Global brand cities: Driving the global leading cities of high value industry through world city network with global brands

Abstract

This study introduces the concept of a “Global Brand City,” which suggests that global cities emerge from a world city network formed by global brands. Our goal is to identify the relationship between global cities and high-value-added industries. High value industries are closely linked to urban employment creation and economic development, especially in global cities. By defining global brands as a transnational actor of high value industries, we constructed and analyzed a network using various centrality indices. Our proposed method revealed differences between the producer-service industry based global cities and the global brand cities based on the high value industries. Global brand headquarters cities tend to be concentrated in industrial and economic cores of developed countries. In contrast, global brand branch office cities tend to be associated with market entry or talent attraction. These two types of cities interact through their respective differentiation and competitiveness, forming high value industries and the world city network of global brands. The proposed method can highlight how global cities play a pivotal role in high-value industries.