Corporations and the Urban Advanced Business Service Sector

This article analyzes interurban variation in one advanced service, management consulting, across large U.S. cities in 1963. Human ecologists assume advanced services fulfill a coordinative function in the metropolitan system. Consistent with this view, we found that: (1) metropolitan population size and distance to neighboring metropolitan areas were positively associated with a city's consulting activity, (2) the number of other large cities with which a city shared its metropolitan area was inversely related to consulting levels, and (3) the number of corporations headquartered in a city was positively associated with consulting activity. Organizational theorists assume advanced services fulfill coordinative needs in the corporate system. Thus, we also found that: (4) the characteristics of firms headquartered in a city (i.e., their age, market complexity, structure, mode of control, and elite contacts) shaped the impact that their numbers had on urban consulting. In the conclusion, we consider the relationship between human ecology and the organizational approach.