ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to empower the idea of regions by interpreting them as institutions. As institutions, regions differ fundamentally from firms, especially interregional firms and multinational corporations. The creation of new economic spaces reflects the interplay of local-global processes that are implemented by various institutions that in thought and action interdependently engage local and global perspectives. The nature of the institutional clashes underlying contested resource peripheries varies around the globe. The chapter examines the new auto industry spaces in the US mid-west and focuses specifically on the hybrid factories created by Japanese transplants. Japanese transplants in the US have therefore not been clones of Japanese practice but have formed hybrids between Japanese and American practice. Japanese Foreign Direct Investment directly creates 'high performance organizations' and 'demonstration effects' that create virtuous processes of cumulative causation. Both hybrids and contested resource peripheries require nuanced knowledge of regionally defined institutional clashes and synthesis.
