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AbstractDrawing upon critical realism and the literature on theorising in social sciences, this article contributes to the understanding of theorising in economic geography by highlighting the role of context throughout the theory development process. By critically reviewing two key concepts in economic geography—related variety and knowledge bases—from a critical realist theory development perspective, scholars' sensitivity to local context through the whole theorising process is examined. We argue that the particular strength of economic geography with regard to advancing theory lies in the continuous application of concepts and theories (that is, generalities) within new contexts (that is, confrontation with new particularities).

AbstractIn recent decades, while place‐based policies and local development have attracted the interest of institutional economic geography, the issue of features of certain industries and how they are shaping and shaped by institutions at multiple spatial scales, has not been taken up sufficiently. This paper, based on a local creative industry—the Shanghai online games industry, which is an essential part of the new media sector, takes issue with it. It explores two aspects, namely how multi‐scalar institutions relate and influence the development of the online games industry in Shanghai and how local firms and entrepreneurs affect local and national institutions. It shows that the three aspects that are related to media sector in general and games industry in particular (i.e., cultural influence, technological significance, and economic value) matter much as they have resulted in diverse industry‐relevant policies and regulations devised by local and national states. Moreover, local firms and entrepreneurs with different capacities and characteristics also differ much in influencing the design of the industry‐specific institutions in the face of institutional voids.

Abstract
For regions that are deeply integrated into the global economy, the question of how to remain competitive and resilient in times of uncertainty is a key concern. While strategic coupling is a useful concept for understanding local-global economic dynamics, the idea that a region can simultaneously couple into multiple production networks organised at different spatial scales and that regional actors can increase their autonomy by creatively combining different coupling scenarios has been little explored. This paper explores how regional institutional innovations can facilitate such multiple couplings. We focus on the industrial chain chief model in China's Zhejiang province, which emerged against the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that this institutional innovation offers a different way of thinking for regions that have long been exposed to the influence of globalisation, and that it increases the agency of local actors in global production networks.

The notion of resilience to analyse how fast systems recover from shocks has been increasingly taken up in economic geography, in which there is a burgeoning literature on regional resilience. Regional resilience is a place‐sensitive, multi‐layered and multi‐scalar, conflict‐ridden and highly contingent process. The nature of shocks is one important impact factor on regional resilience. Arguably, so far, most literature on regional resilience has dealt with the financial crisis in 2008/2009. In this research note, we will analyse both the particular characteristics of the current COVID‐19 crisis, as well as its effects on regional recovery and potential resilience in China, where it started. We conclude that a complex combination of the characteristics of the current COVID‐19 crisis, the institutional experience of dealing with previous pandemic and epidemic crises, government support schemes, as well as regional industrial structures, might potentially affect the recovery and resilience rates of Chinese regions.

AbstractStanding at a crossroads, where ongoing 'slowbalisation' coincides with new forces such as the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, heightened geopolitical tensions, the emergence of disruptive technologies and the increasing urgency of addressing environmental challenges, many important questions remain unsolved regarding the nature and impact of the current economic globalisation. This special issue on 'Globalisation in Reverse? Reconfiguring the Geographies of Value Chains and Production Networks' aims at showcasing recent work that seeks to contribute to, and advance, the debates on economic globalisation and the reconfiguration of global value chains and production networks. This introductory article has three objectives: first, based on a broad literature review, we aim to identify four key forces, as well as the fundamental relatively stable capitalist logics contributing to the complex reconfiguration of global economic activities. Second, we will position the papers included in this special issue against the four main forces identified and discuss the contributions of each article to capture some emerging cross-paper patterns among them. Finally, we outline the contours of a research agenda that suggests promising avenues for further investigation of the phenomenon of value chain and production network reconfigurations in times of uncertainty.