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ABSTRACT
While recent research on temporary clusters and temporary markets has emphasized the knowledge generation processes associated with trade fairs, little is known about the knowledge exchanges that are embedded in market relations at these events. This paper uses the case of the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, the largest trade fair in China, to illustrate that such events do not operate as a single market, but that they generate multiple dynamic market configurations, which entail different flows of knowledge, goods and people. In a typical case study, four types of market configurations are identified that simultaneously develop at this event. The findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of market relations, knowledge and transactions in temporary spatial settings.
Acknowledgements
This paper was presented in 2016 at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in San Francisco and the iBEGIN Conference on International Business, Economic Geography and Innovation in Philadelphia. We would like to thank the audiences of these meetings for their helpful comments. In addition, we wish to thank Patrick Cohendet, Francesca Golfetto, Doug Gress, Sebastian Henn and Daniel Hutton Ferris for their suggestions on improving earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Although we cannot claim that these exact types of market relations also dominate other industries, where other market configurations may develop as a consequence of different technology and market contexts, we believe that the general implications of our study do apply more broadly.