Each space of consumption is associated with a set of unwritten rules for the consumer. Thus the shopping mall is designed to encourage people to consume and to discourage window-shopping, conversation and anything which distracts from consumption. The shopping mall is the ultimate in designed spaces; designed on the basis of psychology and economics (Shields, 1989; Goss, 1993). They are spaces of consumption, but also spaces to be consumed (Philio and Kearns, 1994).

Large out-of-town shopping centres are created and designed to be marketed as special places. Places which contain a representative sample of all shops, and in some cases cultures and townscapes (for example West Edmonton Mall (WEM), Canada (Goss 1993); or the Metrocentre, Gateshead, UK). Some malls have become tourist attractions in their own right, as tourist come to �gaze upon or view a set of different scenes, of landscapes or townscapes� (Urry, 1990: 1). WEM is �a world where Spanish galleons sail up Main Street past Marks and Spencer to put in at �New Orleans�, where everything is tame and happy shoppers mingle with smiling dolphins� (Shields, 1989: 154). The Metrocentre (Gateshead, UK) contains 3 miles of shopping mall with over 350 shops, 50 restaurants, a 10-screen cinema, a bowling alley and a fantasyland of fairground rides and attractions. It also has four themed areas: a �Mediterranean Village� with bubbling fountains and pavement bistros, a �Roman Forum� with classical-styled Tavernetta, a �Garden Court� with luscious greenery and waterfalls and an �Antique Village� with a village pond and �olde worlde tea shop� with water wheel (Metrocentre Guide). Within the confines of the Metrocentre the tourist can gaze and consume a variety of different landscapes, entertainments and shops. Malls are spaces in which to be seen, and to be seen. The same is also true for particular shopping streets, for example Bond Street in London, or Faneuil Square, Boston (Zukin, 1991). This goes as far as involving the acquisition of the right set of shopping bags with the right brand images. It is these bags, as well as the costume of the consumer, that are read by others, including shop assistants.

The shopping mall is an extremely interesting type of space. The Metreocentre appears to be in no way dissimilar to the main shopping street of a large city, except that it an enclosed heated space. The mall, however, is a privately owned and regulated space subject to high levels of surveillance. Only certain types of behaviour will be tolerated and the mall�s �police� force will ensure that only desirable people are permitted to consume its spaces. Thus, the homeless and unemployed are excluded. Shields (1989) suggests that people can enter the world of the mall and pretend that they have just shopped or just about to shop. They are able to gaze, stroll and be gazed upon (Urry, 1990; Shield, 1989) and to consume the space rather than relate to the mall as a space of consumption.

Selling WEM or the Metrocentre is similar to the process of selling cities (Philo and Kearns, 1994). Cities sell themselves to attract inward investment, out of town shoppers and increasingly exhibitions, fairs and trade shows (Rubalcaba-Bermejo and Cuadrado-Roura, 1995). The same place marketing processes are at work in the city and the shopping mall. The Metrocentre has to attract shoppers whilst cities like Birmingham have to develop and maintain their position in the European urban system. Such inter-urban competition is all about the development of a national and increasingly �international presence�.

Conclusion

Readers of this review of the literature that explores the relationship between services and culture may consider that everything and anything can be explored using the term culture. There is an element of truth in this statement as economic experiences are social experiences and consequently are also political and cultural experiences. It matters that events occur in particular places and times and are performed and experienced by particular people � age, gender, ethnicity, class, culture etc. Understanding the geography of service activities at the micro and macro scales is as much about understanding the cultured nature of workplace performances and the social and cultural networks that link people together as about understanding pure economic processes. There is, of course, no such thing as an acultural economic process.

The main problem with much of the work explored in this review is the failure to undertake detailed comparative work that explores the relationship between culture and the economy drawing upon a research design that encompasses more than a single member country of the European Union. The classic study is Gertler�s comparison of German and Canadian tool production and consumption. Culture has been used to inform the construction of micro geographies of the workplace (Crang, 1994) and regional geographies of industrial and service spaces (Thrift, 1994). There is plenty of room and opportunity for detailed comparative research to address these issues within the European Union. The key problem for RESER is that many of these issues are considered by economists to represent the softer and difficult (impossible) to quantify and model parts of the economic. The difficulty in unlocking understanding of these issues by the deployment of traditional economic tools should not lead to culture been discounted as an unimportant or unknown influence. Such discounting is poor social science as it simplifies the economic at the expense of understanding. We need to breakaway from the constraints of our current mindsets and explore the impact of culture on some of the more basic elements of the economic. A good starting point for RESER would be to undertake a discussion of the cultural and institutional factors that are influencing and maybe controlling higher education in some of the member states of the European Union. By comparing our own practices we may come to better understand the cultural and institutional structures that contribute to the differences that exists between the research programmes of the different RESER members and teams.

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