ABSTRACT
Globalization has been one of the significant megatrends in changes in global economic spaces in the last three decades. Increase in foreign direct investments (FDIs) beyond the increase in international trade has dramatically shaped and reshaped the global space economy, especially in emerging East Asian economies. The progress of a knowledge-based economy and an information society has overlapped with globalization, and has resulted in the remarkable global flows of both intangible assets, including knowledge, human capital, technological know-how, and brand, as well as tangible assets through FDIs and the international trade of products and resources. Accompanying the progress of a knowledge-based information society are two trends—namely, (1) the relatively decreasing importance of physical resource endowment as drivers of regional development and firm growth, and (2) the increasing importance of intangible assets related to personal knowledge for both firm and region (Surinach and Moreno, 2012).
