Characteristics of High-Technology Industry Migration within Metropolitan Areas—A Case Study of Beijing Metropolitan Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

congratulations on your work. Next I make some comments on the article:

- This article examines a very interesting and current topic. In the first part of the article, the authors carry out a literature review on industrial migration at several regional scales, including international, inter-regional, and intercity.

- Subsequently, the authors analyse the characteristics of different aspects of intra-city migration of high-tech firms, such as space, time, individual attributes and scale, and use them to study the evolution of the development of firm migration in the city. For this, firm-level data from 2008 and 2016 are used for Beijing, derived predominantly from business registration data and economic census data. In 2008 and 2016, there were 7,334 and 3,189 manufacturing enterprise data. The location of enterprises, industrial codes, employees, operating income, year of establishment. To carry out the study, the authors use Standard Deviation Ellipses Analysis and Kernel Density Estimation.

- Results show that, in general, most high-tech enterprises migrated within municipal districts from 2008 to 2016. Except for enterprises whose registered addresses were located in BDA and Science City in Fengtai District in 2008, the relocation of other enterprises located in agglomeration zones showed a trend of migration from agglomeration zones to non-agglomeration zones.  Moreover, most high-tech firms located in non-clustered regions in 2008 were not inclined to migrate to newly formed clusters in 2016. This migration flow also led to a new clustering trend in the spatial distribution of high-tech manufacturing firms in 2016. In general, the agglomeration and advantageous location of high-tech industry development have a significant spatial locking effect on the migration of enterprises, which makes the migration of high-tech enterprises mainly in urban areas. In addition, most relocated firms with expanded and unchanged scales are in the growth phase of the life cycle and tend to move into the agglomeration or the expansion area of the agglomeration. The life cycle characteristics of high-tech firms do not conform to the general industry life cycle pattern and  the life cycle of high-tech companies is clearly differentiated and individualised.

- The structure of the article is appropriate and the text is well written and well structured. The literature review is updated, but it should be more in-depth, i.e. are there only studies for China? What methodology do they use? Authors should present papers for other countries.

- The results are demonstrated, but the results discussion must be improved, compared to the existing literature. The conclusions are interesting.

Kind regards.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Dear reviewer:

 

Thank you for your decision and constructive comments on my manuscript. We have carefully considered the suggestion of Reviewer and make some changes. We have tried our best to improve and made some changes in the manuscript.

 

The revision notes, point-to-point, are given as follows:

 

Point 1: The literature review is updated, but it should be more in-depth, i.e. are there only studies for China? What methodology do they use? Authors should present papers for other countries.

 

Response 1: Thank you very much for raising this question, which are very helpful to improve the quality of this article. We have added relevant literature reviews by scholars from other countries and also compared them with the results of existing studies.

 

• The added foreign literature is as follows.

 

1. Kiss, E. The impacts of relocation on the spatial pattern to Hungarian industry. Pol. 2007, 80, 43.
2. Black, D.; Henderson, V. Spatial evolution of population and industry in the United States. Econ. Rev. 1999, 89, 321-327.
3. Tiwari, P.; Syamwil, I. B. Spatial pattern of Japanese manufacturing industry in four ASEAN countries. Reg. Sci. 2003, 82, 403-415 .
4. Richetto, J. P.; Moitra, C. The United States' Manufacturing Sector, Trends in the Spatial Pattern of Inward Foreign Direct Investment. Ann. B. 1990, 72, 101-116.
5. Choudhury, P. Return migration and geography of innovation in MNEs, a natural experiment of knowledge production by local workers reporting to return migrants. Econ. Geogr. 2016, 16, 585-610.
6. Broitman, D.; Benenson, I.; Czamanski, D. The impact of migration and innovations on the life cycles and size distribution of cities. Int. Regional. Sci. Rev. 2020, 43, 531-549.

 

• The added literature reviews are as follows.

 

In the long term, the inter-regional transfer of industries will have a profound impact on the regional spatial pattern in countries such as Hungary, the United States and Japan through changes in investment, markets, infrastructure settings, labor, etc.[13-16]

.......

For instance, Choudhury conducted a study of business relocation in Hamilton, Canada, and concluded that short-distance moves are more common and tend to occur in smaller firms.[35]

......

Broitman et al. suggested that the spatial decision-making behavior of firms leads to changes in the size of cities.[43]

 

Point 2: The results are demonstrated, but the results discussion must be improved, compared to the existing literature. The conclusions are interesting.

 

Response 2: Thank you very much for your affirmation, and we have improved the discussion  according to your suggestions. The conclusions and discussion are refined as follows:

 

Research on business migration in international metropolitan areas is inadequate. Existing studies have mainly studied the whole manufacturing or service industry from the regional scale, and there is a lack of research based on the city scale and firm level. This paper explores the characteristics of the process of locational reselection of high-tech manufacturing enterprises in the city of Beijing based on micro-enterprise data and using point pattern analysis and other methods. The findings of the study have some reference significance for enriching and improving the theory of enterprise migration and modern industrial location. The study shows that:

 

Firstly, we have investigated the relationship between enterprise attributes and enterprise migration, and find that the ownership of the enterprise, the establishment time of the enterprise and the size of the enterprise may be related to the enterprise migration. Among the 114 companies, 97.43% are mixed ownership enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and private ownership enterprises, indicating that market rules may have a greater impact on enterprise relocation than government policies. The establishment time of the relocation enterprise was concentrated after 1992. For high-tech enterprises, small enterprises are the dominant enterprises in the demise, while medium-sized enterprises account for the majority of the surviving and migrating enterprises, and enterprises with medium-sized or high operating income are more inclined to migrate.

 

Secondly, we examine the spatial variation of migrating enterprises. In general, the spatial variations and migration direction of high-tech enterprises will be affected by the original industrial layout. The agglomeration and advantageous location of high-tech industry development, such as Haidian District, Chaoyang District and other urban areas, have a significant spatial locking effect on the migration of enterprises, which makes the migration of high-tech enterprises mainly in urban areas. However, not all spatial variation in migrating enterprises follow this rule. For example, although Yongfeng Industrial Base and Zhongguancun Environmental Technology Industrial Park, which are in the northwest of Haidian District, were not the core agglomeration areas of high-tech enterprises before 2008, they still attracted some enterprises by the advantages of their proximity to the clusters, beautiful environment, and relatively low rents. And the number of enterprises moving to the the Daxing District Economic Development Zone in the southeast direction of Beijing is the largest, making the Daxing District Economic Development Zone a new core agglomeration area of high-tech enterprises in 2016. In addition, some enterprises choose to migrate across regions to other agglomeration areas, expansion areas or non-agglomeration areas.

 

Thirdly, we have explored the life-cycle characteristics of the relocated enterprises(Table 3). To begin with, most of the relocated enterprises with expanded and unchanged scales are in the growth stage of the life cycle and tend to move to the agglomeration or the agglomeration expansion area. The enterprises with decreasing scale are in the decline stage. Next, the life cycle characteristics of high-tech enterprises do not conform to the industry's general life cycle pattern. This is not only because high-tech firms are likely to be riskier in growth, with most of them failing before they can enter the next life cycle, but also because these long-lived high-tech manufacturing firms which are older than eight years have an average relocation age of around 12 years, with an adaptation period of 7-16 years. At last, the life cycle of high-technology enterprises is distinctly differentiated and individualized.

 

Due to the limitation of data acquisition, this paper only studies the momentary data of high-tech enterprises containing attribute characteristics in 2008 and 2016, while high-tech enterprises in Beijing are still in the process of continuous development and evolution. Therefore, it is difficult to identify the precise duration of each detailed stage of the life cycle of high-tech enterprises through a combination of size and age. Future research will focus on the long-term migration process and life cycle characteristics of high-technology enterprises. In addition, as a pillar industry in Beijing, the drivers of migration or development of high-technology industries are intertwined with the complex urban elements of Beijing, and future research intends to further develop a multifaceted quantitative analysis of the impact mechanisms of migration of high-tech enterprises.

Table 3. Comparison of size, age of relocation and life cycle stage of high technology manufacturing enterprises.

Initial size	Change in size	Age when migration occurred (years)	Relocated enterprises	Life cycle stage
Small	Size expansion	5-46	29	Adolescence
	No change in size	2-18	14	Toddlerhood or adolescence
Medium	Size expansion	11	2	Adolescence or the prime of life
	Size reduction	10	2	Recession
	No change in size	2-48	67	Adolescence, stability or prime of life

 

 

Thank you again for your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

-        - Interesting and well-developed research.

-        - The manuscript needs careful proofreading just one example, Line 257:  Therefore, (the more?) profitable an enterprise is, the more it can afford to migrate… there are more issues similar to the example. Line 437 and 438 meaning?

-     -   Micro and small enterprises? These are two different types, or the authors use them as synonyms. And why?

-       -   After each quantitative and spatial analysis, there is an explanation about the causes of the changes in the old patterns and shaping the new patterns. This analysis is even more important than the geographical changes and relocation. However, there is no reference for these types of analyses in the manuscript. Are these just assumptions and personal judgments of authors of changes? Is there any interview to supports their analysis? Or the authors develop them based on some land economic theories and hypotheses. I think the authors have used the last one. If it is so some explanation and referring to those land economic principles are crucial.

-      -   Maps are not visually well presented, I recommend a better visual presentation of maps, legend and some explanation about the legend and maps in the text.

-    -  The discussion and conclusion could be presented in a more critical way, for example through a table including a summary analysis of all the discussions and analysis that is presented in the manuscript such as a categorisation of types of relocations (based on age, size and other factors) plus causes and rationales.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Dear reviewer:

 

Thanks for your constructive comments concerning our manuscript entitled 'Characteristics of High Technology Industry Migration within Metropolitan Areas—— A case study of Beijing Metropolitan Area' (ID：1894248). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript, and significantly guide our research. We have studied these comments carefully and made modifications which we hope meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responses to the reviewers' comments are listed below.

 

 

Point 1: The manuscript needs careful proofreading just one example, Line 257: Therefore, (the more?) profitable an enterprise is, the more it can afford to migrate… there are more issues similar to the example. Line 437 and 438 meaning?

 

Response 1: Thank you very much for raising this question. We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, and we have corrected them.

 

Line 257 (Line 285 after revised):  Therefore, the more profitable an enterprise is, the more it can afford to migrate.

 

Line 437-438 (Line 460 - 461 after revised):  The two downsized companies have both shrunk from medium size to small size, moving to Zhongguancun and non-agglomeration area of Shunyi District respectively.

 

Point 2: Micro and small enterprises? These are two different types, or the authors use them as synonyms. And why?

 

Response 2: Special thanks to you for your good comments, we have paid attention to this issue. China's 2017 statistical classification criteria classifies enterprises into four categories of large, medium, small and micro enterprises according to the differences in business revenue, the number of employees, etc. This study refers to this criterion, and considering the sample size and the reliability of the research statistics, the small enterprises and micro enterprises are combined and counted as ‘small and micro enterprises’. Based on your comments, and in order to avoid ambiguity, we have revised all the expressions of ‘small and micro enterprises’ to ‘small enterprises, and further clarified the classification standards of enterprises in this study, as follows:

 

Enterprises were classified into three categories of size based on this criterion: large (at least 1,000 employees and at least $40,000 in business revenue), medium (no less than 300 employees and business revenue of no less than $2,000) and small enterprises (others).

 

 

 

Point 3: The changes in the old patterns and shaping the new patterns. This analysis is even more important than the geographical changes and relocation. However, there is no reference for these types of analyses in the manuscript. Are these just assumptions and personal judgments of authors of changes? Is there any interview to supports their analysis? Or the authors develop them based on some land economic theories and hypotheses. I think the authors have used the last one. If it is so some explanation and referring to those land economic principles are crucial.

 

Response 3: We thank the reviewer for raising this question. The analysis of changes in the spatial pattern of Beijing's high-tech industries refers to the research on Beijing's industry by Jiaming Li et al. The relevant literature has been supplemented.

 

1. Li,J.M. Urban spatial analysis and location policy, examples of Beijing and Hangzhou, 1rd ed.; Social Sciences Academic Press: Beijing, China, 2018; pp.55-105

 

Point 4: Maps are not visually well presented, I recommend a better visual presentation of maps, legend and some explanation about the legend and maps in the text.

 

Response 4: Thanks very much for your comments, which are very helpful to improve the quality of this article. We have made changes to the visuals of the map as follows.

 

Figure 6. Migration paths of high-tech manufacturing enterprises.

 

(a)	(b)

Figure 7. Changes in the size of relocated enterprises and industrial agglomeration areas from 2008 to 2016: (a) The size of relocated enterprises and industrial agglomeration areas in 2008; (b) The size of relocated enterprises and industrial agglomeration areas in 2016.

 

Point 5: The discussion and conclusion could be presented in a more critical way, for example through a table including a summary analysis of all the discussions and analysis that is presented in the manuscript such as a categorisation of types of relocations (based on age, size and other factors) plus causes and rationales.

 

Response 5: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the appropriate tables to the Conclusions and Discussion and have added some discussion as follows.

 

Research on business migration in international metropolitan areas is inadequate. Existing studies have mainly studied the whole manufacturing or service industry from the regional scale, and there is a lack of research based on the city scale and firm level. This paper explores the characteristics of the process of locational reselection of high-tech manufacturing enterprises in the city of Beijing based on micro-enterprise data and using point pattern analysis and other methods. The findings of the study have some reference significance for enriching and improving the theory of enterprise migration and modern industrial location. The study shows that:

 

.......

 

Due to the limitation of data acquisition, this paper only studies the momentary data of high-tech enterprises containing attribute characteristics in 2008 and 2016, while high-tech enterprises in Beijing are still in the process of continuous development and evolution. Therefore, it is difficult to identify the precise duration of each detailed stage of the life cycle of high-tech enterprises through a combination of size and age. Future research will focus on the long-term migration process and life cycle characteristics of high-technology enterprises. In addition, as a pillar industry in Beijing, the drivers of migration or development of high-technology industries are intertwined with the complex urban elements of Beijing, and future research intends to further develop a multifaceted quantitative analysis of the impact mechanisms of migration of high-tech enterprises.

Table 3. Comparison of size, age of relocation and life cycle stage of high technology manufacturing enterprises.

Initial size	Change in size	Age when migration occurred (years)	Relocated enterprises	Life cycle stage
Small	Size expansion	5-46	29	Adolescence
	No change in size	2-18	14	Toddlerhood or adolescence
Medium	Size expansion	11	2	Adolescence or the prime of life
	Size reduction	10	2	Recession
	No change in size	2-48	67	Adolescence, stability or prime of life

 

 

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your interesting research. This is a hot topic in economic geography. However, the study would benefit with the balance of economic and geographical focus. Currently, there is no information on the industrial structure. Only sizes, ages, ownership of the manufacturing enterprises have been studied. There is no clear justification of the choice of the study period - 2008-2016. There's high need of including the political context to explain industry migration.

I would kindly recommend to improve: 

(i) The results of the study are poor presented in the abstract.

(ii) The literature review includes references mostly to Chinese researchers. Please, extend discussion of the theoretical background and refer to the international research published in high-ranking international journals.

(iii) Please, clearly specify the objectives of your study.

(iv) Data sources should be clearly presented and supported with references.

(v) I have already mentioned that it would be interesting to see also the types of industries.

(vi) Study Area (lines 140-152) should be better referenced.

(vii) Lines 173-196: please, add references.

(viii) Line 202: replace percent with %

(ix) Lines 263-383: Poor referenced.

(x) Section 7. Discussion and Conclusions should be reworked. It looks more like extended conclusions. However, they need to be better connected with the objectives which are not clear. The discussion section can be either extended or connected with the results sections. Anyway, there's high need of including references to previous research. Limitations of the study should be also specified.

The text needs language proof-reading and careful formatting.  

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

Dear reviewer:

 

Thanks for your constructive comments concerning our manuscript entitled 'Characteristics of High Technology Industry Migration within Metropolitan Areas—— A case study of Beijing Metropolitan Area' (ID：1894248). We found your comments are quite helpful. They point out the deficiencies about our manuscript, and help us for the further improvement. We have studied these comments carefully and made modifications which we hope meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responses to the reviewers' comments are listed below.

 

 

Point 1: The results of the study are poor presented in the abstract.

 

Response 1: Thanks very much for your comments, we have appropriately expanded the results in the abstract as follows.

 

Abstract: Industrial migration is a hot topic in economic geography. This study traces the migration process of key high-tech enterprises in Beijing during 2008-2016, revealing the migration characteristics and patterns of high-tech enterprises within the metropolitan area by using spatial analysis methods and mathematical statistics . The results show that: (1) Migrating enterprises are mainly mixed-ownership and foreign-funded or  privately-owned enterprises. Medium-sized enterprises are more likely to relocate than small and large enterprises, especially in lucrative sectors. (2) The migration of high-tech enterprises is mainly based on proximity migration. More than 77.19% of enterprises tend to move to agglomerations or agglomeration expansion areas. Enterprises tend to move to agglomeration areas such as Jiuxianqiao and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA) in Daxing District, as well as agglomeration expansion areas such as Yongfeng Industrial Base and Zhongguancun Environmental Technology Industrial Park in Haidian District . and the largest number of enterprises have moved into the Daxing Economic and Technological Development Zone. The largest number of companies moving into the BDA made the spatial distribution of high-tech manufacturing enterprises in 2016 show a trend of agglomeration in the southeast direction. In addition, 33 enterprises experience varying degrees of scale expansion after relocation. (3) Most high-tech manufacturing enterprises are in the growth stage of the life cycle. They first relocate between 7 and 16 years after their establishment, which means that there is roughly a 7-year adaptation or development period for firms in a region after their establishment. During the adaptation period, companies do not tend to relocate, after which, as they grow, they need to find new spaces to grow. For reasons such as familiarity with the environment, enterprises give priority to finding new locations within the agglomeration and the surrounding area. These results deepen the understanding of the temporal and spatial characteristics of the migration of enterprises within the city from the microscopic perspective, and provide a scientific basis for the optimization of industrial space in the metropolis.

 

 

Point 2: The literature review includes references mostly to Chinese researchers. Please, extend discussion of the theoretical background and refer to the international research published in high-ranking international journals.

 

Response 2: Thank you very much for raising this question, which are very helpful to improve the quality of this article. We have added relevant literature reviews by scholars from other countries and also compared them with the results of existing studies.

 

• The added foreign literature is as follows.

 

1. Kiss, E. The impacts of relocation on the spatial pattern to Hungarian industry. Pol. 2007, 80, 43.
2. Black, D.; Henderson, V. Spatial evolution of population and industry in the United States. Econ. Rev.1999, 89, 321-327.
3. Tiwari, P.; Syamwil, I. B. Spatial pattern of Japanese manufacturing industry in four ASEAN countries. Reg. Sci. 2003, 82, 403-415 .
4. Richetto, J. P.; Moitra, C. The United States' Manufacturing Sector, Trends in the Spatial Pattern of Inward Foreign Direct Investment. Ann. B.1990, 72, 101-116.
5. Choudhury, P. Return migration and geography of innovation in MNEs, a natural experiment of knowledge production by local workers reporting to return migrants. Econ. Geogr. 2016,16, 585-610.
6. Broitman, D.; Benenson, I.; Czamanski, D. The impact of migration and innovations on the life cycles and size distribution of cities. Regional. Sci. Rev.2020, 43, 531-549.

 

• The added literature reviews are as follows.

 

In the long term, the inter-regional transfer of industries will have a profound impact on the regional spatial pattern in countries such as Hungary, the United States and Japan through changes in investment, markets, infrastructure settings, labor, etc. [13-16].

.......

For instance, Choudhury conducted a study of business relocation in Hamilton, Canada, and concluded that short-distance moves are more common and tend to occur in smaller firms [35].

......

Broitman et al. suggested that the spatial decision-making behavior of firms leads to changes in the size of cities [43].

 

 

Point 3: Please, clearly specify the objectives of your study.

 

Response 3: Thank you for your suggestion. We have supplemented the research objectives in the introduction as follows.

 

This study takes high-tech manufacturing enterprises in Beijing as the research object, and aims to portray different aspects of spatial, temporal, and individual attributes of the migration of high-tech enterprises in the city from a microscopic perspective.

 

Point 4: Data sources should be clearly presented and supported with references.

 

Response 4: Considering your suggestion, we have added the reference to the data sources.

 

44. Li, J.M. Urban spatial analysis and location policy, examples of Beijing and Hangzhou, 1rd ed.; Social Sciences Academic Press: Beijing, China, 2018; pp.55-105

 

Point 5:  I have already mentioned that it would be interesting to see also the types of industries.

 

Response 5: It is really a great suggestion as you pointed out, and we have mentioned the types of industries in the data sources.

 

The final sample number for the study was determined to be 114 relocated enterprises in the high-tech manufacturing companies in Beijing, primarily from two manufacturing sectors: computer, communication and electronic equipment industry and instrument manufacturing industry.

 

 

Point 6: Study Area (lines 140-152) should be better referenced.

 

Response 6: We have paid attention to this issue，and add references to the study area.

 

1. Li,J.M. Urban spatial analysis and location policy, examples of Beijing and Hangzhou, 1rd ed.; Social Sciences Academic Press: Beijing, China, 2018; pp.55-105
2. Wei, H. China released the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan for the Development of High-Tech Industries". Metals.2008, 58.

 

Point 7: Lines 173-196: please, add references.

 

Response 7: Thank you for your suggestion, we have added the reference.

 

1. Yuill, R. S. The standard deviational ellipse; an updated tool for spatial description. Ann. B. 1971, 53, 28-39.
2. Heidenreich, N. B.; Schindler, A.; Sperlich, S. Bandwidth selection for kernel density estimation, a review of fully automatic selectors.AStA-Adv. Stat. Anal. 2013, 97, 403-433.

 

Point 8: Line 202: replace percent with %

 

Response 8: Thank you for your suggestion. We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, and have corrected it.

 According to Figure 2, the majority of migrating firms in the high-tech manufacturing industry are mixed-ownership and foreign-funded or privately-owned (97.43％).

 

Point 9: Lines 263-383: Poor referenced.

 

Response 9: Thank you for your suggestion, we have added the reference.

 

1. Watts, H. D. The Large industrial enterprise, some spatial perspectives. Croom Helm: London, Britain, 1980
2. Morrill, R. Waves of spatial diffusion. Regional. Sci.1968, 8, 1-18

 

Point 10: Section 7. Discussion and Conclusions should be reworked. It looks more like extended conclusions. However, they need to be better connected with the objectives which are not clear. The discussion section can be either extended or connected with the results sections. Anyway, there's high need of including references to previous research. Limitations of the study should be also specified.

 

Response 10: Thank you very much for your comments, which are very helpful to improve the quality of this article. We have improved the discussion and conclusions according to your suggestions. The conclusions and discussion are refined as follows:

 

Research on business migration in international metropolitan areas is inadequate. Existing studies have mainly studied the whole manufacturing or service industry from the regional scale, and there is a lack of research based on the city scale and firm level. This paper explores the characteristics of the process of locational reselection of high-tech manufacturing enterprises in the city of Beijing based on micro-enterprise data and using point pattern analysis and other methods. The findings of the study have some reference significance for enriching and improving the theory of enterprise migration and modern industrial location. The study shows that:

 

Firstly, we have investigated the relationship between enterprise attributes and enterprise migration, and find that the ownership of the enterprise, the establishment time of the enterprise and the size of the enterprise may be related to the enterprise migration. Among the 114 companies, 97.43% are mixed ownership enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and private ownership enterprises, indicating that market rules may have a greater impact on enterprise relocation than government policies. The establishment time of the relocation enterprise was concentrated after 1992. For high-tech enterprises, small enterprises are the dominant enterprises in the demise, while medium-sized enterprises account for the majority of the surviving and migrating enterprises, and enterprises with medium-sized or high operating income are more inclined to migrate.

 

Secondly, we examine the spatial variation of migrating enterprises. In general, the spatial variations and migration direction of high-tech enterprises will be affected by the original industrial layout. The agglomeration and advantageous location of high-tech industry development, such as Haidian District, Chaoyang District and other urban areas, have a significant spatial locking effect on the migration of enterprises, which makes the migration of high-tech enterprises mainly in urban areas. However, not all spatial variation in migrating enterprises follow this rule. For example, although Yongfeng Industrial Base and Zhongguancun Environmental Technology Industrial Park, which are in the northwest of Haidian District, were not the core agglomeration areas of high-tech enterprises before 2008, they still attracted some enterprises by the advantages of their proximity to the clusters, beautiful environment, and relatively low rents. And the number of enterprises moving to the the Daxing District Economic Development Zone in the southeast direction of Beijing is the largest, making the Daxing District Economic Development Zone a new core agglomeration area of high-tech enterprises in 2016. In addition, some enterprises choose to migrate across regions to other agglomeration areas, expansion areas or non-agglomeration areas.

 

Thirdly, we have explored the life-cycle characteristics of the relocated enterprises(Table 3). To begin with, most of the relocated enterprises with expanded and unchanged scales are in the growth stage of the life cycle and tend to move to the agglomeration or the agglomeration expansion area. The enterprises with decreasing scale are in the decline stage. Next, the life cycle characteristics of high-tech enterprises do not conform to the industry's general life cycle pattern. This is not only because high-tech firms are likely to be riskier in growth, with most of them failing before they can enter the next life cycle, but also because these long-lived high-tech manufacturing firms which are older than eight years have an average relocation age of around 12 years, with an adaptation period of 7-16 years. At last, the life cycle of high-technology enterprises is distinctly differentiated and individualized.

 

Due to the limitation of data acquisition, this paper only studies the momentary data of high-tech enterprises containing attribute characteristics in 2008 and 2016, while high-tech enterprises in Beijing are still in the process of continuous development and evolution. Therefore, it is difficult to identify the precise duration of each detailed stage of the life cycle of high-tech enterprises through a combination of size and age. Future research will focus on the long-term migration process and life cycle characteristics of high-technology enterprises. In addition, as a pillar industry in Beijing, the drivers of migration or development of high-technology industries are intertwined with the complex urban elements of Beijing, and future research intends to further develop a multifaceted quantitative analysis of the impact mechanisms of migration of high-tech enterprises.

Table 3. Comparison of size, age of relocation and life cycle stage of high technology manufacturing enterprises.

Initial size	Change in size	Age when migration occurred (years)	Relocated enterprises	Life cycle stage
Small	Size expansion	5-46	29	Adolescence
	No change in size	2-18	14	Toddlerhood or adolescence
Medium	Size expansion	11	2	Adolescence or the prime of life
	Size reduction	10	2	Recession
	No change in size	2-48	67	Adolescence, stability or prime of life

 

 

 

 

Point 11: The text needs language proof-reading and careful formatting.  

 

Response 11: We regret there were problems with the English. The paper has been carefully revised to improve the grammar and readability.

 

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, thank you for your efforts to imprive your text.

Some minor comments:

(i) Abstract seems too long now. it is over the limits.

(ii) I would recommend to think over the objective. It does not sound specific.

This study takes high-tech manufacturing enterprises in Beijing as the research object, and aims to portray different aspects of spatial, temporal, and individual attributes of the migration of high-tech enterprises in the city from a microscopic perspective.

(iii) It would be interesting to look into the industrical structure of migrating companies (now they are just listed in the text):

The final sample number for the study was determined to be 114 relocated enterprises in the high-tech manufacturing companies in Beijing, primarily from two manufacturing sectors: computer, communication and electronic equipment industry and instrument manufacturing industry.

(iv) The Conclusions are confusing... This text should be partly moved to the Results (i.e., table 3) and Discussion (findings are over there). Be specific and connect them with your objectives.

(v) Please, check the language and style.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

 

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled 'Characteristics of High Technology Industry Migration within Metropolitan Areas—— A case study of Beijing Metropolitan Area' (ID：1894248).

 

We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. We have incorporated all of the suggestions made by the reviewers. Those changes are highlighted in the manuscript. Please see below, in red, for a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments and concerns. 

 

Point 1: Abstract seems too long now. it is over the limits.

 

Response 1: Thanks very much for your comments, we have shortened the abstract to about 250 words.

 

Abstract: Industrial migration is a hot topic in economic geography. This study traces the migration process of key high-tech enterprises in Beijing during 2008-2016, revealing the migration characteristics and patterns of high-tech enterprises within the metropolitan area by using spatial analysis methods and mathematical statistics. The results show that: (1) Migrating enterprises are mainly mixed-ownership and foreign-funded or  privately-owned enterprises. Medium-sized enterprises are more likely to relocate than small and large enterprises, especially in lucrative sectors. (2) The migration of high-tech enterprises is mainly based on proximity migration. More than 77.19% of enterprises tend to move to agglomerations or agglomeration expansion areas such as Jiuxianqiao and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA) in Daxing District. In addition, 33 enterprises experience varying degrees of scale expansion after relocation. (3) Most high-tech manufacturing enterprises are in the growth stage of the life cycle. They firstly relocate between 7 and 16 years after their establishment, which means that there is roughly a 7-year adaptation or development period for firms within a region after their establishment. During the adaptation period, companies do not tend to relocate, after which, as they grow, they need to find other spaces to grow. For reasons such as familiarity with the environment, enterprises give priority to finding new locations within the agglomeration and the surrounding area. These results deepen the understanding of the temporal and spatial characteristics of the migration of enterprises within the city from the microscopic perspective, and  provide a scientific basis for the optimization of industrial space in the metropolis.

 

Point 2: I would recommend to think over the objective. It does not sound specific.

 

Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. We have revised the research objectives in the introduction as follows.

 

This study intends to determine whether high-tech enterprises have a tendency to relocate to agglomerations and identify the life cycle of migrating enterprises of different sizes.

 

Point 3:  It would be interesting to look into the industrial structure of migrating companies (now they are just listed in the text):

 

Response 3: We have paid attention to this issue, and the industrial structure of the relocated companies is presented in table 1.

 

Table 1. Industrial structure of high-tech manufacturing relocated enterprises.

Industrial structure	Number
Computer, communication and electronic equipment industry	68
Instrument manufacturing industry	46

 

Point 4: The Conclusions are confusing... This text should be partly moved to the Results (i.e., table 3) and Discussion (findings are over there). Be specific and connect them with your objectives.

 

Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out, we have moved the table 3 to the Results.

 

Point 5: Please, check the language and style.

 

Response 5: Thank you for your significant reminding. Based on your comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications to the manuscript, and carefully proof-read the manuscript to check the language and style.

 

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions. We believe that the manuscript has been greatly improved.