Second, these central functions become so complex that increasingly the headquarters
of large global firms outsource them: they buy a share of their central functions
from highly specialized service firms—accounting, legal, public relations, programming,
telecommunications, and other such services. While even ten years ago the
THE BROWN JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS
The Global City: Introducing a Concept
key site for the production of these central headquarter functions was the headquarters
of a firm, today there is a second key site: the specialized service firms contracted by
headquarters to produce some of these central functions or components of them. This
is especially the case with firms involved in global markets and non-routine operations.
But increasingly the headquarters of all large firms are buying more of such inputs
rather than producing them in-house