International business travel has always been an important labour process in the accumulation of capital for the firm. It is surprising, therefore, that relatively little time has been devoted to the study of business travel, both as a facet of contemporary mobility and as an economic practice. In this article we review how existing literatures provide insights that can be used to understand the role of business travel as international labour mobility in the contemporary professional service economy. In doing so, we reach the conclusion that there seem to be at least two significant voids preventing a more sophisticated understanding from emerging. First, we suggest that international business travel needs to be studied not in isolation but instead as one component in a wider ecology of mobility which `produces' the global firm. Second, we argue that it is important to know more about the time-space dynamics of international business travel in terms of how spatial relations are produced and reproduced by different forms and geographies of travel. We make these arguments and explore their implications using data collected through interviews in advertising, architecture and legal professional service firms.We conclude by identifying a research agenda designed to allow a better understanding of business travel to emerge in corporate and mobility discourses.
Amin, A. and Cohendet, P. (2004) Architectures of Knowledge. Firms, Capabilities and Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.
Bathelt, H. and Glücker, J. (2005) `Resources in Economic Geography: from Substantive Concepts Towards a Relational Perspective', Environment and Planning A37 (9): 1545-63.
3.
Beaverstock, J.V. (2004) `"Managing across Borders": Knowledge Management and Expatriation in Professional Legal Service Firms', Journal of Economic Geography4 (1): 157-79.
4.
Beaverstock, J.V. (2006) `World City Networks from Below: International Mobility and Inter-city Relations in the Global Investment Banking Industry' , in P.J. Taylor, B. Derudder, P. Saey and F. Witlox (eds) Cities in Globalization: Practices, Policies, Theories, pp. 52-71. London : Routledge.
5.
Beaverstock, J.V. (2007) `Transnational Work: Global Professional Labour Markets in Professional Service Accounting Firms', in J. Bryson and P. Daniels (eds) The Handbook of Service Industries, pp. 409-32. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
6.
Bernuth, C. and Bathelt, H. (2007) `The Organizational Paradox in Advertising and the Reconfiguration of Project Cooperation', Geoforum38 (3): 545-57.
7.
Boden, D. and Molotch, H. (1994) `The Compulsion of Proximity', in R. Friedland and D. Boden (eds) Now Here. Space, Time and Modernity, pp. 257-86. Berkeley : University of California Press.
8.
Coe, N.M., Johns, J., and Ward, K. (2008) `Agents of Casualization? The Temporary Staffing Industry and Labour Market Restructuring in Australia', Journal of Economic Geography9 (1) 55-84.
9.
Cresswell, T. (2001) `The Production of Mobilities', New Formations43: 11-25.
10.
Daniels, P.W. (1993). Service Industries in the World Economy. Oxford: Blackwell.
11.
Davidson, R. and Cope, B. (2003) Business Travel. Harlow: Pearson.
12.
Derudder, B. and Witlox, F. (2005) `An Appraisal of the Use of Airline Data in Assessing the World City Network: a Research Note on Data', Urban Studies42 (13): 2371-88.
13.
Derudder, B., Witlox, F., Faulconbridge, J.R. and Beaverstock, J.V. (2008) `Airline Networks and Urban Systems', GeoJournal71 (1): 1-3.
14.
Dicken, P. (2007) Global Shift. London: Sage.
15.
Dicken, P., Kelly, P.F., Olds, K. and Yeung, H.W.-C. (2001) `Chains and Network, Territories and Scales: Towards a Relational Framework for Analysing the Global Economy', Global Networks1 (2): 89-112.
16.
Djelic, M.L. (1998) Exporting the American Model. The Post-war Transformation of European Business. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
17.
Ewers, M.C. (2007) `Migrants, Markets and Multinationals: Competition among World Cities for the Highly Skilled', GeoJournal68 (1): 119-30.
18.
Faulconbridge, J.R. (2006) `Stretching Tacit Knowledge Beyond a Local Fix? Global Spaces of Learning in Advertising Professional Service Firms', Journal of Economic Geography6: 517-40.
19.
Faulconbridge, J.R. (2007a) `Relational Spaces of Knowledge Production in Transnational Law Firms', Geoforum38 (5): 925-40.
20.
Faulconbridge, J.R. (2007b) `London and New York's Advertising and Law Clusters and their Networks of Learning: Relational Methodologies and Scalar Reflections' , Urban Studies44 (9): 1635-56.
21.
Faulconbridge, J.R. (2008) `Negotiating Cultures of Work in Transnational Law Firms', Journal of Economic Geography8 (4): 497-517.
22.
The Financial Times (2007) `Air Travel is the Biggest Challenge', The Financial Times (5 June).
23.
Goffman, E. (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face to Face Behaviour. New York: Doubleday and Company.
24.
Grahber, G. (2001) `Ecologies of Creativity: the Village, the Group and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry', Environment and Planning A33 (2): 351-74.
25.
Grabher, G. (2004) `Learning in Projects, Remembering in Networks? Communality, Sociality and Connectivity in Project Ecologies', European Urban and Regional Studies11 (2): 103-23.
26.
Grein, A. and Ducoffe, R. (1998) `Strategic Responses to Market Globalisation among Advertising Agencies', International Journal of Advertising17 (3): 301-19.
27.
Gustafson, P. (2006) `Work-related Travel, Gender and Family Obligations' , Work, Employment and Society20 (3): 513-30.
28.
Hannam, K., Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) `Editorial: Mobilities, Immobilities and Moorings' , Mobilities1 (1): 1-22.
29.
Hildrum, J. (2007) `When is Frequent Face-to-face Contact Necessary in Innovation? A Comparative Study of Two Distributed Product Development Projects', Economics of Innovation and New Technology16 (6): 467-84.
30.
Holley, D., Jain, J. and Lyons, G. (2008) `Understanding Business Travel Time and its Place in the Working Day', Time & Society17 (1): 27-46.
31.
Jones, A. (2005) `Truly Global Corporations? Theorizing Organizational Globalisation in Advanced Businessservices', Journal of Economic Geography5: 177-200.
32.
Jones, A. (2007) `More than "Managing across Borders?" the Complex Role of Face-to-face Interaction in Globalizing Law Firms', Journal of Economic Geography7 (3): 223-46.
33.
Jones, A. (2008) `Beyond Embeddedness: Economic Practices and the Invisible Dimensions of Transnational Business Activity', Progress in Human Geography32 (1): 71-88.
34.
Katz, H. and Darbishire, O. (2000) Converging Divergences: Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
35.
Kaufmann, V., Bergman, M.M. and Joye, D. (2004) `Motility: Mobility as Capital', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research28 (4): 745-56.
36.
Koser, K. and Salt, J. (1997) `The Geography of Highly-skilled International Migration', International Journal of Population Geography3 (2): 285-303.
37.
Lassen, C. (2006) `Aeromobility and Work', Environment and Planning A38 (2): 301-12.
38.
Laurier, E. (2004) `Doing Office Work on the Motorway', Theory, Culture & Society21 (4/5): 261-77.
39.
Løwendahl, B. (2000) `The Globalisation of Professional Business Service Firms. Fad or Genuine Source of Competitive Advantage?', in Y. Ahorni and L. Nachum (eds) Globalization of Services. Some Implications for Theory and Practice , pp. 146-162. London: Routledge.
40.
Maskell, P., Bathelt, H., and Malmberg, A. (2006) `Building Global Knowledge Pipelines: the Role of Temporary Clusters', European Planning Studies14 (8): 997-1013.
41.
Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge : Polity.
42.
Massey, D. (2004) `Uneven Development: Social Change and Spatial Divisions of Labour', in T.J. Barnes, J. Peck, E. Sheppard and A. Tickell (eds) Reading Economic Geography, pp. 111-24. Oxford: Blackwell.
43.
Millar, D. and Salt, J. (2008) `Portfolios of Mobility: the Movement of Expertise in Transnational Corporations in Two Sectors - Aerospace and Extractive Industries' , Global Networks8 (1): 25-50.
44.
Nowicka, M. (2006) Transnational Professionals and their Cosmopolitan Universes. Frankfurt & New York : Campus Verlag.
45.
Office for National Statistics (1996) Travel Trends 1995. London: HMSO .
46.
Office for National Statistics (2006) Travel Trends 2005. London: Palgrave .
47.
Orlikowski, W. (2002) `Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing', Organization Science13 (3): 249-73.
48.
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Touchstone .
49.
Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) `The New Mobilities Paradigm', Environment and Planning A38 (2): 207-26.
50.
Sheppard, E. (2002) `The Spaces and Times of Globalization: Place, Scale, Networks and Positionality', Economic Geography78 (3): 307-30.
51.
Storper, M. and Venables, A.J. (2004) `Buzz: Face-to-face Contact and the Urban Economy' , Journal of Economic Geography4: 351-70.
52.
Tombesi, P., Bharat, D. and Scriver, P. (2003) `Routine Production or Symbolic Analysis? India and the Globalisation of Architectural Services', The Journal of Architecture8 (1): 63-94.
53.
Urry, J. (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century. London: Routledge .
54.
Urry, J. (2003) `Social Networks, Travel and Talk', British Journal of Sociology54 (2): 155-75.
55.
Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity.
56.
Williams, A. (2006) `Lost in Translation? International Migration, Learning and Knowledge', Progress in Human Geography30 (5): 588-607.
57.
Williams, A. (2007) `International Labour Migration and Tacit Knowledge Transactions: a Multi-level Perspective', Global Networks7 (1): 29-50.
58.
Yeung, H.W.C. (2005) `Rethinking Relational Economic Geography', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS30 (1): 37-51.
59.
Zook, M.A. and Brunn, S.D. (2006) `From Podes to Antipodes: Positionalities and Global Airline Geographies', Annals of the Association of American Geographers96 (3): 471-90.
