Transformations  in
Business & Economics

ANALYSIS ON THE STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE URBAN NETWORK WOVEN BY THE FLOW SPACE OF DIGITAL ECONOMY FIRMS⁴
Yuegang Chen, Chaozhen Zhao, Xujian Wang, Yan Wu

ABSTRACT: The era of digitization and information technology accelerates the flow of various factors, and the urban network woven by the enterprises flow space in the digital economy shows a trend of increasing complexity. Combined with tracking data from listed companies in China as well as the methods of social network analysis, this paper explores the structure characteristics of urban networks in which the linkage of headquarter-branch means production relation and the linkage of headquarter-investment involves social relation. It is also considered the network evolution in terms of overall network, hierarchical network, as well as branches and investments, so as to explain the dynamic polarization phenomenon of urban networks woven by the digital economy. The main contributions of this paper include: first, both the network of production relations and the network of social relations are considered. Second, a weight matrix is constructed and used to describe the urban network more objectively.

KEYWORDS:  urban networks, enterprise flow space, digital economy, complex network analysis.

JEL classification:  R12, L29, M21

⁴Acknowledgments:  This research was supported by Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (Project No. 2018TZB011).