Regional office mobility: The case of corporate control in Singapore and Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper examines regional office mobility through a case study of Hong Kong and Singapore. The analysis is based on a database combining government-collected statistics in the case of Hong Kong and original survey data in the case of Singapore. These data provide a profile of the regional office population in both centres including parent company nationality, business sector affiliation, geographical responsibility and location evaluation. These indicators and case studies of actual location decisions indicate that Hong Kong remains the dominant location of regional offices for East Asian markets, whereas Singapore is preferred by regional offices focused on Southeast Asia. The paper concludes that the two centres tend to be complementary rather than competing regional office locations for the Pacific Asian region. The low level of mobility exhibited by regional offices is related to the specific characteristics of the region and the changing organisational context of regional offices.