Corporate Organisation and Regional Office Employment

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Abstract
Research in the United Kingdom focussed on large multisite organisations has suggested that they play an important role in accounting for the distribution of office employment. It is generally suggested that deficits in peripheral-region office employment may be related to the increasing concentration of office employment in manufacturing industry close to corporate headquarters, usually in the Southeast of England. This paper argues that such a view of ownership and in particular of external control as an explanation for variations in office employment is oversimplistic. By use of empirical evidence from an establishment survey conducted in the Northern Region of England it is argued that the role of independent (not externally owned) establishments in explaining variations in office employment has been underestimated. Further, by use of concepts derived from the organisational-science literature, a more complex explanation for variations in office employment is presented.