Engineering/Architectural Firms in World Cities: Global Practice Matrix
Paul L. Knox, Peter J. Taylor and Erin Milfeit
Data were collected at Virginia Tech.
These data constitute part of the analysis in Leading world cities: empirical evaluations of urban nodes in multiple networks (first published as GaWC Research Bulletin 146).
The data collection was modelled on GaWC Dataset 11 but focuses, literally, on the construction of contemporary world cities.
As a first step in identifying engineering/architectural firms with global practices, the lists of firms published annually by Engineering News Record and World Architecture. This produced a total of 245 firms for investigation for 2003. Firms without a ‘global strategy’ – defined as having offices on at least three continents – were eliminated. Of the remaining firms, 61 had adequate web sites for data collection.
Taking each firm separately, city offices were evaluated and allocated scores ranging from 0 (no presence) to 5 (headquarters). Cities with ordinary or typical offices are allocated 2; minor offices are then identified and score 1; major offices score 3 or 4, the latter score reserved for cities whose offices have important regional-level functions.
This created a very sparse matrix because many small cities had some presence but not very much. Hence cities were included that had a score total of at least 5. There were 234 cities that qualified.
| Description | Files |
|---|---|
| Global practice matrix of 61 engineering/architectural firms across 234 cities | XLS |
Reference
Taylor, P.J. (2005) Leading world cities: empirical evaluations of urban nodes in multiple networks, Urban Studies, 42 (9), 1593-1608.
As per our data protocol, the following acknowledgement should accompany any public use of the data:
Acknowledgement: The data were produced by Paul L. Knox, Peter J. Taylor and Erin Milfeit and constitute Dataset 13 of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network (https://gawc.lboro.ac.uk/) publication of inter-city data.