IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v5y2020i3p403-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Amazon’s HQ2 Site Selection Criteria: The New ‘Gold Standard’ in FDI Decision-Making

Author

Listed:
  • Alfried Braumann

    (Economic Policy and EU-Affairs Executive Department, Vienna Business Agency, Austria / Urban and Regional Research, TU Wien, Austria)

Abstract

In 2017–2018, Seattle-based Tech behemoth Amazon executed a highly publicised location-finding process for a $5 billion investment project, dubbed ‘HQ2’. Owing to the combination of high investment volume and the company’s unique public exposure, the HQ2 process is on course to becoming a basic yardstick for future foreign direct investment (FDI) projects all over the world. This article compiles the company’s previously unpublished site selection criteria and develops an evidence-based system of investment decision arguments which is employed to test the currently dominant approaches in location decision theory—behavioural, neoclassical, and institutional. Our results identify gaps vis-à-vis this emerging ‘Gold Standard’ and we propose the addition of a fourth, project-oriented approach to theory to fill the detected shortcomings. Furthermore, this system equips policymakers with a tool to evaluate their investment attraction strategies based on the decision criteria extracted from the HQ2 process.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfried Braumann, 2020. "Amazon’s HQ2 Site Selection Criteria: The New ‘Gold Standard’ in FDI Decision-Making," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 403-417.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v5:y:2020:i:3:p:403-417
    DOI: 10.17645/up.v5i3.3207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/3207
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/up.v5i3.3207?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v5:y:2020:i:3:p:403-417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.