Locational preferences of producer service firms in Istanbul: Fid-Bau Portal

Locational preferences of producer service firms in Istanbul

Berkoz, Lale

With the advent of advanced telecommunication networks, the range of location selection has expanded. The impact of telecommunications on the choice of location for businesses active in producer services is so far unclear. None the less, it has become evident that many other factors are of importance in determining office location patterns. Office location and its effect on urban structures has been one of the most important aspects of post-World War II economic changes in developed countries. The increasing importance of the service sector in modem economies necessitates elaboration of locational behaviour in producer service firms. The objective of the research summarized in this paper was to evaluate location of producer service firms in the Istanbul metropolitan area. The method of factor analysis was utilized to define factors important in determining office location patterns. Factor analysis would indicate the main axis of data variation. It is basically a data reduction method that identifies a small number of factors representing the major variation of the data. Section 1 constitutes a review of the relevant literature. This is followed by a description of the producer service sector in Istanbul in Sections 2 and 3. Section 4 contains an exposition of the methodology and survey results. The final section is devoted to a conclusion.