THE STRUCTURAL EMBEDDEDNESS OF BUSINESS DECISIONS - THE MIGRATION OF MANUFACTURING PLANTS IN NEW-YORK-STATE, 1960 TO 1985

We present a sociological analysis of regional political economies spe cifically examining industrial migration in New York Stare. Migration of manufacturing establishments is structurally embedded in regional p roduction cultures that create imperatives to remain in the region, ev en if the local area has high costs compared to other viable sites. Mi gration occurs only when the core establishments in a region-the centr al nodes in the regional exchange network-face outside competition tha t threatens to permanently undermine their viability. Under such circu mstances, only these core establishments can respond to lower costs el sewhere. Peripheral firms are usually too dependent on the material, p olitical, and social resources available in the local production cultu re to risk departure, even when production costs might be substantiall y reduced. We test this structural-embeddedness model against the comp arative-cost model. The local or distant destinations of New York manu facturing plane that migrated between 1960 and 1985 are examined in a polytomous logistic regression analysis. We find clear support of the structural-embeddedness model. The migration of only a few core establ ishments-those with the greatest structural autonomy-is consistent wit h comparative-cost predictions. However peripheral establishments, com prising the overwhelming majority of all plants in the state, are unli kely to leave the region, even when cost differentials are! severe. Th is finding is consistent with structural-embeddedness predictions.