• Critical understanding and familiarization with the use of large and medium-scale investment planning tools.
• Understand the process of selecting a firm placement as an activity that connects the private and public perspectives.
• Familiarity with techniques and methods related to the location of productive activities and investments.
• Assessment of positioning scenarios.

The course focuses on knowledge and critical understanding of methods, practices and planning tools for large-scale and medium-scale business and investment positioning. The approach incorporates parameters both from investor’s and public interest side.

The decision to implement an investment by a private firm is a complex process. By establishing a business in a specific location (or locations), it seeks to create or enhance its competitive advantage in the specific market in which it operates (tourism, industry, commerce, etc.). The location of the infrastructure depends on many factors such as: the identity and business strategy, international, national and local competition, access to the markets, raw materials and workforce needs, the need for public infrastructure, networks, national and local policies, etc.

Consequently, in the case of business location, the existing spatial and development planning data at national, regional and local level are thoroughly investigated and analyzed in order to select the location of the business that will meet its development goals. The course examines the positioning conditions along with the possibilities of individual adjustments as they arise from the country’s spatial planning system.

The lectures have a subsidiary character and mainly address the following issues:

• The nature of a private firm
• The concept of competitive advantage for businesses and its spatial dimensions
• Developing the competitive advantage of a State I – production sector: sectoral development policies
• Developing the competitive advantage of a State II – manufacturing sector: spatial policies
• Analysis of competition – infrastructure – policies
• Criteria for location selection – economies of scale.
• The Greek institutional frameworks for the development of production activities
• Spatial Framework of Production Activities: National and Regional Level
• Land Use tools

• Κείμενα ελληνικής νομοθεσίας χωρικού σχεδιασμού και ανάπτυξης
• Amin A., Thrift N. 1992. Neo-Marshallian nodes in global networks. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 16: 571–587
• Galaskiewicz J., Zaheer A. 1999. Networks of competitive advantage. In Andrews S.Knoke D.(Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations: 237–261. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press
• • Barney, Jay (1991) Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage,Journal of Management,17(1)
• • Lawson C (1997) Towards a competitive theory of the region, Cambridge, ESRC Centre for Business Research.
• • Malecki Ε. (2002) Hard and Soft Networks for Urban Competitiveness, Urban Studies, Vol 39, Issue 5-6, pp. 929 – 945.
• • Camagni R. (2017) From City Hierarchy to City Network: Reflections About an Emerging Paradigm. In: Capello R. (eds) Seminal Studies in Regional and Urban Economics. Springer