The Dictionary of Human Geography

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of labour). Such changes clearly have

substantial implications for theuneven

developmentof places (re/dis)incorpor-

ated from circuits of capital (see Allen

and Massey, 1988; Allen, Massey,

Cochrane et al., 1998).

More narrowly, the restructuring of produc-

tion (e.g. Graham, Gibson, Horvath and

Shakow, 1988) may have significant conse-

quences well beyond production itself:

. changes in the process of production as a
consequence ofeconomies of scale, the
concentration of centralized capital (see
marxist economics) or transitions from
oneregime of accumulationto another
(seeregulation school);
. changes in the organization of production
along the production chain (see Dicken,
1998, Ch. 1);
. changes in corporate organization – such as
those associated with forms ofintegration
within production, multidivisional organ-
ization and decentralization in the attempt
to combine corporate size whilst maximiz-
ing entrepreneurial initiative within the
organization;
. the development of tasking flexibility in
production based, for example, upon
economies of scopeor temporal flexibility
based, for example, onjust-in-timeforms
of supply along the production chain;
. a redefinition of a firm’s core activities, so
redefining its sphere of activities, with pro-
found implications for the size and status
of its labour force;
. a repositioning of the firm along the pro-
duction chain to deal with downstream
service functions;
. a geographical reconfiguration to redefine
the role and functioning of individual pro-
ductive units ; and
. an organizational restructuring involving
a redefinition of the firm’s internal and
external boundaries.

The restructuring of production in these

ways has implications for, or may be under-

taken through, changes in the labour process

or thedivision of labour, but it relates to

wider processes of change within which labour

is necessarily caught up, and over which it has

less direct influence than changes in the imme-

diate conditions of work.

Although restructuring is a term applied

mainly to economic transformation, and is

frequently driven by and is obviously manifest

in the activities of individual firms and capitals,

it cannot be restricted to the economic

sphere. It involves, and so is predicated upon,

responsiveness elsewhere insociety. Nor is

restructuring reducible merely to economic

dynamics. It frequently requires the support

and or restructuring of thestateor, as in the

case ofperestroikaor the market-based restruc-

turing around the discourses of monetarism

in the USA (‘Reaganomics’) and, to a more

dramatic extent, the UK (‘Thatcherism’) or

New Zealand (‘Rogernomics’) cases, is driven

by the transformation of regulatory practices

instituted by the state and so generates a

range of ideological and political rela-

tionships and struggles (see, e.g., Walker,

1997). rl

Suggested reading

Allen, Massey, Cochrane et al. (1988); Castells

(1989, ch. 1); Corbridge (1995, section 5); Walker

(1997); Watts (1992/6).

retailing The marketing and distribution of

commoditiesto the public. Retail geography

is conventionally defined as the study of the

interrelations existing between the spatial pat-

terns of retail location and organization on the

one hand, and the geography of retail con-

sumer behaviour on the other. Retail geog-

raphy is often situated at the overlap of

related sub-fields, includingeconomic geo-

graphy, the geography ofservicesandurban

geography

Work within retail geography appears to fol-

low one of two broad trajectories. The histor-

ically dominant perspective is somewhat more

applied, and neo-classical (seeneo-classical

economics; cf. special issue ofGeoJournal,45

(4) (1998)). Since the late 1980s, a self-

defined ‘new’ retail geography has emerged,

in clear opposition to the former. Initially

influenced bypolitical economyperspec-

tives, this has subsequently become responsive

to developing debates withincultural geog-

raphy (for an overview, see Wrigley and

Lowe, 2002).

Mainstream retail geography has certain

general characteristics. Broadly speaking, neo-

classical economic principles predominate, with

considerable emphasis placed upon the struc-

turing role of individual consumer decisions.

This can be seen in the continuing influence of

central place theory(cf. Parr, 1995), the

refinement of which played an important role

in thequantitative revolutionof the 1960s.

With strong links to marketing (Jones and

Simmons, 1993), retail geography is also

applied in its emphases. Retail geography has

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