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AIM

The aim of the research project is to present the empirical results regarding the causality between the rising amount of intra-industrial services (product related services such as the maintenance of machines, overhaul, trainings etc.), the automation of manufacturing processes, and the spatial patterns of enterprise locations. Rapid technological change in the last decade is forcing business segmentation and division of labor. Thus, flexible automation of manufacturing leads to a value added shift from the processing of material goods to the creation of product related services. In German manufacturing industries, for example, newly devised services already generate up to a third of the industrial value added share and therefore have decisive effects on productivity and the production value per employee increased by 74 per cent between 1995 and 2000 (STATISTISCHES BUNDESAMT 2004, STILLE 2003). At the same time 'untraded interdependencies' strengthen the links between vertically and horizontally linked business partners. Due to these recently altered network relations, modified coordination and control mechanisms of affiliated and non-affiliated enterprises lead to interregional outsourcing, (re-)allocations, and insourcing activities on a global scale (BATHELT/ MALMBERG/ MASKELL 2004, ERNST 2003, WOOD/PARR 2005).