This study focuses upon changes in three computer-related industries between 1974 and 1985. An attempt is made by means of entropy indices and shift-share analysis to determine if diffusion in those industries conforms to the product-cycle model. We employ primarily state-level data derived from Coutuy Business Patterns and supplemented by US. Censuses of Manufacturing and Services. Our findings indicate that all the industries displayed substantial increases in employment and considerable dispersion, although by no means were the changes uniform. The hypothesis that the dispersion is following the product-cycle model, that is, from core areas to peripheral regions, receives little support from this study. The model, however, should not be rejected out of hand, because all three industries studied have a duality in the size of firms that the data masks. This duality may affect the applicability of any model. Further attempts to explain the spatial distribution of any of these industries should begin with disintegrated data. Unfortunately such data are not presently easily attainable.
ALECKI (1985) INVESTIGATED THE CHANGES in the location of four M high-technology industries in the United States between 1973 and 1983.Computers are the nexus of three of those industries, specifically electronic computing equipment (SIC 3573), semiconductors and related devices (SIC 3674), and computer software (SIC 7372). He concluded that little dispersal had occurred in these industries. His conclusion may be tainted, however, by his use of data at an extremely gross level, the four U.S. Census regions.This paper examines the changes in the three computer-related industries studied by Malecki (1985). Unlike Malecki, we use state-level data, which, although not Siyoung Park and Lawrence T. Lewis are professors of geography at Western IIIinois University, Macornb IL 61455.
BITNET is a telecommunications network for higher education. The network's general characteristics, services, the availability of BITNET to academic geographers, and their use of the system are examined. Although more than 80% of geography faculty in the United States and Canada are at BITNET‐supported institutions, a survey of AAG Specialty Group chairs suggests that geographers' actual use of BITNET is relatively low.
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